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The first English-language use of the word "bisexual" to refer to sexual orientation occurred in 1892.
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The first English-language use of the word "bisexual" to refer to sexual orientation occurred in 1892.
The first English-language use of the word "bisexual" referring to sexual orientation was by the American neurologist Charles Gilbert Chaddock in his 1892 translation of the 7th edition of Krafft-Ebing's seminal work Psychopathia Sexualis. Prior to this, "bisexual" typically referred to reproductive hermaphrodites, especially in botany. Under any label, openly bisexual people were rare in early American life. One notable exception was the openly bisexual poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, who received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver in 1923. [2] The 19th century poet Walt Whitman is usually described by biographers as either bisexual or homosexual in his feelings and attractions. In the early 20th century, during the Harlem Renaissance, blues singers Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith made no secret about their relationships with both men and women [3] and songs like "Sissy Man Blues", "Freakish Blues" and Rainey's "Prove It on Me" spoke openly of homosexual and bisexual relationships. [4]
Early film, being a cutting-edge medium, also provided opportunity for bisexuality to be expressed. In 1914 the first documented appearance of bisexual characters (female and male) in an American motion picture occurred in A Florida Enchantment , by Sidney Drew. [5] However, due to the censorship legally required by the Hays Code, the word bisexual could not be mentioned and almost no bisexual characters appeared in American film from 1934 until 1968. [5]
Bisexual Americans were given some visibility in the research of Alfred Kinsey (who was himself bisexual) and his colleagues in the late 1940s and early 1950s; they found that 28% of women and 46% of men had responded erotically to or were sexually active with both women and men. [6]
Their research also found that 11.6% of white males (ages 20–35) had about equal heterosexual and homosexual experience/response throughout their adult lives, and that 7% of single females (ages 20–35) and 4% of previously married females (ages 20–35) had about equal heterosexual and homosexual experience/response for this period of their lives. [7] [8] As a result of this research, the earlier meanings of the word "bisexual" were largely displaced by the meaning of being attracted to both women and men. [9] However, Kinsey himself disliked the use of the term bisexual to describe individuals engaging in sexual activity regardless of gender, preferring to use "bisexual" in its older, biological sense of reproductive hermaphrodites, saying, "Until it is demonstrated [that] taste in a sexual relation is dependent upon the individual containing within his [sic] anatomy both male and female structures, or male and female physiological capacities, it is unfortunate to call such individuals bisexual" (Kinsey et al., 1948, p. 657). [10]
LGBT political activism became more prominent in the 1960s. The first public protests for equal rights for gay and lesbian people were staged at governmental offices and historic landmarks in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., between 1965 and 1969. [11] In D.C., protesters picketed in front of the White House, Pentagon, and the U.S. Civil Service Commission. [11] One woman at the second White House picket of those protests, J.D., identified herself as a bisexual. [12]
In 1966, bisexual activist Robert A. Martin (aka Donny the Punk) founded the Student Homophile League at Columbia University and New York University. In 1967 Columbia University officially recognized this group, thus making them the first college in the United States to officially recognize a gay student group. [13] Activism on behalf of bisexuals in particular also began to grow, especially in San Francisco. One of the earliest organizations for bisexuals, the Sexual Freedom League in San Francisco, was facilitated by Margo Rila and Frank Esposito beginning in 1967. [13] Two years later, during a staff meeting at a San Francisco mental health facility serving LGBT people, nurse Maggi Rubenstein came out as bisexual. Due to this, bisexuals began to be included in the facility's programs for the first time. [13]
