PSA: Miley Cyrus Can Be Pansexual AND Love Liam Hemsworth

Miley Cyrus released her new album Younger Now today and people are already twisting her lyrics.

The song in question is “She’s Not Him” about how she tries to fall in love with a woman only to discover that she’s still in love with a man. The lyrics go like this:

“Why, why can’t I love you, baby? / Like I wanna love you, baby / I’m sorry / And maybe it’s beyond my control / Some sort of chemical reaction / Making it impossible to let him go.”

The most obvious interpretation is that the song is about Miley’s brief fling with Stella Maxwell, before getting back together with her fiance Liam Hemsworth.

But many are twisting around the lyrics quite a bit. They claim that because Miley didn’t love Stella as much as she loves Liam, she couldn’t possibly be pansexual (for you newbs pansexual means you’re attracted to another human regardless of gender or non-gender identity).

Ok, there are so many things wrong with this assumption, that Miley can’t be pan if she loves Liam the most. First of all, just because she chose Liam over Stella, does not mean she loves men more than women. That’s ridiculous! Liam and Stella are not representative of everyone in their respective genders, and Miley’s love for them shouldn’t be representative either.

She happened to fall in love with Liam, a cisgender man. That can happen when you’re pansexual! Being pan doesn’t mean you love women the most, or non-gender conforming people the most, or anyone the most, for that matter. It just means you’re open to a relationship with any human. Period.

Miley said it best in an interview with Variety last year when she explained,

“My whole life, I didn’t understand my own gender and my own sexuality. I always hated the word ‘bisexual,’ because that’s even putting me in a box. I don’t ever think about someone being a boy or someone being a girl.”

Miley loves Liam for Liam, not because of his genitalia or gender-identity, but because of him.

Got it, haters? Ok, good.

Lena Finkel
Lena Finkel is the Editor and Founder of Femestella and The Feminist Health Source. Prior to starting Femestella, she worked at People, InStyle, Tiger Beat, and Sesame Workshop (aka Sesame Street). She loves all things Real Housewives and The Challenge. When she's not busy binge-watching TV, you can find her taking an absurd amount of photos of her tuxedo cat Tom.