Does Bisexuality Exclude Trans People?

Examining preferences and identity on Celebrate Bisexuality Day

Side by side bisexual and trans pride flags, overlapped with a question mark.

Today, September 23, is Celebrate Bisexuality Day. Also known as Bi Visibility Day, this annual event marks the finale of Bisexual Awareness Week, a time to celebrate and learn about the bisexual community.

As a queer trans person who openly identified as bi for many years, I’ve written previously about the perceived differences between bisexuality and pansexuality, a subject of many arguments. I explored, from my own perspective, the evolution of the definition of bisexual from “attracted to men and women” to “attracted to people of more than one sex and/or gender”.

Let’s celebrate bisexuality, minus the identity policing

But what if, for some, bisexual still does mean only “attracted to men and women”? Would that definition of bisexuality exclude trans people? Quite simply, I would say no, at least when it comes to binary trans people, because trans men are men and trans women are women.

However, it’s abundantly clear from the amount of anti-trans backlash in the U.S. that many people —…