Bi History Group

Bisexual (Cis, Trans, Gender Nonconforming) Women visibly participating over the years in the NYC LGBT Pride March

As ‪#‎LGBTQHistoryMonth‬ ends, we honor folks who are paving the way for brighter ‪#‎bisexual‬ futures, like advocates Faith Cheltenham of BiNet USA, Camille Beredjick of GayWrites and GLSEN, and Mimi Hoang of Los Angeles Bi Task Force. ‪#‎biawareness‬

thetrevorproject:

As #LGBTQHistoryMonth ends, we honor young voices in the #LGBTQ community who are documenting history and their communities, like Bisexual writer and advocate, @elielcruzwrites. http://elielcruz.com/

HuffPost Live

[LGBT History Month 2015]: Monday October 19th 2015 @ 10:15AM PST / 1:15PM EST BiNet USA president Faith Cheltenham; Robyn Ochs, Activist, Writer & Speaker; Goddard College Professor, co-editor of Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men-An Anthology and founder of Black Funk: The Center for Culture, Sexuality, and Spirituality Dr Herukhuti; joined Alex Berg on HuffPost Live for an interesting and wide-ranging talk on important figures in Bisexual History as part of their ongoing series on LGBT History Month!

Tune in to hear it live or catch up with it later online and learn about so many fascinating, creative bisexual people and all the great amazing things and contributions so many of us in our big beautiful bisexual tribe have done, are still doing and will continue to do into the future.

The Importance of Being Earnest: Why Truth Matters

Andrea Jenkins shares some important history about the Stonewall Riots and warns everyone – Don’t believe the ‘whitewashed’ version coming soon to a theater near you.

“When you watch the trailer ask yourself, where are the people of color that made the Stonewall Inn their hangout? There were very few places that Black and Latina “drag queens,” stone butch lesbians, and openly bisexual folks could hang out because they were not welcome in many other places…

The night of the police raid of the Stonewall was actually Marsha P. Johnson’s birthday … Unlike many of the white men who frequented other gay clubs, these Trans women had very little to lose …

The working and middle class white [gay] men who hung out in Greenwich Village had jobs and other liabilities they could not risk by confronting the police and rioting. That is why police felt so comfortable raiding these establishments frequently…

After the night, Marsha [P. Johnson] and Silva [Rivera] organized marches and rallies advocating for equal rights and the end of police harassment. They formed an organization called S.T.A.R.S., Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries to address the needs of homeless youth, offer clothing, shelter, and other basic needs. One year later, bisexual woman Brenda Howard worked with people [Gay Liberation Front (GLF)] to organize a commemorating march that eventually became the annual Pride march that people perform around the world.

Says Ms. Jenkins, "I am proud of my intersecting identities as a bisexual transgender woman of color. I recognize that I live at the margins of mainstream society, even within loosely formed LGBT communities… This erasure of trans women of color is transphobic, racist, and xenophobic and it needs to stop…”

Andrea Jenkins, Board Chair at Intermedia Arts is an artist-activist, and award-winning poet and writer. She has been awarded fellowships from the Bush Foundation, Intermedia Arts, and the Playwrights Center; has won writing and performance grants and scholarships from the Givens Foundation, Intermedia Arts, The Loft, the Napa Valley Writers Conference, and Pillsbury House Theater.

Ms. Jenkins who was a keynoter at the 2015 BECAUSE Conference is the co-curator of Queer Voices at Intermedia Arts, the longest-running series of its kind in the nation, and currently works collecting oral histories from hundreds of people in the Upper Midwest transgender community as an Oral Historian in the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.

i understand how the idea of "bisexual chic" can be used to erase bisexuality, but is the concept entirely biphobic? or was there/is there a period when bisexuality is seen as 'trendy' and celebrities tend come out as bi?

