Every definition I have heard for pansexuality or similar that defines the term in contrast to bisexuality reads like slander to my ears.

Bisexuality is a broad category, and it was never exclusionary. Bisexuals can be attracted to trans people, and enbies, and those with or without gendered presentations, but critically they don't have to be. Its a category not a checklist.

Bisexuality is broad. Other terms are more specific, and there is some amount of overlap.

As a trans woman, I am deeply opposed to the idea, implied by many definitions, that the only people who can find me attractive are those with a specific trans inclusive sexual orientation. Its both invalidating, and completely untrue in reality.

Pansexual: Attracted to people regardless of gender characteristics.

"Pan" because gender is functionally irrelevant. Any and all genders accepted because it doesn't matter.

Bisexual: Attracted to multiple genders specifically because of their gender characteristics.

"Bi" in the sense of being "bi-directional" in attraction, usually attracted to specific gender traits and as a result not all genders, just more than one.

For instance, I'm finsexual, which is a subcategory of bisexual because it describes specific gender elements that I am attracted to but is not a sub category of pansexual as a result.

As a bisexual girlie, would someone let me know what the true difference is when it's figured out??

Honestly it seems like a generational divide between the two labels.

🚲-sexual
🍳-sexual

Bisexuals that grow from the ceiling are called “bicicles”

Bisexuals have a cooler flag, pretty sure that's the only difference. Otherwise they're both labels that fail to adequately describe the infinitely personal and variable elements of human attraction and sexuality. Use whichever one feels right. I flip between bi and pan when labeling myself but omnisexual probably "fits" the best

I'd say the only meaningful distinction is that some people make up a definition "bi" could have had but never did, and then use "pan" in opposition to that 😛

But more honestly I asked my sister why she identifies as pan rather than bi, and her answer was that bi attracted the wrong people and pan attracted the right people 😉

You're only pansexual if you're from the Panne region of France, otherwise you're just sparkling bisexual.

Oooooh, so THAT'S what was growing in my sex cave

People who say they are not attracted to trans women are absurd. It is like saying "I am not attracted to sisters of friends." Being unattracted is different than consciously deciding you shouldn't be.

Just a heads up to everyone that has a Bisexuality definition that isn't Bisexual, I'd really recommend not putting anti-trans labels and bullshit on Bi people, it's never failed too piss off every Bi person I've ever been or known.

There are some transphobes and/or enbyphobes who will insist that bisexual means attraction to only two genders, and we all know why they're doing that.

Others will say that bisexual means they based on the meaning of the prefix "bi-". But that is the etymological fallacy. The current meaning of a word is not necessarily related to its etymological origin. Words change meaning literally all the time, and we should all be nonplussed about it by now [1].

In reality, words only mean what people generally understand them to mean [2]. Most dictionaries still retain, at least implicitly, a two definition, but most LGBT+ orgs and psychological associations and whatnot tend to define it as "more than one" gender, or similar.

Similarly, pansexual is generally defined as attraction to all genders or attraction being irrelevant of gender in the vast majority of places that care to declare a definition. But there are those who use it to mean the same thing as the latter definition of bisexual because they believe bisexual to mean the former definition of bisexual.

So what is the actual difference? It probably depends where you are and who you're talking to. Womp womp.

There's a joke/stereotype that many people who describe themselves as bi are attracted to one specific type of guy, and literally all women.

In my practical experience, people are more likely to identify as bisexual if they tend have a preference for certain gender presentations over others, and more likely to identify as pansexual if they are (closer to being) equally horny for all. Or if they have a preference for more pastel colours.

🤷‍♀️

[1] Even I believe, in my heart, that using the word nonplussed this way is wrong.

[2] Ha! I got the linguistic prescriptivists and the logicians with that one!

At this point I just think they're different names for the same thing.

For practical purposes, it's a judgement call:

-If they're under 30, I say I'm pansexual.

-If they're over 40, I say I'm bisexual.

-In between, I pick one based on vibes.

For theory purposes:

Studies on sexual attraction predate studies on gender identity. "Bisexual" hails from a day that we just considered the physical presentation of the people a study participant is attracted to, with the options of 1: Same, 2: Different. The studies allowed for people to be homosexual, heterosexual, or both-sexual.

"Pansexual" has had different definitions in the 1920s, 1970s, 2020s, and presumably the years in between. The current popular definition of "attraction to all genders" or "attraction regardless of gender" is basically a subset of "bisexual", since this includes both people of the same sex, and people of different sex.

It's more inclusive in the aspect of rejecting the gender binary at the start. But also, I believe that words are for communication, so at the end of the day, I'm using the most useful word based on the information I'm trying to communicate.

I thought pansexuals needed to be seasoned first and washed immediately after each use then thoroughly patted dry?

Can confirm. Am pan. Am also stuck on the ceiling

F all this. I'm omni