Letter to Glamour magazine re: https://www.glamour.com/story/what-does-pansexual-mean/amp
Re: your article “What Does It Mean to Be Pansexual?” November 20th.
I’m pleased to see more media coverage of sexualities that are not gay or straight, particularly given recent surveys of younger people where a high proportion identify as neither gay or straight.
I’m happy for people to find words that fit them best, whether they use pansexual, bisexual, both or neither. However, I object to people attempting to redefine and limit how I describe my own sexuality, bisexual. We’ve used “bi” in a gender inclusive way within bi communities for many years as a cursory search would show.
I think you do your pansexual readers a disservice by incorrectly painting bisexuality as excluding them and so potentially isolating them from support, services and friendship with people who use bisexual inclusively. There are long running bi events such as BiCon, BiFests and Big Bi Fun Day, our newsletters and magazines like Bi Community News or Biscuit and well established international bi communities: all of which would welcome and find many points of connection with pansexual people of any gender.
I’m unsure what Kristie Overstreet’s professional interest and background is on gender, sexuality and relationship diversity with relation to bi, pan and queer sexualities. As a psychotherapist myself I’d be interested in more dialogue with her about bisexuality and pansexuality.
Grant Denkinson, Leicester, England
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