The Stonewall Rebellion, considered the beginning of the modern LGBT rights movement, occurred at the Stonewall bar in 1969. Bar patrons, including bisexuals, stood up to the police during a raid. [13] In commemoration of this, the next year the first LGBT pride march was held. Bisexual activist Brenda Howard is known as the "Mother of Pride", for her work in coordinating the first LGBT Pride march, and she also originated the idea for a week-long series of events around Pride Day which became the genesis of the annual LGBT Pride celebrations that are now held around the world every June. [14] [15] Additionally, Howard along with the bisexual activist Robert A. Martin (aka Donny the Punk) and gay activist L. Craig Schoonmaker are credited with popularizing the word "Pride" to describe these festivities. [16] [17] [18] Bisexual activist Tom Limoncelli later stated, "The next time someone asks you why LGBT Pride marches exist or why [LGBT] Pride Month is June tell them 'A bisexual woman named Brenda Howard thought it should be.'" [19] [20]
Bisexuals became more prominent in the media in the 1970s. In 1972 bisexual activist Don Fass founded the National Bisexual Liberation group in New York City, which issued The Bisexual Expression, most likely the earliest bisexual newsletter. [13] In 1973 bisexual activist Woody Glenn was interviewed by a radio show of the National Organization for Women on WICC in Bridgeport, Connecticut. [13] In 1974, both Newsweek and Time magazines ran stories on "bisexual chic", bringing bisexuality to mainstream attention as never before. [13] In 1976 the landmark book View from Another Closet: Exploring Bisexuality in Women, by Janet Mode, was published. [21]
Bisexuals were also important contributors to the larger LGBT rights movement. In 1972, Bill Beasley, a bisexual activist in the civil rights movement as well as the LGBT movement, was the core organizer of the first Los Angeles Gay Pride March. He was also active with the Gay Liberation Front. [13] In 1975, activist Carol Queen came out as bisexual and organized GAYouth in Eugene, Oregon. [13] In 1977 Alan Rockway, a psychologist and bisexual activist, co-authored America's first successful gay rights ordinance put to public vote, in Dade County, Florida. Anita Bryant campaigned against the ordinance, and Rockway began a boycott of Florida orange juice, which she advertised, in response. The San Francisco Bisexual Center also helped sponsor a press conference with lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, and pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock, in opposition to Bryant. Bisexual activist Alexei Guren founded the Gay Teen Task Force in Miami, Florida, in response to Bryant's campaign. The Florida Citrus Commission canceled her contract as a direct response to this pressure. [13] In 1979, Dr. Marvin Colter and John Soroczak co-founded Arete, The Bisexual Center of Southern California, in Whittier, California, a support and social group for bisexuals, which marched in the 1982 Los Angeles Gay pride. John Soroczak, a psychotherapist, facilitated the first bisexual rap group at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in 1994. [23] Also in 1979 A. Billy S. Jones, a bisexual founding member of the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, helped organize the first black gay delegation to meet with President Jimmy Carter's White House staff. Jones was also a core organizer of the 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, and "Third world conference: When will the ignorance end?", the first national conference for gay and lesbian people of color. [13]
The bisexual movement had its own successes as well. Most notably, in 1972 a Quaker group, the Committee of Friends on Bisexuality, issued the "Ithaca Statement on Bisexuality" supporting bisexuals. [24] The Statement, which may have been "the first public declaration of the bisexual movement" and "was certainly the first statement on bisexuality issued by an American religious assembly", appeared in the Quaker Friends Journal and The Advocate in 1972. [25] [26] [27]
In 1976, Harriet Levi and Maggi Rubenstein founded the San Francisco Bisexual Center. [13] It was the longest surviving bisexual community center, offering counseling and support services to Bay Area bisexuals, as well as publishing a newsletter, The Bi Monthly, from 1976 to 1984. [13] In 1978, bisexual activist Dr. Fritz Klein introduced the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid in his book The Bisexual Option: A Concept of One-Hundred Percent Intimacy, in which he examined the incidence and nature of bisexuality, the attitudes of bisexual persons, and the rewards of bisexuality. [13] Bisexual activism also began to spread beyond the coasts, as from 1978 until 1979, several Midwestern bisexual groups were created, such as One To Five (founded by Scott Bartell and Gary Lingen for Minneapolis/St.Paul, Minn), BI Women Welcome in Minneapolis, The BI Married Men's Group in the Detroit suburbs, and BI Ways in Chicago. [13]
