A quick disclaimer: By using the term “bisexual”, I don’t mean to exclude or alienate readers who identify as pansexual or with other multisexual identities. I am aware of the many experiences we share, as well as the subtle differences that make our respective identities unique and lead us to one label over the others. Since this article draws heavily on my own experience, I will be using the term that I most closely identify with.
A few years ago, an anime series came out (haha) called “Yuri!!! On Ice. ” To this day, it’s the only anime my roommate has ever watched. It’s a show about figure skating, it has great music, and it’s arguably the most mainstream anime to feature a gay relationship front and center.
(PC: Crunchyroll)
The thing is, though, while the relationship itself is same-sex, neither of the two characters involved, Yuuri and Victor, are ever confirmed to be exclusively attracted to men. In fact, there are plenty of hints throughout the series that both of them have been attracted to women or had relationships with women in the past. (Yuuri’s past feelings for a female character, Yuko, are up for interpretation but can be seen as romantic, and Victor talks about his past relationships using the term “Koibito”, which simply translates as a gender-neutral lover.) As someone who identifies as bisexual, I was thrilled to be able to see even a sliver of myself in these characters, even if it wasn’t officially confirmed.
But for some reason, the series’ fandom jumped through hoop after hoop to avoid any possibility of either of them being bi. It’s not my business whether you interpret Yuuri’s feelings for Yuko as romantic or just admiration, but there’s a considerable chunk of the fandom that denies those feelings ever existed at all. And while Victor’s “Koibito” is gender-neutral, I saw multiple posts on Tumblr translating it as “boyfriend” just so people could say “It’s okay, guys, he said he had boyfriends in the past, so he’s totally gay!”. Crunchyroll also got called homophobic when they translated the word as “girlfriend”.
So here’s my question: What’s wrong with Yuuri having had a crush on Yuko when they were kids? What’s wrong with Victor having dated girls in the past? Why have a problem with these characters potentially being bi when it has no impact on Yuuri and Victor’s feelings for each other in the present?
This kind of pushback happens a lot when it comes to canonically queer characters because in a lot of cases, they don’t have a canon label for their identities and are only confirmed to be interested in the same gender. This leads to interpretations of the character as gay – that is, exclusively homosexual – being seen as the default, and people who interpret the character as bi, pan, ace, or other identities are often pushed to the side, their representation implicitly deemed less important.
That idea is especially clear when you look at the Good Omens miniseries that was released this summer. When Neil Gaiman refused to confirm the two main characters as explicitly gay men, people were extremely quick to call him a homophobe for it, even though he had a very logical reason for doing so: The characters are nonbinary, since they aren’t human and don’t identify with human ideas of gender, so they aren’t men at all. He even said that it’s still a love story no matter how these characters identify, and even then, people weren’t satisfied.
And I’m not denying that gay representation is important. It is, and there still aren’t nearly enough gay characters in mainstream media. But there are other identities under the LGBTQ+ umbrella besides gay and lesbian, and we deserve to have characters to identify with, too.
(PC: Amazon)
Of course, canon LGBTQ+ characters are only a minuscule piece of the puzzle, and when there is no canon representation, fandom will often supplement that with LGBTQ+ headcanons. (A headcanon is a belief about some aspect of a piece of media that isn’t directly reflected in canon or the text itself; they can range from what you think a character’s favorite food would be to what you think a character did while the other characters were at a party to a character’s ethnicity, and everywhere in between.) And while those headcanons can–and often are–based on fans’ personal experiences, some of them fall on tired stereotypes, especially when those headcanons involve bisexuality.
For example, there’s been a popular trend in fandom over the past few years where the male characters who are commonly interpreted as bi are: loud, energetic, and sometimes annoying; a loveable dumbass who probably failed at least one class; always flirts with girls even when said girls show no sign of reciprocating the sentiment. Are we talking about Kaminari (My Hero Academia), Lance (Voltron), or Nishinoya (Haikyuu!!)?
That last point especially worries me, because I’ve seen countless posts writing that flirting off as “lol what a disaster bi!” when the flirtatious/promiscuous bisexual is a harmful stereotype that’s been around for ages. It also heavily contributes to another negative stereotype about bi people, that they’re more likely to cheat on their partner because they’re attracted to other genders. (Note that while some bi people–like people of any other orientation–are also polyamorous and open to dating more than one person at a time, not everyone who identifies with one identifies with the other. Also, polyamory is not the same thing as cheating on a partner.)
(PC: Netflix)
The most grating thing of all when it comes to these headcanons is that the same people who constantly call male characters “bi kings” will immediately backpedal when said character is shipped with a female character, calling the mere existence of that ship homophobic. However, while not all bi people are attracted to people of the opposite gender (some people will identify as bi out of respect for a non-binary partner, for example), a large percentage of them are, and acting like that attraction never exists for a potentially bisexual character defeats the purpose of them being bi in the first place. If people really want these characters to just be gay, there’s no harm in headcanoning them as gay instead.
But when it comes to female characters in fandom, characters who a lot of people headcanon as bi the way that male characters are just… don’t really exist. (Which is funny, because of the few canon bi characters in mainstream media, a much higher percentage of them are female than male.) The vast majority of female characters are headcanoned as lesbians, and of course, this isn’t a bad thing. If people can see themselves in a fictional character, that is amazing.
But in an age when fandom is pushing to be more “progressive”, lesbian headcanons can easily become a more modern version of shoving female characters out of the way of your gay ship. This isn’t always the case, nor am I saying this behavior is intentional, but it definitely happens. Worse, they’ll laugh and post things like “Why do people ship [male character] with [female character]? [Female character] isn’t straight!”, directly reflecting the prejudice that bi and other mspec people, especially bi women, face from within the LGBTQ+ community. Bi people are all fine and good when they’re attracted to or dating people of their same gender, but as soon as they get a tiny crush on someone of the opposite gender, they’re “not gay enough” and “basically straight”, reinforcing the completely untrue statement that bi people need to “pick a side”.
I don’t exactly have a snappy conclusion, nor do I have foolproof suggestions on where to go from here to make fandom more inclusive of not just bi people, but all people who aren’t cis white American gays and lesbians. “Stop interpreting characters as bi” obviously isn’t a good piece of advice, nor is “Actually, everyone’s bi and you can’t interpret a character as anything else.” But I do have one piece of advice: Let people headcanon in peace. Most people use sexuality headcanons as a way to see themselves in a media environment where they are almost always absent, and a lot of those headcanons are informed by their personal experiences. And I can speak from experience that your time in fandom will be much better if you don’t get too caught up in what everyone else is doing.