709: Just Passing Bi with Nikita Redkar
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Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast brought to you by the color PINK!
This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with TikTok educational content creator Nikita Redkar (@nikitadumptruck) to discuss the nuanced topics of labeling sexuality, gatekeeping within the queer community, and why everything wrong with -gestures vaguely- can be traced right back to Reagan. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to learn about politics, current news and economics directly from Cher Horowitz, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Elle Woods all wrapped into one very pink high femme girly, you’re in the right place.
Back in the early days of the pandemic it seemed like everyone and their roommate was reading the Lesbian Master Doc and heavily analyzing their gender and sexuality. While there are some useful things in the master doc if you do happen to be a lesbian, it gets complicated when considering how difficult it can be to really tell the difference between societally influenced attraction to men and organic attraction to men.
When Nikita first came out as bisexual in 2016, the label felt like it fit her perfectly. Then, in 2019, fueled both by having learned about compulsory heterosexuality from the master doc and by recognizing that she was more drawn to women and feminine leaning people than she was to men or masculinity, the lesbian label felt like a better fit. As a full time TikToker with a heavily queer following, Nikita found that as she posted more overtly lesbian content, she was celebrated and welcomed more strongly by the community. She started to really lean into her newfound identity, even getting a septum piercing (that she didn’t even really want that much) as a way of flagging.
In 2021, Nikita realized that she may have leaned a little too hard, too fast into identifying as a lesbian. She began to feel anxiety over the idea of having to come out publicly all over again as a bisexual, knowing that this change could cause backlash from some of her lesbian followers. While we like to think that most lesbians are welcoming and accepting of bisexual women, shifting labels back and forth can also trigger defensive feelings in those whose own sexuality was accused of being ‘just a phase’. Although Nikita is out about being bi to her family and friends, internalized shame and anxiety over possible negative reactions has caused her to keep the closet door shut on her TikTok. We dive into navigating the nuances of labels and talk about some of the ways in which bisexuals have historically been treated poorly or seen as less queer by certain sectors of the community and why gatekeeping typically does more harm than good.
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