Panromantic vs Pansexual? | Panromantic and Pansexual Visibility Day

A top down image of a hand-sewn pansexual pride flag. It is made of pink fabric with unicorsn on it, plain yellow fabric, and blue fabric with polka dots. — A pansexual pride flag that is a part of my patchwork pride collection

Terms and definitions

Bisexual: “means being attracted to the gender the same as your own, AND to other genders. Some people use it to mean ‘attracted to two or more genders’" (Minus18).

Pan: An abbreviation for the words for pansexual and panromantic.

Panromantic: “Refers to an individual who is romantically attracted to people of all genders, but does not notice their partner's gender. Panromantics will tend to feel that their partner's sex and/or gender does little to define their relationship.” (PFLAG, 2024).

Pansexual: “a person whose emotional, romantic and/or physical attraction is to people inclusive of all genders” (PFLAG, 2024).

A note: someone who is pansexual does not need to be panromantic or vice versa. For, example, a person could be asexual and panromantic, or pansexual and demiromantic. This idea that a person’s sexuality and who they are romantically attracted to not being the same is called the Split Attraction Model (Princten, 2024)

History and Observance

The goal of Pansexual and Panromantic Visibility Day is “to uplift the community and raise awareness of pansexuality and panromanticism, what they are, and how they differ from other similar identities” (The Rainbow Stores).

The term pansexual has existed for nearly a century before the day of visibility, albeit with a different definition. “The term pansexual, or rather, pansexualism, first appeared in 1914… the term was coined by one of [Sigmund] Freud’s scholarly critics… [i]n its early days, pansexualism did not refer to one’s sexual orientation. Rather, it was a psychoanalytic term that represented the idea that “sex motivates all things.” (Ou, 2022)

Pan Visibility Day has been celebrated on May 24th, since 2015 (Unicorn, 2023). This is a different event from “Pansexual and Panromantic Pride day [which is] on Dec 8th” (The Rainbow Store).

This day of visibility “invites us to consider pansexual people as a community in its own right, with an identity, a culture and specific needs” (RainbowHouse, 2023) as opposed to just lumping it in with bisexuality or acting as if it is an intermediary stage or identity between straight and gay.

Bi vs Pansexuality

Bisexuality and Pansexuality (and their respective romantic orientations) are similar, so it isn’t surprising that there are some misconceptions about how these two identities relate to each other, and others, particularly transgender and nonbinary individuals.

Firstly, the terms Bisexuality and Pansexuality are not different words for the same term, nor is pansexual an updated version of bisexual. RainbowHouse (2023) explains that “bisexuality refers to attraction to more than one gender, pansexuality and panromanticism refer to sexual or romantic attraction to a person regardless of their gender identity or gender expression”. This is a pervasive myth, and even the Human Rights Campaign mentions in their defenition for Bisxuality that it is sometimes used interchangeably with pansexuality.

One common misconception about bisexuality is that it, as an identity is transphobic. This comes from the fact that the prefix of the word ‘bi’ which means ‘two’. Some people insisted and still insist that “the existing definition of bisexual upheld the gender binary” (RainbowHouse, 2023). This is not true.

While older, more basic definitions of bisexuality are often along the lines of ‘attracted to both genders’, but more nuanced defenitions are varied and make space for the gender binary. “A person emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to more than one gender, though not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way or to the same degree” (Human Rights Campaign), is one more detailed definition. “Someone who is attracted to those of their same gender as well as to those of a different gender” (It gets better) is another.

While the definition of bisexuality is not nearly as settled as the one for pansexuality, no commonly accepted definition of bisexuality suggests that it strictly adheres to the gender binary, or is exclusive of trans and nonbinary people.

Pride Symbols

Panromantic Pride Flag: The colors are, in descending order blue, green, orange, and red. Respectively they represent male romantic love, asexual romantic love, nonbinary love, and female romantic love (Grand Rapids Pride Center, 2023).

A digital image of a panromantic pride flag. The stripes are blue, green orange, and a pinky-red from top to bottom.

Pansexual Pride Flag: The Pansexual Pride Flag was designed in 2010 by queer non-binary person Jasper V… The pink in the flag represents people who are feminine, the blue people who are masculine, and the yellow is everyone in between. (The Rainbow Stores)

a digital image of a pansexual pride flag with rounded corners. From top to bottom the colors are pink, yellow, and light blue

Frying Pan: This is not so much as a symbol as a joke often associated with the pansexual community, and is not a welcome one, usually. The joke usually goes along the lines of ‘oh you’re pansexual, does that mean you’re attracted to pans??!’ A Google search of the joke reveals a plethora of Reddit threads and blog posts of mixed opinions about the joke, though most often it’s negative opinions about it.

