Bi, gay, pansexual: What do I call myself?

Dear Reader,

We live in a society that, unfortunately, likes to put people in boxes with simple labels: gay, bisexual, black, white, etc. For some of us, the fit doesn't seem to really work, and many times this insistence on a clear-cut, one-word label can actually prevent us from getting to know each other as the multi-faceted individuals we are.

It appears that you've been thinking about this a lot, and though you profess that you don't like labels, you still find yourself searching for one. While labels are limiting, they can also be useful, or even liberating sometimes. Being able to describe oneself with a word or term that is shared with others can help an individual form a community with people who might have similar experiences. Sometimes the changed usage of a label empowers groups of people, such as the embracing of the word "queer" by some lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people.

As far as labels go, it seems that there isn't an agreed-upon term for someone who doesn't believe in sexual orientation and thinks that it's possible for any person of any gender to love any other person. You might find that you have to explain this concept rather than give a one-word answer if someone asks, "What are you?" Better yet, explain why that question is limiting in and of itself. You are a person who likes to think that identity is complex and deserves more than a one-word answer.

As for your original embrace of "pansexual" as an identity, the term is, as you pointed out, a complex one. Some people think it means what you originally thought: openness to being with members of both the same and opposite sex. It is, instead, a term that arose in the early 1900s to describe a way of thinking — especially prominent in certain psychoanalytic circles — that sexual instinct plays a part in all human thoughts and activities, even being the most important or only source of real energy in our lives. In fact, its earliest uses, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, were meant as insults directed at those psychoanalysts.

Over the years, though, pansexual has come to mean that a person is capable of falling in love with and/or having a sexual attraction to a person regardless of where they stand on the gender/sexuality spectrum. This is different from bisexuality, because "bi" implies only two genders (men and women). Pansexuals can be attracted to cismen, ciswomen, transmen, transwomen, intersex people, androgynous people, and everything else. It is generally considered a more inclusive term than bisexual.

In the meantime, perhaps you can come up with your own term for yourself, as well as for those with attractions similar to yours. Other Go Ask Alice! readers are welcome to write in with their own ideas as well (send us your comments in the "submit your comments here" box below the Related Questions).