It’s Like Bisexuality, but It Isn’t: Pansexual and Panromantic People’s Understandings of Their Identities and Experiences of Becoming Educated about Gender and Sexuality

Abstract In this paper, we report on our survey research which sought to explore how pansexual and panromantic people experience and understand their identities. Eighty participants, mainly in the U.K., were recruited via social media and internet forums. Thematic analysis resulted in the development of two key themes. In The label depends on the context: It’s like bisexuality, but it isn’t, we report the blurred lines between pansexual and bisexual identities and discuss how, despite often having a preference for pansexual and panromantic, these participants nonetheless engaged in strategic use of both bi and pan terms. In the second theme entitled Educated and enlightened pansexuals we report how participants portrayed pansexual and panromantic identities as requiring an advanced understanding of gender and sexuality. This meant that those who engaged in these terms were represented as educated and enlightened. In the subtheme An internet education: Tumblr-ing into pan identities and communities, we discuss how educational resources and inclusive spaces were largely understood to exist only online. In this research, participants understood pansexual and panromantic identities to be related to, but distinct from, other identities (including bisexuality) and presented their identities as entailing distinctive experiences, including of prejudice and discrimination. We discuss the contribution and implications of our findings.