In the 1980s AIDS began to affect the LGBT community, and bisexual people took an important role in combating it. In 1981 bisexual activists David Lourea and Cynthia Slater presented safer-sex education in bathhouses and BDSM clubs in San Francisco. Also in 1981, bisexual activist Alexei Guren, on the founding board of the Health Crisis Network (now CareResource) in Miami, Florida, began outreach and advocacy for Latino married men who have sex with men. [13] In 1984, David Lourea finally persuaded the San Francisco Department of Public Health to recognize bisexual men in their official AIDS statistics (the weekly "New AIDS cases and mortality statistics" report), after two years of campaigning. Health departments throughout the United States began to recognize bisexual men because of this, whereas before they had mostly only recognized gay men. [13] Bisexual activists also fought for the recognition of women in the AIDS epidemic. From 1984 until 1986, bisexual activist Veneita Porter, of the Prostitute's Union of Massachusetts and COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), advocated for women, transgender people, and injection drug users with AIDS. [13] In 1985, Cynthia Slater, who was HIV-positive, organized the first Women's HIV/AIDS Information Switchboard. [13] This sort of activism was particularly important for bisexuals as they were often blamed for spreading AIDS to their heterosexual partners. For example, in 1987, Newsweek portrayed bisexual men as "the ultimate pariahs" of the AIDS epidemic, and bisexual activist and person with AIDS Alan Rockway of BiPOL was quoted speaking against the stereotype. [13] An October 1989 Cosmopolitan magazine article that stereotyped bisexual men as dishonest spreaders of AIDS led to a letter-writing campaign by the New York Area Bisexual Network (NYABN). Cosmopolitan has printed no articles defaming bisexuals since the campaign. [13]
The bisexual movement enjoyed some important firsts during the 1980s. The Boston Bisexual Women's Network, the oldest existing bisexual women's group, was founded in 1983 and began publishing their bi-monthly newsletter, BI Women. It is the longest-existing bisexual newsletter in the US. [13] Also in 1983, BiPOL, the first and oldest bisexual political organization, was founded in San Francisco by bisexual activists Autumn Courtney, Lani Ka'ahumanu, Arlene Krantz, David Lourea, Bill Mack, Alan Rockway, and Maggi Rubenstein. [13] In 1984, BiPOL sponsored the first bisexual rights rally, outside the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. The rally featured nine speakers from civil rights groups allied with the bisexual movement. [13] Also in 1984, the First East Coast Conference on Bisexuality (which was also the first regional bisexual conference in the US) was held at the Storrs School of Social Work at the University of Connecticut, with about 150 people participating. [13] Participants in the conference then founded the East Coast Bisexual Network in 1985, which later was renamed the Bisexual Resource Center (BRC) in 1993. In 1987, the East Coast Bisexual Network established the first Bisexual History Archives with bisexual activist Robyn Ochs' initial collection; archivist Clare Morton hosted researchers. [13] Also in 1987, the Bay Area Bisexual Network, the oldest and largest bisexual group in the San Francisco Bay Area, was founded by Lani Ka'ahumanu, Ann Justi and Maggi Rubenstein. [28]
In 1988, Gary North published the first national bisexual newsletter, called Bisexuality: News, Views, and Networking. [13] In 1989 Cliff Arnesen testified before the U.S. Congress on behalf of bisexual, lesbian, and gay veteran's issues. [29] He was the first veteran to testify about bisexual, lesbian, and gay issues and the first openly non-heterosexual veteran to testify on Capitol Hill about veteran's issues in general. [29] He testified on May 3, 1989, during formal hearings held before the U.S. House Committee on Veterans Affairs: Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. [30] He also testified before the same Subcommittee on May 16, 1990, as part of an HIV/AIDS panel. [30] [31]
Bisexual people also continued to be active in the larger LGBT movement. In 1986 BiPOL's Autumn Courtney was elected co-chair of San Francisco's Lesbian Gay Freedom Day Pride Parade Committee; she was the first openly bisexual person to hold this sort of position in the United States. [13] In 1987 a group of 75 bisexuals marched in the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, which was the first nationwide bisexual gathering. The article "The Bisexual Movement: Are We Visible Yet?", by Lani Ka'ahumanu, appeared in the official Civil Disobedience Handbook for the March. It was the first article about bisexuals and the emerging bisexual movement to be published in a national lesbian or gay publication. [32] The North American Bisexual Network, the first national bisexual organization, was first thought of at this gathering, though not founded until three years later (see below.) NABN would later change its name to BiNet USA. [13]
