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The bisexual community, also known as the bi+, m-spec, bisexual/pansexual, or bi/pan/fluid community, includes members of the LGBT community who identify as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual and sexually fluid. [1] [2] As opposed to hetero- or homosexual people, people in the bisexual community experience attraction to more than one gender.
The bisexual community, sometimes called bi+ or m-spec, [3] [4] [5] standing for multisexual spectrum, includes those who identify as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, biromantic, polysexual, or sexually fluid. [1] [2] Bisexual people are less likely than their lesbian and gay counterparts to be out of the closet. [6] As a result, there is a lot of variation among the bisexual community in how important bisexual people find bisexuality or LGBT identity to their sense of self. [7] Bisexual people may have social networks that are heavily concentrated inside the wider LGBT community; whether or not they participate in broader LGBT culture, bisexual people may also participate in bisexual-specific communities. [8]
The bisexual community has bi-specific events and conferences; [9] [10] publications, such as Bi Women Quarterly ; [11] [12] websites and organizations, like BiNet USA and the Bisexual Resource Center; [13] [14] magazines, such as Bi Community News ; [15] [11] [12] [16] [17] [18] writer's groups; [19] media, including the books Bi Any Other Name and Getting Bi ; [20] leaders and politicians, such as Robyn Ochs and Katie Hill; [21] and mental health associations. [22] Bisexual groups began forming in the 1980s in several cities. [23]
These communities come together with the lesbian, gay, and transgender communities for bigger LGBT events such as LGBT pride parades, civil rights marches and advocacy, conferences, and other nationwide causes where the interests of the communities intersect, such as the National Equality March.[ citation needed ] Often, conferences have separate seminars on bisexual and transgender topics, and several LGBT pride parades now include special bisexual sections as well. [24] [25]
September 23 is Celebrate Bisexuality Day. [26] The week beginning on the Sunday before Celebrate Bisexuality Day is Bisexual Awareness Week. [27] [28]
People who identify as bisexual can receive specifically directed hatred and distrust (biphobia), stereotyping, and denial (bisexual erasure) from people of all sexual orientations. People may say bisexuals are just unsure of their feelings or going through a "phase" and will or should "decide" or "discover" which sex they are attracted to. [29] [30] [31] On the other hand, there is also increasing support, inclusion, and visibility of bisexuals in the LGBT community. [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37]
A series of groups have been working together and focusing on issues important to the bisexual community such as biphobia, dating, coming out, bisexual's visibility in the news and entertainment, and bisexual erasure. These groups are queer-identified and closely allied with the gay, lesbian, and transgender communities, but their main focus is the bisexual community. [36] [38] [39] There has also been a movement to combat biphobia and myths about bisexuals. [40] [41]
The National Equality March was a national political rally that occurred on October 11, 2009, in Washington, D.C. It called for equal protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in all matters governed by civil law in all states and districts. The march was called for by LGBT activist Cleve Jones and organized by Equality Across America and the Courage Campaign. Kip Williams and Robin McGehee served as co-directors. This was the first national march in Washington, D.C., for LGBT rights since the 2000 Millennium March.
There was a specific bisexual, pansexual and queer-identified contingent that was organized to be a part of the march. [42] Several bisexual, pansexual and queer-identified groups including BiNet USA, New York Area Bisexual Network, DC Bi Women and BiMA DC, came together and marched, showing bisexual, pansexual and queer solidarity. [43] There were four out bisexual speakers at the National Equality March rally: Michael Huffington, Lady Gaga, Chloe Noble, and Penelope Williams.
In October 2009, LGBT activist Amy Andre [44] was appointed as executive director of the San Francisco Pride Celebration Committee, making her San Francisco Pride's first bisexual woman of color executive director. [45] [46]
There are several conferences and conventions for bi+ people. These include the International Conference on Bisexuality, BiCon (UK), and BECAUSE (Conference) in the United States. Several of these have produced offshoot research conferences on bisexuality, among them BiReCon in the UK, EuroBiReCon, and BiReConUSA in the United States.
Pansexuality is sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction towards people of all genders, or regardless of their sex or gender identity. Pansexual people may refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are not determining factors in their romantic or sexual attraction to others.
Biphobia is aversion toward bisexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being bisexual. Similarly to homophobia, it refers to hatred and prejudice specifically against those identified or perceived as being in the bisexual community. It can take the form of denial that bisexuality is a genuine sexual orientation, or of negative stereotypes about people who are bisexual. Other forms of biphobia include bisexual erasure.
