I owe so much to Heated Rivalry for its depiction of Ilya's bisexuality and how he's forced to navigate queerphobia.
Shane says, "But you like women, right? You could find someone you'd want to marry for real," and it explicitly addresses one of the most common ways people dismiss the existence of biphobia, and how it affects bi people as much as gay people.
Now, Shane wasn't making the point "You aren't actually oppressed for being bi like I am oppressed for being gay." But those same words have been used to argue that.
It's like people are aware that you can't choose who you love - until it's bi people. Then, suddenly, people obviously have a say in who they fall in love with, and they can just fall in love with the "opposite" gender and marry them and avoid any discrimination or persecution.
What makes it hit home even harder here, is that I think - and I couldn't prove this, I don't have any evidence, but it has always been my suspicion - a lot of bi men are closeted because they have this same mentality. They'll just find a woman. That way, they won't ever have to come out and face biphobia because of it.
But Heated Rivalry straight-forwardly counters this argument, making the simple point that, no, Ilya can't just find someone he wants to marry "for real" because the person he wants to marry "for real" is a man. That's not how it works. He doesn't get to choose. He's tried. He has so many women he could choose from, and he can't just make himself want them instead - no differently than Shane can make himself want to marry Rose.
But this isn't the only time Heated Rivalry refuses to suggest biphobia is actually just homophobia lite.
Ilya is bi, and yet that won't make any difference if anyone finds out he's attracted to men. It means so much to me that out of the two of them, the one that's bi is the one who would never be able to go home again. The one who is bi is the one that has to fear being arrested or even killed. His attraction to women would not save him.
If Ilya wanted to hide his bisexuality, he'd have to work as hard and sacrifice as much as any gay man, and his life would be exactly as hollow for it, and he would be exactly as miserable for it. Just by having ever been with a man, just by being attracted to men, he is as much of a target as any gay man is.
And the show even makes a point of showing that Ilya can't even save himself from biphobia by never getting caught, or by exclusively being with women. Ilya has a reputation as a playboy, a ladies' man, a womanizer. He's been with many women. He goes clubbing often, and his teammates and friends see him with women. Everyone knows Ilya is attracted to women and so far, no one has seen him with a man. No one could prove he's been with men or is attracted to them.
Yet, it doesn't save him, does it? People can tell. Svetlana, for one, but his brother too. Alexei calls him the F-slur. Ilya says that Alexei has always hated him, and that he knows why. I believe the intention there was to imply that Alexei can tell Ilya's queer and has always hated him for it.
Just like gay people can't always pass as straight, bi people can't always pass as straight either. When you're queer, it's part of every facet of you, and there are some people who can't ever truly be closeted, not completely, because they can't truly hide it. Bi people aren't exempt from this. Ilya is a bi man who is evidently not fully exempt from this.
I know I've criticized the show for not using the word bisexual before - I still wish they would have. But I can't deny that the representation of Ilya as a bisexual man, and the depiction of how that affects him, is probably the best I've ever seen. It means so much to me that they handled it so empathetically, and that they didn't trivialize it in the slightest.
