this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2026
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Those are still covered under bisexual though. Technically, if you're a woman attracted to nonbinary people, you're heterosexual.
And this is why we invented new and better words.
My understanding is that bisexuals select all partners from both sexes and pansexuals select all partners from all genders
That understanding is wrong.
Bisexual means "homo and hetero sexual". So, "attracted to my own gender and not-my-own gender". Thats the classical definition.
And then people who didn't understand that, invented the world pansexual to mean exactly the same thing.
Do you have a resource to confirm what you're saying? Because homosexual means same sex and heterosexual is opposite sex. Bisexual would be both sexes by that reasoning
"Heteros" means "different", not "opposite"
"hetero" means "different" not "opposite". The source would be any dictionary mentioning the root.
Your snarky comment about better understanding bisexuality and pansexuality does very little for my actual request for resources.
https://www.wordreference.com/definition/hetero-
There you go. A website that says exactly the same thing I just said.
You're getting too caught up in the dictionary definition of
hetero-. Yes I misspoke about what heterosexual means and was wrong about that, but that's not the core of my misunderstanding. I'm asking for resources pertaining to the differences between pansexuality and bisexuality. I want resources that dispell my previous notion that bisexuality is about sex whilst pansexuality is about gender.Will you be satisfied if I, a nonbinary bisexual tell you that there practically is no difference with the only one that sometimes gets stated being that bisexuals often have some sort of preference in their partner's gender whilst pansexuals are mostly unpreferential?
Most sexuality and gender labels are just some shit that someone thought describes them well enough to get a name. In reality almost all of them fall under some umbrella terms like bisexual or trans. I could technically map out my identity in detail but because I just don't give a shit I just went with the broadest labels I could identify with without it becoming too misleading, which is why I don't usually just say that I am trans but nonbinary instead.
That does help a bit, thank you. I thought that perhaps there was some dividing line that justified the different labels, however from what you're saying it seems the label is based purely on preference