I myself experience sexual attraction to both masculine and feminine people, leaning strongly toward feminine, but I have a hard time imagining myself being with a binary man. It feels a bit awkward to identify as a bi woman sometimes because my sexual attraction for men just kind of exists, yet I don’t feel entirely comfortable identifying as a lesbian for the same reason. I just learned about the bi-lesbian flag/identity and it feels more right to me because I don’t want to erase by bisexuality, even if I never choose to act on my sexual attraction to men. Curious what others think.
Isn’t bi-lesbian just bi?
Not to OP, as I think they described.
Sure, but bi carries an implication that you’re open to dating across the gender spectrum. If you’re not open to dating men, even if you’re attracted to them, then some people feel that the bi label doesn’t fit, even if it’s technically correct.
That’s why you differentiate between bisexual and biromantic
I wasn’t talking about attraction as such. Like, I won’t date people who don’t identify with queerness in some way. I’m not “queersexual” but rather, it’s a personal preference and understanding of my own needs that influences who I date above and beyond who I’m attracted to. My last boyfriend for example, I was attracted to him romantically and sexually, but he wasn’t queer, and I felt like my queerness was invisible when I was with him. And so after we broke up, I decided that I won’t enter another relationship like that.
And similarly, there are people who are technically bisexual, but who won’t date men, despite having attraction, even romantic attraction to them.
I had an acquaintance years ago who was almost exclusively attracted to men, but he had been in a relationship with a woman for over a decade and feared that his gay credentials were in question. He would never leave her though.