Another important development is that the biangles symbol of bisexuality was designed by artist Liz Nania as she co-organized a bisexual contingent for the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987. [33] [34] The design of the biangles began with the pink triangle, a Nazi concentration camp badge that later became a symbol of gay liberation representing homosexuality. The addition of a blue triangle contrasts the pink and represents heterosexuality. The two triangles overlap and form lavender, which represents the "queerness of bisexuality", referencing the Lavender Menace and 1980s and 1990s associations of lavender with queerness. [35]
(Some bisexual individuals object to the use of a pink triangle in the biangles symbol of bisexuality (see above), as it was a symbol that Adolf Hitler's regime used to tag and persecute homosexuals. In response, a double crescent moon symbol of bisexuality was devised by Vivian Wagner in 1998. [36] [37] This symbol is common in Germany and surrounding countries. [37] )
Also in 1987, Barney Frank became the first U.S. congressman to come out as gay of his own volition; he was inspired in part by the death of Stewart McKinney, a closeted bisexual Republican representative from Connecticut. [38] [39] Frank told The Washington Post that after McKinney's death there was, "An unfortunate debate about 'Was he or wasn't he? Didn't he or did he?' I said to myself, I don't want that to happen to me." [38] [39]
The oldest national bisexuality organization in the United States, BiNet USA, was founded in 1990. It was originally called the North American Multicultural Bisexual Network (NAMBN), and had its first meeting at the first National Bisexual Conference in America. [40] [41] This first conference was held in San Francisco, and sponsored by BiPOL. Bisexual health was one of eight workshop tracks at the conference, and the "NAMES Project" quilt was displayed with bisexual quilt pieces. Over 450 people attended from 20 states and 5 countries, and the mayor of San Francisco sent a proclamation "commending the bisexual rights community for its leadership in the cause of social justice", and declaring June 23, 1990, Bisexual Pride Day. [13] The conference also inspired attendees from Dallas to create the first bisexual group in Texas, called BiNet Dallas. [13]
The bisexual movement also became more accepted as part of established institutions. In 1990, Susan Carlton offered the first academic course on bisexuality in America at UC Berkeley, and in 1991, psychologists Sari Dworkin and Ron Fox became the founding co-chairs of the Task Force on Bisexual Issues of Division 44, the gay and lesbian group in the American Psychological Association. [13] In 1997, bisexual activist and psychologist Pat Ashbrook pioneered a national model for LGBT support groups within the Veterans Administration hospital system. [13]
Bisexual literature became more prominent in the 1990s. In 1991, the Bay Area Bisexual Network began publishing the first national bisexual quarterly magazine, Anything That Moves: Beyond the Myths of Bisexuality, founded by Karla Rossi, who was the managing editor of the editorial collective until 1993. [13] [28] 1991 also saw the publication of one of the seminal books in the history of the modern bisexual rights movement, Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out , an anthology edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka'ahumanu. After this anthology was forced to compete (and lost) in the Lambda Literary Awards under the category Lesbian Anthology, and in 2005, Directed by Desire: Collected Poems [42] a posthumous collection of the bisexual Jamaican American writer June Jordan's work had to compete (and won) in the category "Lesbian Poetry", [43] 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. In 1995, Harvard Shakespeare professor Marjorie Garber made the academic case for bisexuality with her book Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life, in which she argued that most people would be bisexual if not for "repression, religion, repugnance, denial, laziness, shyness, lack of opportunity, premature specialization, a failure of imagination, or a life already full to the brim with erotic experiences, albeit with only one person, or only one gender". [44] In 1997, bisexual activist Dr. Fritz Klein founded the Journal of Bisexuality, the first academic, quarterly journal on bisexuality. [13] However, other media proved more mixed in terms of representing bisexuals. In 1990, a film with a relationship between two bisexual women, called Henry and June , became the first film to receive the NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). [45] But in 1993, bisexual activist Sheela Lambert wrote, produced, and hosted the first television series by and for bisexuals, called Bisexual Network. It aired for 13 weeks on NYC Public Access Cable. [13]
