asexualmew:

Yeah sure! O: Like I’m no expert but… the simplest way to describe it is…

You’re bi if you like two or more genders and you prefer the “bi” label for yourself.

And you’re pan if you like multiple genders and you prefer the “pan” label for yourself.

Really, what most of it has to do is comfort levels. I was sitting at a table with my two pan roommates, and I myself am panromantic, and we described how we describe our attraction and why we call it pan. For all three of us, it was completely different! But we each felt like “pan” was how we liked to identify, and that’s fine!

For bi, people usually tend to identify with this instead of pan for conveniance. Like, people already know what “bi” is, and they don’t have to go into the nitty gritty details to explain.

Also, some bi people tend to identify with that if they only experience attraction to two genders.

For pan people, it can vary as well.

Some people choose “pan” because they don’t want to deal with the drama that is people telling them that they can’t identify with bi because “bi means two”, and so while it may be easier for some bi people to identify with bi so they don’t have to explain pan, some pan people find it easier to identify with pan, so they don’t have to confront that transphobic-biphobic rhetoric, and hopes that “pan” brings to light that there’s more than two genders, as well.

Some people choose to identify with “pan” to put an emphasis on how they feel about gender. For myself, gender doesn’t come into the equasion when I have romantic feelings for someone. At all, it doesn’t effect any of it. So for me, I feel more comfortable with “pan” than “bi” because it’s not about “two or more genders” for me, it’s about Hell-If-I-Know-But-Gender-Has-Nothing-To-Do-With-It.

Again, it’ll vary.

There’s SO MANY WAYS one can identify with bi instead of pan, and pan instead of bi, and I obviously did not capture all the reasons why someone would choose one over the other… These are just some common reasons.

So really, it’s up to you and what you’re most comfortable with!