Bisexual Visibility Day

Bi activists learn the benefits of mutually supportive beverage making.

September 23rd every year is Bisexual Visibility Day. This day attempts to highlight the existence of bi people, what bisexuality is, and raise awareness.

It’s needed because most people assume everybody’s either gay or straight. In the Lib Dems, people tend to assume I’m gay because I’m heavily involved with LGBT+ Lib Dems and most of the men who do that are gay. When I’m out with my female partner, people tend to assume we’re straight because most male-female couples are straight; when I’ve been out with a guy, people have tended to assume we’re both gay.

It’s needed because some people get upset or feel betrayed when their assumption about my sexuality turns out to be wrong, and blame me rather than themselves. It’s needed because some people get uncomfortable around bisexuals, as if we’re some different species it’s hard to relate to, rather than people who generally feel the same about gender as most people do about hair colour – we might have a preference, but it’s not a deciding factor in who we find attractive.

It’s needed because when a celebrity comes out as bi, people assume they’re doing it to be trendy or for attention, whereas they’re celebrated for their bravery when they come out as gay. It’s needed because there are a load of damaging stereotypes about bisexuals being nymphomaniac, untrustworthy, greedy, prone to cheating, or even psychotically violent. Many of these stereotypes even come from the gay and lesbian communities, even though a good number of gay and lesbian people have slept with different-gendered people while still identifying as gay or lesbian – peoples’ sexual identities being a damn sight more complicated than what they’ve been doing with their genitals recently.

It’s needed because even most organisations that refer to themselves as LGB or LGBT tend to concentrate almost exclusively on lesbian and gay people; bisexuals are tacked on as an afterthought, or bundled in with L&G people, while 2012’s ground-breaking Bi Report clearly demonstrates that bi people have different needs and outcomes than L&G people do. Stonewall have a very poor record of support for bi people and described mixed-sex civil partnerships as “a matter for heterosexuals” rather than something which affected a bunch of people they invite donations to support; most of their bi work was a direct response to a heavy “Some People Are Bi” community lobbying effort.

I’m proud that in LGBT+ Lib Dems we make serious conscious efforts to include all sexual and gender minorities. I did a “Queer Question Time” event on Gaydio last year in which the Labour and Tory representatives (Manchester City Council’s lead member for gay men, and the chairman of LGBTory) described bisexuals as “the grey area of the gay movement” and complained that “nobody knows what they want”. On this topic in particular, we advertised Bi Visibility Day at our party conference stall last week complete with some back issues of Bi Community News. One of our reasons for opposing web filtering in motion F17 at conference was that the word “bisexual” is seen as a porn term rather than an identity even by Google which blocks access to educational resources (including our SAO’s own website). We avoid using terms like “gay marriage” in favour of “same-sex marriage” – it’s not as glib, but it doesn’t contribute to the erasure of bisexual and other identities. We haven’t quite gotten this message through to the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech-writers yet, but we’ll keep trying.

Most of my audience is political – think about your last Pride press release, or your council’s non-discrimination policies, and whether they’re inclusive of people who aren’t lesbian or gay (Manchester City Council used to claim that bi people were, at any given moment, either “being gay” and protected by their policies, or “being straight” and in no need of protection). Is your local Pride actually inclusive? A couple of years ago, a bisexual friend left her first Manchester Pride in disgust because the opening ceremony had biphobic vitriol spewed onstage from the compére, an incident which was not deemed serious by the organisers who assured us it was “just a joke”. If one of the UK’s biggest LGBT Pride events isn’t a safe space for bisexuals, where is?

On Bisexual Visibility Day, which happens to affect me personally, I’m highlighting the way that sexuality can be political, and public policy affects different sexualities differently. Read the links in this post – particularly the Bi Report – and reflect on how you, and the institutions you’re involved with, relate to and think about bi people.