Good question.
To oversimplify, bisexuality generally refers to people who are attracted to multiple genders. Whereas pansexuality generally refers to people who are attracted to other people without regard to gender.
For bisexual people, gender may be an important factor in sexual attraction.
For pansexual people, gender may be a less important factor for sexual attraction.
(Edited for a tiny bit more clarity. Please refer to comment chain below for more thorough discussion of bisexuality. I should also mention I’m a cishet man so take my comment with a few thousand million grains of salt.)
I disagree with this explanation (as a bisexual person).
It is all semantics and the labels sort of bleed into one another, but I prefer the definition laid out in Anything That Moves: The Bisexual Manifesto:
Bisexuality is a whole, fluid identity. Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or dougamous in nature; that we must have “two” sides or that we MUST be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don’t assume that there are only two genders. Do not mistake our fluidity for confusion, irresponsibility, or an inability to commit. Do not equate promiscuity, infidelity, or unsafe sexual behavior with bisexuality. Those are human traits that cross ALL sexual orientations. Nothing should be assumed about anyone’s sexuality—including your own.
It goes onto say,
There are as many definitions of bisexuality as there are bisexuals. Many of us choose not to label ourselves anything at all, and find the word ‘bisexual’ to be inadequate and too limiting.
That’s fine. I don’t judge people for identifying as pansexual. However, there is a twinge of discomfort, pain, and of being once more made invisible whenever it is claimed that one must be pansexual to be attracted to people outside of the socially constructed gender binary. The oft-stated “hearts not parts” line insinuates, to me, that bisexuals are not interested in those aforementioned hearts, and it circles right back around to the stigma that bisexuals are sex addicts incapable of fidelity or love.
I call myself bisexual because it is more comfortable for me. It has always made more sense. My definition would be something more akin to: attraction to people of genders like one’s own and attraction to people of genders dislike one’s own than anything to do with two genders.
The manifesto also says:
We are angered by those who refuse to accept our existence; our issues; our contributions; our alliances; our voice. It is time for the bisexual voice to be heard. Do not expect each magazine to be representative of all bisexuals, for our diversity is too vast. Do not expect a clear-cut definition of bisexuality to jump out from the pages.
I’m aware you made it clear these were general definitions, and it is difficult to easily explain the intricacies of sexuality sometimes. These are simply some of my thoughts on the matter.
Generalities will always leave out crucial, important nuance. Sorry if I was reductive and flattened your experience into a simple category.
It’s ok. I just find it incredibly reductive, and I’ve had pan “friends” before criticize, scrutinize, or outright label me pansexual without my consent because I’m not just into strictly men and women.
It’s ludicrous, imo. This definition necessitates that bisexuality is inherently transphobic, or at the very least demands that self-identified bisexuals show no attraction towards people of non-binary genders. I don’t identify that way and almost every bisexual I know does not identify that way. It is, in my experience, an external definition thrust upon bisexuals by others, and often by pansexuals themselves in order to differentiate themselves from the transphobic, exclusive bisexuals.
It really boils down to semantics, I think, and it’s not really a fight worth having – is pansexuality valid, is it another form of bisexuality, is it completely distinct in some meaningful way – but I take some grievance with the idea that bisexuals writ large harbor no attraction to peoples of nonbinary genders.
It is most certainly not ok for me to be reductive. Especially about identities that are not my own. Seriously, thank you for the insight.
Thank you for listening, comrade.
If bis were only into binaries and pans are into everything, then there’d be no word to describe what I am. I’m attracted to plenty of nonbinary genders, and there’s also plenty of nonbinary genders I could never see myself being with. I’m never ever in 100 years going to be attracted to an angelgender person. But I really really like fellow drones. I’m ambivalent about catgenders, but would be generally more interested in a cloudgender.
Definitions which exclude the possibility of not being attracted to all nonbinary people equally are erasing and therefore transphobic. So those assholes who think they can define bisexuality for you and accuse you of transphobia on that basis? They’re transphobes. They’ve probably never even met an angel, drone, cat, OR cloud.
It depends on who you ask. There’s a lot of discourse over what these words mean and if they even mean different things. The only thing everyone agrees on is the flags, so you’re bi if you really like purple and pan if you’re more of a CMY printer person.
Which color scheme you prefer,
or 
. Otherwise they’re the same thing.There isn’t one really. I find that pansexual people tend to describe themselves as “gender blind” aka not really taking gender into consideration when thinking about dating whereas bisexual people tend to still have a preference. This is just my experience and definitely not true for every bi/pan person. As a bisexual person I still personally have a bias towards femininity as opposed to masculinity.
At the end of the day it all comes down to which label you prefer. No one really has the right to tell you how you can and can’t identify, provided it’s not identifying with Nazism or something similar of course.
Pan = I simp for anyone Bi = I simp for X genders
Bisexuals are attracted to two or more genders. Pansexuals are attracted to all genders.
If you like men and women but not dronegender people, you’re bi and not pan. If you like women, genderfae people, and agender people, but not men or masc genders, you’re bi and not pan.
Some definitions further specify pan people like “all genders equally; gender is not a factor in attraction”
Bi and pan would be mostly the same thing if there were only two genders, but there aren’t.
Personally I’m bi because I like many kinds of nonbinary genders, but I don’t really like men or women all that much.
From my experience, pan people identify as attracted to all genders while bi people identify as attracted to both sexes.
👎
Being attracted to non binary people? Bisexual implies only sexually attracted to two genders. Pan means all, so you can also be attracted to people of any gender.
You’re thinking of solumbisexual. That’s Latin for “only two sexual”. Bisexuals are attracted to two genders, and quite possibly a third and/or fourth and/or hundredth on top of that. Also, solumbisexuals can be attracted to nonbinary people if they’re not attracted to men and/or women. For example someone who’s attracted to catgender and dronegender is definitely bi, and isn’t necessarily into binary people.
Side note: I literally just made the word solumbisexual up. I’ve never met a solumbisexual person, and I’m not certain I ever will.
Extra side note: if you had been right and bi meant binary while pan meant everyone, what about the people who aren’t into binary people, or aren’t into one of the binary genders? If your definition had been correct, you’d still be missing a word. Not to mention people attracted to some nonbinary genders but not all.