BiNet USA was an American national nonprofit bisexual community whose mission was to "facilitate the development of a cohesive network of bisexual communities, promote bisexual visibility, and collect and distribute educational information regarding bisexuality. Until 2020, BiNet USA provided a national network for bisexual organizations and individuals across the United States, and encouraged participation and organizing on local and national levels." They claimed to be the oldest national bisexuality organization in the United States. In 2020, all of the content on BiNet USA's website was replaced with a statement that the BiNet USA president, Faith Cheltenham, now identified as Christian conservative and was walking away from progressive politics entirely.
LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically.
Loraine Hutchins is an American bisexual and feminist author, activist, and sex educator. Hutchins rose to prominence as co-editor of Bi Any Other Name, an anthology that is one of the seminal books in the bisexual rights movement. Hutchins contributed the pieces "Letting Go: An Interview with John Horne" and "Love That Kink" to that anthology. After the anthology was forced to compete in the Lambda Literary Awards under the category Lesbian Anthology, and Directed by Desire: Collected Poems, a posthumous collection of the bisexual poet June Jordan’s work, had to compete in the category "Lesbian Poetry", BiNet USA led the bisexual community in a multi-year campaign eventually resulting in the addition of a Bisexual category, starting with the 2006 Awards.
The Bisexual Resource Center (BRC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, that has served the bisexual community since 1985. Originally known as The East Coast Bisexual Network, it incorporated in 1989 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and changed its name to the Bisexual Resource Center in 1993.
A pride flag is any flag that represents a segment or part of the LGBT community. Pride in this case refers to the notion of LGBT pride. The terms LGBT flag and queer flag are often used interchangeably.
Robyn Ochs is an American bisexual activist, professional speaker, and workshop leader. Her primary fields of interest are gender, sexuality, identity, and coalition building. She is the editor of the Bisexual Resource Guide, Bi Women Quarterly, and the anthology Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World. Ochs, along with Professor Herukhuti, co-edited the anthology Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men.
Over the course of its history, the LGBT community has adopted certain symbols for self-identification to demonstrate unity, pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another. These symbols communicate ideas, concepts, and identity both within their communities and to mainstream culture. The two symbols most recognized internationally are the pink triangle and the rainbow flag.
Celebrate Bisexuality Day is observed annually on September 23 to recognize and celebrate bisexual people, the bisexual community, and the history of bisexuality.
Bialogue, a portmanteau of the words bisexual and dialogue, is an American activist group that started in New York City, working on issues of local, national, and international interest to the bisexual, fluid, pansexual, queer-identified communities and their allies. Bialogue's mission is to dispel myths and stereotypes about bisexuality, address biphobia and bisexual erasure, educate the public on the facts and realities of bisexuality and advocate for the bisexual community. Its slogan is "Taking Action not just Offense".
Bisexual erasure, also called bisexual invisibility, is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources.
Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, to more than one gender, or to both people of the same gender and different genders. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, which is also known as pansexuality.
The first English-language use of the word "bisexual" to refer to sexual orientation occurred in 1892.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBT topics:
LGBT ageing addresses issues and concerns related to the ageing of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Older LGBT people are marginalised by: a) younger LGBT people, because of ageism; and b) by older age social networks because of homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, heteronormativity, heterosexism, prejudice and discrimination towards LGBT people.
BiPhoria is social and support group for bisexual people in Manchester, England. It is the oldest extant bisexual organisation in the UK, having launched in 1994. As its central mission since then it has welcomed people who are just coming out or new to the area to have opportunities to meet and talk with other bisexuals, and those who are questioning their sexual orientation who think they may be bisexual.
BECAUSE is an annual, national conference for the bisexual community and other bi+ people that takes place in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. It was founded in 1992. It has been organized by the Bisexual Organizing Project since 1999. The conference is "dedicated to building an empowered bisexual, pansexual, fluid, queer, and unlabeled (bi+) community." It is the longest-running and largest conference for bi+ people in the United States.
The history of bisexuality concerns the history of the bisexual sexual orientation. Ancient and medieval history of bisexuality, when the term did not exist as such, consists of anecdotes of sexual behaviour and relationships between people of the same and different sexes. A modern definition of bisexuality began to take shape in the mid-19th century within three interconnected domains of knowledge: biology, psychology and sexuality. In modern Western culture, the term bisexual was first defined in a binary approach as a person with romantic or sexual attraction to both men and women. The term bisexual is defined later in the 20th century as a person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to both males and females, or as a person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to people regardless of sex or gender identity, which is sometimes termed pansexuality.
The identity 'bisexual' can be considered to be an umbrella term which includes all of the following groups and more: ... People who don't see gender as a defining feature of their sexual attraction (some may also use terms like pansexual, omnisexual or ecosexual – see Glossary).
There are many other identity labels that could fall under the wider umbrella of bisexuality, such as pansexual, omnisexual, biromantic, or fluid (Eisner, 2013).
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