Biromanticism

Biromanticism is a romantic orientation describing the capacity for romantic attraction to more than one gender: a pattern of desiring romantic relationships and emotional intimacy with two or more genders, considered separately from sexual attraction under the split attraction model. AVEN's romantic-orientation glossary defines biromantic directly as being "romantically attracted to/desires romantic relationships with multiple genders" (AVEN). As with the sexual orientation from which its name derives, the attraction need not be equal, simultaneous, or extended to every gender; the "bi-" prefix denotes attraction to more than one gender rather than to exactly two (Wikipedia).

The Trevor Project's resource on bisexuality describes biromantic as a romantic-orientation term used especially, though not exclusively, within asexual communities for people who experience romantic attraction to more than one gender independent of any sexual attraction (The Trevor Project). Biromanticism is most often discussed as one axis of a two-part orientation. A person's romantic and sexual attractions can align (as in a biromantic bisexual person) or diverge, producing compound identities such as biromantic asexual, biromantic demisexual, or biromantic heterosexual, in which romantic attraction to multiple genders coexists with a differently patterned or absent sexual attraction. The American Psychological Association's general definition of sexual orientation as "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" (APA) already treats the romantic and sexual strands as distinct components, a distinction split-attraction vocabulary makes explicit.

Examples

Biromanticism describes only the romantic axis, so what it covers is defined as much by what it deliberately leaves unstated.

What the term covers. Romantic attraction to more than one gender: unequal, non-simultaneous and not necessarily extended to every gender, exactly as with the sexual term it is modelled on. It is most often paired with a separate label for the sexual axis: biromantic asexual, biromantic demisexual, biromantic bisexual, biromantic heterosexual. Someone whose two axes align may never need the word at all.

What the term does not cover. Bisexuality names the sexual axis, and the two are independent: a person can be biromantic without being bisexual, or bisexual without being biromantic. Panromanticism is the neighbouring multi-gender romantic label, with the boundary between them treated as self-identification rather than taxonomy. Aromanticism is its opposite on the same axis, and heteroromanticism and homoromanticism are its monosexual counterparts.

How the word is used. It is split-attraction-model vocabulary, most at home in asexual and aromantic communities where the two axes routinely diverge. The underlying idea is old (Karl Heinrich Ulrichs proposed "conjunctive" and "disjunctive" attraction in 1879, and "affectional orientation" circulated by 1989), but the "-romantic" series took shape on AVEN forums from around 2003, with the phrase "split attraction model" itself only circulating from about 2015.

History

The idea that romantic and sexual attraction could be distinguished analytically predates the modern vocabulary: in 1879 the German writer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs proposed "conjunctive" and "disjunctive" categories of attraction (the conjunctive form describing tender and passionate feelings toward both men and women, roughly equivalent to modern biromantic bisexuality), though the framework never gained wide currency (Wikipedia). A century later, psychologist Dorothy Tennov's 1979 study Love and Limerence argued that the emotional pull she termed limerence was conceptually separate from sexual desire, an argument later read as a precursor to aromantic-spectrum theory; by 1989 the related term "affectional orientation" was already circulating to describe the same separation between whom a person loves and whom a person desires sexually (AUREA).

The specific "-romantic" vocabulary took shape within online asexual community-building. The Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), founded in 2001, became a primary forum for working out language that a single sexual-orientation label could not capture; by late 2003 participants were experimenting with an "[orientation] + attraction" naming pattern in forum threads, and aromantic identity was articulated as a distinct concept by 2005, with paired terms (homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic, heteroromantic) spreading from that discussion (AUREA; Wikipedia). The umbrella label "split attraction model" for the general framework came later, circulating online from around 2015; no single coiner or founding document for that specific phrase is documented.

Demographics & research

Large-scale sexual-orientation surveys rarely isolate romantic-only labels, so population-level data on biromanticism specifically is limited, but youth surveys that offer it as an option show meaningful uptake. The Human Rights Campaign's 2023 LGBTQ+ Youth Report, drawn from responses of more than 12,000 U.S. teenagers ages 13 to 18, found that "bisexual/biromantic" was the second most commonly selected identity after gay or lesbian, chosen by 27.7% of respondents (HRC). Because the survey combined bisexual and biromantic into a single response option, the figure indicates substantial uptake of biromantic-adjacent language among LGBTQ+ youth but cannot be disaggregated to show how many respondents identified specifically with the romantic label rather than, or in addition to, the sexual one.

Terminology & related identities

Biromanticism is the romantic-orientation counterpart of bisexuality, though the two labels are independent: a person can be biromantic without being bisexual (most commonly when they are also asexual, demisexual, or graysexual) or bisexual without being biromantic, as when romantic attraction runs along different lines than sexual attraction or is absent entirely, as in an aromantic bisexual person (The Trevor Project). It sits alongside panromanticism (romantic attraction to people regardless of gender) as one of the two principal multi-gender romantic orientations, sometimes grouped together as "multiromantic" or "pluriromantic"; the boundary between them, like the one between bisexual and pansexual, is treated by most sources as a matter of self-identification rather than a fixed taxonomic line (Wikipedia). Aromanticism, the absence of romantic attraction, is its conceptual opposite on the romantic axis, while heteroromanticism and homoromanticism (attraction to a different or the same gender, respectively) are its monosexual-pattern counterparts, against which biromantic and panromantic are defined as "multiromantic" categories. Biromantic is frequently paired with a separate sexual-orientation label under the split attraction model (biromantic asexual, biromantic bisexual, biromantic heterosexual) because the term names only the romantic axis of a person's orientation (AVEN; GLAAD).

Common misconceptions

Because biromantic shares the "bi-" prefix with bisexual, it inherits the same disputed etymology. GLAAD's style guidance instructs writers and reporters not to define bi- identities as attraction limited to "men and women," stating plainly that this is not an accurate definition of the term and that bi+ usage has never been restricted to a two-gender binary (GLAAD). The Trevor Project's resource on bisexuality makes the parallel point for biromanticism specifically, defining it as romantic attraction to "more than one gender" without specifying which genders or how many (The Trevor Project).

A second documented misconception treats multi-gender romantic attraction as evidence of indecision or an inability to commit to one partner. Reporting cited by GLAAD found that closeted bisexual people avoided coming out specifically because they anticipated being seen as "indecisive or incapable of monogamy" (GLAAD), a stereotype the Trevor Project addresses directly for bi+ identities in general, clarifying that a person's orientation label does not determine whether they pursue monogamous or non-monogamous relationships (The Trevor Project).