Biphobia is well and alive today and taking its place everywhere in our society. You would never expect your friends or family to be biphobic, but many of them normalize the stereotypes that biphobic people either don't exist or aren't dateable.

Some common things you may hear are, "I can't trust a bi person because they are twice as likely to cheat on me now," "I don't want to date someone who is half gay," "I don't believe bi people exist," or "they are people who just want to experiment ."

But I have new for you, this is called BIPHOBIA, and straight people aren't the only people who say this, gay people say it, too. Biphobia is all around, and no one does anything to stop it or acknowledge its existence. We hear it so often that it is a belief that bisexual individuals are just a made up thing, but they are not.

I myself am not bisexual, but after hearing what my friends told me to my face, that not wanting to date a bi person isn't biphobic, it is just a preference, I felt like I needed to speak up.

Not wanting to date a bi person is not a preference, it's bigotry. The evidence being used against bisexual individuals is made up because there is 1) a belief that because of their more open-minded sexual preferences that they will never be the kind to settle down or 2) it is based off a singular encounter where a person who happened to be bisexual cheated. You can't assume that a bisexual person will cheat based on the actions of an individual. You are generalizing one bisexual person into a stereotype and creating prejudice against them. People cheat, not sexualities.

Someone brought up the point to me saying, "Well you would never date a straight person." Well yes, because I'm gay. I would never date someone who is exclusively straight and won't return my feelings. A bisexual however is capable of loving either a man or woman. Gay and straight people are exclusive to their own sex, yet bisexual people can be the same or opposite sex as you and still be able to reciprocate exactly what any other person is capable of feeling.

Another problem is when I hear, "I can't date someone who is half gay," I think to myself, "Well, that's not even possible." Half gay people do not exist. Half anything when it comes to sexuality does not exist. When it comes to bisexual men, people see them as being emasculated versions of themselves because of their past homosexual romances.

They are still men and having sex with another man does not make them less of one. It just reinforces the gender stereotype of men that they must be strong and maintain a masculine identity and somehow the act of intimacy between two men is either feminine or tainting to their facade.

But bisexuals aren't the ones with dating problems and they aren't the ones confused. The people judging them are. Having insecurities about yourself and projecting them onto a faulty belief of bisexuality consisting of cheaters speaks levels to your character and fear of abandonment and lack of trust. We all have it, I know I do, but I don't transpose it onto people with whom I've never had a real sexual encounter with.

We must come to realize that bisexuals are people and don't come with strings. They can love the same, feel the same, stay committed the same, and cheat the same as anyone else. Being bisexual does not alter their romantic abilities or make them any less apt to date or marry. They are humans first, and sexualities last.

It troubles me how biphobic some people are, and how much they actually believe it. I once thought these things, and mostly that it was a phase, but I educated myself, expanded my worldview, and really started to understand the struggle bisexuals have in not fitting in either the straight or LGBTQA community.

Biphobia is just another example of an irrational viewpoint in the world. We have come to accept homosexuals, we are on the road to accepting transgenders, why not accept bisexuals?