'Big Mouth' Co-Creator Apologizes for Pansexuality Flub

Ali Wong's character on the show was under fire for suggesting bisexual people enforce the gender binary

BY Josiah HughesPublished Oct 8, 2019

The writers on Netflix's hit animated series Big Mouth bit off more than they could chew with a flub involving the definitions of bisexuality and pansexuality on a new episode. Now, one of the show's co-creators has apologized. 

In response to the criticism, Big Mouth co-creator Andrew Goldberg has issued an apology. "I sincerely apologize for making people feel misrepresented," Goldberg wrote on Twitter.

Read his full apology below.
In Season 3 of the show, Ali Wong plays a new student named Ali who is pansexual. When asked to explain what that means, she says, "Pansexual means I'm into boys, girls and everyone in between."

She goes on to add that "bisexuality is so binary" and that "being pansexual means my sexual preference isn't limited by gender identity."

The clip has been met with extreme criticism from the LGBTQ+ community online, with many suggesting that it is transphobic, biphobic and panphobic.

As GLAAD previously explained, "A common misconception about bi folks is that they seek to reinforce a rigid gender binary, but the reality is that many bi people have 'the potential to be attracted — romantically and/or sexually — to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree,' as advocate Robyn Ochs describes. The pan identity presents an additional opportunity to express attraction to multiple genders."
 

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