Regional organizations in the bisexual movement also began to have more impact. In 1992 the Bisexual Connection (Minnesota) sponsored the First Annual Midwest Regional Bisexual Conference, called BECAUSE (Bisexual Empowerment Conference: A Uniting, Supportive Experience). [13] [46] [47] That year Minnesota changed its State Civil Rights Law to grant the most comprehensive civil rights protections for bisexual, lesbian, gay, and transgender people in the country. Minnesota's bisexual community had united with lesbian, gay, and transgender groups to lobby for this statute. [13] Also in 1992, the South Florida Bisexual Network (founded in 1989) and the Florida International University's Stonewall Students Union co-sponsored the First Annual Southeast Regional Bisexual Conference. Thirty-five people from at least four southeastern states attended. [13] In 1993 the First Annual Northwest Regional Conference was sponsored by BiNet USA, the Seattle Bisexual Women's Network, and the Seattle Bisexual Men's Union. It was held in Seattle, and fifty-five people representing Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Montana, and British Columbia attended. [13]
An important event in the LGBT rights movement in this decade was the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. As a result of lobbying by BiPOL (San Francisco), openly bisexual people held key leadership roles in local and regional organizing for the March, and for the first time bisexuals were included in the title of the March. Also, openly bisexual activist and author Lani Ka'ahumanu spoke at the rally, and over 1,000 people marched with the bisexual group. Coinciding with the March, BiNet USA, the Bisexual Resource Center (BRC), and the Washington, DC–based Alliance of Multicultural Bisexuals (AMBi) sponsored the Second National Conference Celebrating Bisexuality in Washington, DC. Over than 600 people attended from the US and Europe, making it at the time the largest Bisexual Conference ever held. [13]
Another important event in the LGBT rights movement was the enactment of the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy. Before the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was enacted in 1993, bisexuals (and lesbians and gays) were banned from serving in the military. [48] In 1993 the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was enacted, which mandated that the military could not ask servicemembers about their sexual orientation. [49] [50] However, until the policy was ended in 2011 service members were still expelled from the military if they engaged in sexual conduct with a member of the same sex, stated that they were bisexual, gay, or lesbian, and/or married or attempted to marry someone of the same sex. [51]
Several important surveys concerning bisexuality were conducted around this time. In 1993, Ron Fox authored the first large scale research study on bisexual identity, and established and maintained a comprehensive bibliography on bi research. [13] Also in 1993, The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior showed that five percent of men and three percent of women considered themselves bisexual. [52] In 1995 BiNet USA Bisexual Youth Initiative, Fayetteville, North Carolina, developed and mailed a national survey to LGBT youth programs. The survey was published and sent back to agencies, offering assistance to improve services to bisexual youth. [13]
In 1992, Colorado voters approved by initiative an amendment to the Colorado state constitution (Amendment 2) that would have prevented any city, town, or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to recognize bisexuals or gay people as a protected class. [53] [54] The amendment stated: [54]
Neither the State of Colorado, through any of its branches or departments, nor any of its agencies, political subdivisions, municipalities or school districts, shall enact, adopt or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy whereby homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the basis of or entitle any person or class of persons to have or claim any minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination. This Section of the Constitution shall be in all respects self-executing.