A digital image of a metal frying pan flipping a pancake in the air.

The Pansexual Symbol: (it does not have an official name) effectively combines a cross and an arrow design in the shape of a P. A cross is traditionally associated with Venus and women, and an arrow is a symbol for Mars and men. Combining an arrow and a cross is a symbol for the transgender community. (Ou, 2022)

Books with Pan Rep

It can be tricky to find books with explicit pansexual representation because it seems, at least to me, that very rarely does any character label themself as pan (or bi for that matter). Not to mention, for those characters that do have a relationship with someone of the same gender, it is far to easy to label them as bi and just call it a day. There’s also, the ‘I don’t like labels’ that bisexuals are often beleaguered with, that I sense bleeds over into pansexuality as well.

The cover of the book 'The Long Way to the Small Angry Planet' by Becky Chambers. The title is written in big block letters, made to look 3D. There is a small planet in the background, and a small junky-looking ship in the foreground.

All of that being said, as I was reflecting on the books I have read throughout the past few years, I stumbled across ‘The Long Way to the Small Angry Planet’* by Becky Chambers and knew that had to be the example I shared with all of y’all.

Now, to my remembering, no one explicitly says that they are pan in this novel (and a quick Google search seems to confirm this), however, between all of the different alien species, gender structures, and identities, I would say that this book has great spiritual pan representation, even if it isn’t explicit.

However, this book will not appeal to everyone. There are a lot of people out there (myself included) who very much love this book, and the series it is a part of, but there is also a vocal group of people who didn’t like it. I think it’s just one of those books.

So who will be most likely to enjoy this book? Readers who enjoy character-driven stories with less plot, expansive world-building with varied alien species that are well thought out, as well as political development. It is definitely a cozy science fiction and is slow-paced, comparatively speaking.

All in all, it’s a book I recommend at least trying if you are looking for representation of love that goes beyond labels of gender.

Any hyperlinks followed with an asterisk (*) indicate that they are affiliate links. This means that if you purchase something from this link, I receive a small commission from the site. It will not change the price of the product for you.

Bibliography

Glossary of terms. Human Rights Campaign. (n.d.). https://www.hrc.org/resources/glossary-of-terms?utm_source=ads_ms_HRC_20240306-HRC-AW-GS-Natl-GlossaryRP_GlossaryKeywords_a001-dynamic-rst_b%3Abisexual&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw9IayBhBJEiwAVuc3frp54ppgzPUPHK4XlmSK1120PXi6eAmfst1ZWAHH2oXoKwblUm-kPhoCLa4QAvD_BwE

May 24. International Day of pansexual and Pan-Romantic visibility. RainbowHouse. (2023, May 24). http://rainbowhouse.be/en/article/may-24-international-day-of-pansexual-and-pan-romantic-visibility/

Ou, W. (2022, December 7). Happy National Pansexual Pride Day: Stay pan. stay proud. Project MORE. https://domoreproject.org/blog/national-pansexual-pride-day-2022/#:~:text=The%20Pansexual%20Symbol%20

Panromantic Pride Flag. Grand Rapids Pride Center. (2023, October 2). https://grpride.org/product/panromantic-pride-flag/

Pansexual and Panromantic Visibility Day. The Rainbow Stores. (n.d.). https://www.therainbowstores.com/blogs/blogs-guides/pansexual-and-panromantic-visibility-day

The PFLAG National Glossary: LGBTQ+ terminology. PFLAG. (2024, March 26). https://pflag.org/glossary/?utm_source=google_cpc&utm_medium=ad_grant&utm_campaign=cbc_ggrant_glossary&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw88yxBhBWEiwA7cm6pdQ8qnfjXxuQXb_nGLuMQnRCKGxGxCRxVhe6huuvOmn5NIMtmX7fAhoCmZIQAvD_BwE

The Trustees of Princeton University. (2024, May 14). Split attraction model - princeton gender + sexuality resource center. Princeton University. https://www.gsrc.princeton.edu/split-attraction

Unicorn, H. (2023, December 18). When is pansexual visibility day 2024 and what does it mean?. Heckin’ Unicorn. https://heckinunicorn.com/blogs/heckin-unicorn-blog/when-is-pansexual-visibility-day-2024-and-what-does-it-mean?currency=USD

What’s the difference between bisexual and pansexual? Minus18. (n.d.). https://www.minus18.org.au/articles/what’s-the-difference-between-bisexual-and-pansexual