Hello, y’all!

I’m Abena, one of the members of this lovely group, and I wanted to explain the difference between bisexuality, pansexuality, polysexuality, and omnisexuality, as they’re often confused.

Bisexuality is when someone is attracted to two or more genders, but it’s usually described for two. You can deduct that from the prefix “bi”, which means two. It’s usually used when attracted to both girls and boys, but can be another pairing of genders as well. Bisexual people often have a preference for a certain gender, but not always.

Polysexuality is when someone is attracted to multiple genders, but not all of them. It is similar to bisexual, but the label is inclusive of more than two, hence, its prefix; poly. It is not specific to preference.

Pansexuality is the attraction towards people regardless of gender. They like all genders, but gender is not taken into account when a pansexual person is attracted to someone.

Omnisexuality is when someone is attracted to all genders but still has a preference. Where pansexuality doesn’t include preferences towards certain genders, omnisexuality does.

I hope this was helpful for y’all. If you’re reading all of this to support the LGBTQ+ community as an ally, remember that no one expects you to get a hang of everything immediately. It’s confusing, I get it, but making an effort to make your peers comfortable is the absolute best way to be an ally. I’m so happy you’re trying.

If you’re in the process of labelling yourself, know that you have all the time in the world, and you have no reason to rush. Your label is solely up to you, and I hope you find one that you’re comfortable with, or maybe, if it makes you happier, none at all. Life isn’t all about labels.

If this was just for extra information, then that’s cool too. I hope you learnt something!

The most important thing to take away from this is to respect everyone’s labels! Everyone is on a journey of their own, and it is your job to respect others’ labels just like how you’d want everyone to respect your own :).