This led to the 1996 Supreme Court Case Romer v. Evans , in which the Court ruled in a 6–3 decision that the state constitutional amendment in Colorado preventing protected status based upon bisexuality or homosexuality did not satisfy the Equal Protection Clause. [54] The majority opinion in Romer stated that the amendment lacked "a rational relationship to legitimate state interests", and the dissent stated that the majority "evidently agrees that 'rational basis'—the normal test for compliance with the Equal Protection Clause—is the governing standard". [54] [55] The state constitutional amendment failed rational basis review. [56] [57] [58] [59]
The concept of bisexual pride became more widespread in the late 1990s. At an LGBT PrideFest in Connecticut in 1997, Evelyn Mantilla came out as America's first openly bisexual state official. [60] [61] The bisexual pride flag designed by Michael Page was unveiled December 5, 1998. [1] The first Celebrate Bisexuality Day was organized by Michael Page, Gigi Raven Wilbur, and Wendy Curry in 1999, and is now observed annually on September 23. [13]
Bisexual people had notable accomplishments in the LGBT rights movement at this time. In 2001, the American Psychological Association (APA)'s "Guidelines on psychotherapy with lesbian, gay and bisexual clients" stated "homosexuality and bisexuality are not a mental illness"; bisexual activist Ron Fox served on the task force that produced the guidelines. [13] In 2002, Pete Chvany, Luigi Ferrer, James Green, Loraine Hutchins and Monica McLemore presented at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Health Summit, held in Boulder, Colorado, marking the first time bisexual people, transgender people, and intersex people were recognized as co-equal partners on the national level rather than gay and lesbian "allies" or tokens. [13] Also in 2002, bisexual activist Robyn Ochs delivered the first bi-focused keynote during the National Association of Lesbian and Gay Addiction Professionals. [13] In 2003, the Union for Reform Judaism retroactively applied its pro-rights policy on gays and lesbians to both the bisexual and transgender communities. [62] In 2005, bisexual scholars and activists mobilized with The Task Force, GLAAD and BiNet USA to meet with New York Times science section editor and researcher Brian Dodge to respond to misinformation the paper had published on a study about bisexual men. [13] The study, entitled Sexual Arousal Patterns of Bisexual Men, by the controversial researcher J. Michael Bailey, allegedly "proved" that bisexual men did not exist. With little critical examination, various media celebrities and outlets jumped on the band-wagon [63] and claimed to have "solved" the "problem of bisexuality" by declaring it to be non-existent, at least in men. Further studies, including improved follow-up research led by Michael Bailey, proved this to be false. [64] Also in 2005, the Queens Chapter of PFLAG announced the creation of the "Brenda Howard Memorial Award", [65] marking the first time a major American LGBT organization named an award after an openly bisexual person. The National Equality March in Washington, D.C., was held on October 11, 2009, calling for equal protection for bisexual, lesbian, gay, and transgender people in all matters governed by civil law in all states and districts; a dedicated bisexual, pansexual, and queer-identified contingent was organized as part of the March. [66] Several bisexual groups came together and marched, including BiNet USA, New York Area Bisexual Network, DC Bi Women and BiMA DC. [67] There were also four out bisexual speakers at the National Equality March rally: Michael Huffington, Lady Gaga, [68] Chloe Noble, [69] and Penelope Williams. In October 2009, LGBT activist Amy Andre [70] was appointed as executive director of the San Francisco Pride Celebration Committee, making her the organization's first openly bisexual woman of color executive director. [71] [72]
Significant reports about bisexuals were also released in this decade. In 2002, a survey in the United States by National Center for Health Statistics found that 1.8 percent of men ages 18–44 considered themselves bisexual, 2.3 percent homosexual, and 3.9 percent as "something else". The same study found that 2.8 percent of women ages 18–44 considered themselves bisexual, 1.3 percent homosexual, and 3.8 percent as "something else". [52] A 2007 report said that 14.4% of young US women identified themselves as bisexual/lesbian, with 5.6% of the men identifying as gay or bisexual. [73] Also in 2007, an article in the 'Health' section of The New York Times stated that "1.5 percent of American women and 1.7 percent of American men identify themselves [as] bisexual." [74]
