Originally published August 31, 2006:

I'm an 18-year-old girl, going off to college, and I'm not sure how to identify myself. I started at my school in kindergarten, and stayed there until I graduated last week. Everyone there knew I liked both girls and boys, probably because I was kissing them from about third grade on.

I can't say I'm a lesbian because it's inaccurate, and I'm certainly not straight. I don't want to tell people I'm bi because 95 percent of the "bisexual" 18-year-old girls I've met were drunk straight chicks. So what do I say? "I'm a dyke, but I'll do boys, too"? "I'm bisexual, but not one of THOSE bisexuals"? Or should I just flirt with hot people and forget labels?

Not One Of THOSE Bisexuals

My response after the jump...

Lots of young gay men run around telling people—straight people—that they're "not like other gay people." What they mean is, "I'm not a skeezy slut." Young lesbians insist they're "not like other lesbians," meaning they're not man-hating bulldykes. These stereotypes are not without foundation, of course. There are lots of skeezy gay sluts out there and tons of man-hating bulldykes. But just as it's unfair for straights to believe that all gay men are skeezy sluts and that all dykes are man haters, it's unwise for young queers to confirm heterosexual prejudices by implying that they've just had the pleasure of meeting the one and only gay man on earth who isn't a skeezy slut or the one and only lesbian who isn't a man hater.

Don't play this idiotic game, NOOTB, unless you want to mark yourself as an immature, shallow young queer. You can tell people you're bisexual without adding the self-hating bi-phobic qualifier, i.e. "not one of THOSE bisexuals." And then, through your behavior, you can demonstrate that you—like most bisexual girls—aren't just some drunk straight chick.