Anonymous

bisexual-community:

Why yes, there have been periods and places when bisexuality was seen as ‘trendy’. For example in Western Culture the period from 510 BC to 323 BC springs readily to mind … But seriously, the answer is a resounding “No!”.
If you stop to look at what was Really going on you will soon see that it coincides with a time when many people - celebrities included - were finally starting to come out as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual as well as Trans/Gender Non-conforming. And indeed THAT phenomena does/(or at least did) come in waves, depending on how safe and accepting society seemed to be at that time.
However while people coming out as Lesbian/Gay were seen as brave, forward-thinking pioneers to be respected, admired and applauded as role-models … both Bisexual AND Trans/Gender Non-conforming people tended to be held up to ridicule or as some sort of trendy or even weird “Hollywood” or Publicity-seeking phenomena. And they were also belittled with phrases such as “Bisexual Chic” and “Bi Curious” as well as “Gender-fuck”, “Tranny”, etc. Including and especially from inside the LGBT Community itself. So for example:
when Harvey Milk, a Gay Man decided to run for SF City Supervisor in 1973 he was courageous role-model for the entire LGBT Community nationwide;
when “Walk on the Wild Side” a song about LGBT life in NYC included discussing Trans/Genderqueer people as members of the Community – written and performed by Lou Reed, a Bisexual Man (and produced by David Bowie BTW) reached Number 16 on the “Billboard Hot 100 Singles Charts” in the Same Year … That was simply dismissed as an example of “Bisexual Chic”.
Those interested in reading just a few articles of many the topics of the Dismissal + Erasure of Bisexual and Trans/Genderqueer People in the Modern Queer Rights Movement may wish to read:
“Bisexual Manifesto” (1990) historic declaration about what it means to be bisexual as defined by members of the bisexual community themselves from the magazine “Anything That Moves”, a literary, journalistic, and topical magazine published in the USA from 1990 to 2002.
“How I Spent My Two Week Vacation Being a Token Bisexual” (1993) including text of first speech ever allowed to be delivered by a (openly) bisexual person at a national March On Washington for Gay/Lesbian Rights by Lani Ka’ahumanu
“GL vs. BT: The Archaeology of Biphobia and Transphobia Within the US Gay and Lesbian Community” (2004) by Trans legal scholar Professor Jillian Todd Weiss
“Words, binary and biphobia, or: why ‘bi’ is binary but ‘FTM’ is not” (2011) by Mizrahi Bi-Queer Theory Academic and Author Shiri Eisner
“Biphobia: Not in My Name” (2014) by Bi-Trans Academic and Activist Aud Traher

caffeinevoid:

caffeinevoid:
In a October 1987 article, Newsweek portrayed bisexual men as “the ultimate pariahs” of the AIDS epidemic. Dr. Alan Rockway, bi activist and person with AIDS, spoke against the stereotype. Dr. Rockway was also a pioneering psychologist who helped write and defend the first LGBT employment non-discrimination ordinance to be approved in a major city. Dr. Rockway’s contributions are often “bisexually erased” and he is often misoriented as a gay man instead of being properly identified as bisexual. Photo Credit: WYPR News (x)
A co-worker at the LGBT non-profit I worked at told me bisexual history was “difficult to find,” and that is why we only teach people about gay and lesbian history. That’s not just lazy, it’s ridiculous.

From Brenda Howard to J. Christopher Neal: Bisexual Leaders and Pride

Given the discrimination that bisexual people still face––including biphobia within the LGBT community––and how bisexual identities and needs are so often erased within the broader LGBT movement, it is critically important to recognize that bisexual people have been leaders in this movement since its beginning.

Source: hrc.org

In Renaissance France, bisexuals were said to be au poil et a la plume, or “after fur and feathers”, like versatile hunters.
-Homosexuality & Civilization, Louis Crompton

(via bisexual-community)

bisexual-books:

Bisexuality, Bisexuals, and Biphobia
From the Bi History Group on facebook – “Have accidentally found a treasure trove of old essays and articles about Bisexuality The quality is uneven, some links are unfortunately dead, most are English + a few in French. However it is great historic artifact.”