In 2008 Kate Brown was elected as the Oregon Secretary of State, becoming America's first openly bisexual statewide officeholder. [75] [76] [77] [78]
In 2011, one of the demands of 2009's National Equality March was met as the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was ended, allowing bisexuals, lesbians, and gay men in the U.S. military to be open about their sexuality. [79] [80] [81] [82]
San Francisco's Human Rights Commission released a report on bisexual visibility in 2011, [83] marking the first time any governmental body released such a report. Its findings indicated that self-identified bisexuals made up the largest single population within the LGBT community in the United States. In each of the report's studies, more women identified as bisexual than lesbian, though fewer men identified as bisexual than gay. [84] Also in 2011, a longitudinal study of sexual minority women (bisexual, unlabeled, and lesbian) found that over 10 years, "more women adopted bisexual/unlabeled identities than relinquished them". Of those who began the study identifying as bisexual, 92% identified as bisexual or unlabeled 10 years later, and 61% of those who began as unlabeled identified as bisexual or unlabeled 10 years later. [84]
In September 2012, Berkeley, California, became the first city in America to officially proclaim a day recognizing bisexuals. [86] The Berkeley City Council unanimously and without discussion declared September 23 as Bisexual Pride and Bi Visibility Day. [86] In 2013 on Bisexual Pride and Bi Visibility Day, the White House held a closed-door meeting with about 30 bisexual advocates so they could meet with government officials and discuss issues of specific importance to the bisexual community; this was the first bi-specific event ever hosted by any White House. [87] [88] Another important contribution to bisexual visibility came in 2014, when the Bisexual Research Collaborative on Health (BiRCH) was founded to search for ways to raise public awareness of bisexual health issues, as well as to continue high-level discussions of bisexual health research and plan a national conference. [89] [90]
As for law and politics, in November 2012 Kyrsten Sinema was elected to the House of Representatives, becoming the first openly bisexual member of Congress in American history. [91] In 2013 BiLaw, the first American national organization of bisexual lawyers, law professors, law students, and their allies, was founded. [92] [93] In February 2015 Kate Brown became the first openly bisexual governor in the United States, upon the resignation of Oregon's chief executive. [94] [95] [96] On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote in Obergefell v. Hodges that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage, legalizing it throughout the United States; this increased the rights of bisexual people in America wishing to marry their same-sex partners. [97] Another important victory came later that year, when the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission concluded that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not allow sexual orientation discrimination in employment because it is a form of sex discrimination. [98] [99] In 2016, Kate Brown was elected as governor of Oregon, and thus became the first openly bisexual person elected as a United States governor (and indeed the first openly LGBT person elected as such). [100] In 2018, Kyrsten Sinema became the first openly bisexual person to win a major party nomination to run for a U.S. Senate seat, and later that year she became the first openly bisexual person elected to the U.S. Senate. [101] [102] As well, Kate Brown was re-elected that year as governor of Oregon. [103] In 2020 Christy Holstege became the first openly bisexual mayor in America, as mayor of Palm Springs, California. [104] [105]
In the first large-scale government survey measuring Americans' sexual orientation, the NHIS reported in July 2014 that 0.7 percent of Americans identify as bisexual. [106] A 2016 survey cited by CNN said that bisexuality was increasing in the United States, with 5.5% of women and 2% of men identifying as bisexual compared with 3.9% and 1.2% respectively in an earlier survey. [107] However the NHIS reported the same year that bisexuality was at .8% for men, and 1.2% for women, only changing slightly the next year.
In 2017, the Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals making the argument that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit discrimination against employees who are bisexual or gay. [108]
In 2018 America's first city-wide Bi Pride event was held, in West Hollywood. [109]
In 2021 Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf became the first governor in the United States to issue a statement recognizing Bisexual Pride Day. [110]
Presently Quakers have varying opinions on LGBTQ people and rights, with some Quaker groups more accepting than others. [135]The Statement, which may have been "the first public declaration of the bisexual movement" and "was certainly the first statement on bisexuality issued by an American religious assembly," appeared in the Quaker Friends Journal and The Advocate in 1972. [25] [134] [27]
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBTQ people in society. Although there is not a primary or an overarching central organization that represents all LGBTQ people and their interests, numerous LGBTQ rights organizations are active worldwide. The first organization to promote LGBTQ rights was the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, founded in 1897 in Berlin.
LGBTQ culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, LGBT culture, and LGBTQIA culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically.
Lani Kaʻahumanu is a Native Hawaiian bisexual and feminist writer and activist. She is openly bisexual and writes and speaks on sexuality issues frequently. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Bisexuality. She is also working on the books My Grassroots Are Showing: Stories, Speeches, and Special Affections and Passing For Other: Primal Creams and Forbidden Dreams – Poetry, Prose, and Performance Pieces. In 1974, she divorced her husband and moved to San Francisco, where she originally came out as a lesbian. She was a student leader in the nascent San Francisco State Women Studies Department, and in 1979, she became the first person in her family to graduate from college. Kaʻahumanu realized she was bisexual and came out again in 1980.
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 community, also known as the bi+, m-spec, bisexual/pansexual, or bi/pan/fluid community, includes members of the LGBTQ community who identify as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual and sexually fluid. As opposed to hetero- or homosexual people, people in the bisexual community experience attraction to more than one gender.
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.
The March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C., on April 25, 1993. Organizers estimated that 1,000,000 attended the March. The D.C. Police Department put the number between 800,000 and more than 1 million, making it one of the largest protests in American history. The National Park Service estimated attendance at 300,000, but their figure attracted so much negative attention that it shortly thereafter stopped issuing attendance estimates for similar events.
LGBTQ movements in the United States comprise an interwoven history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer social movements in the United States of America, beginning in the early 20th century. A commonly stated goal among these movements is social equality for LGBTQ people. Some have also focused on building LGBTQ communities or worked towards liberation for the broader society from biphobia, homophobia, and transphobia. LGBTQ movements organized today are made up of a wide range of political activism and cultural activity, including lobbying, street marches, social groups, media, art, and research. Sociologist Mary Bernstein writes:
For the lesbian and gay movement, then, cultural goals include challenging dominant constructions of masculinity and femininity, homophobia, and the primacy of the gendered heterosexual nuclear family (heteronormativity). Political goals include changing laws and policies in order to gain new rights, benefits, and protections from harm.
The history of LGBT residents in California, which includes centuries prior to the 20th, has become increasingly visible recently with the successes of the LGBT rights movement. In spite of the strong development of early LGBT villages in the state, pro-LGBT activists in California have campaigned against nearly 170 years of especially harsh prosecutions and punishments toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.
The National LGBTQ Task Force is an American social justice advocacy non-profit organizing the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Also known as The Task Force, the organization supports action and activism on behalf of LGBTQ people and advances a progressive vision of liberation. The past executive director was Rea Carey from 2008-2021 and the current executive director is Kierra Johnson, who took over the position in 2021 to become the first Black woman to head the organization.
The Outwords Archive (OUTWORDS) records and archives on-camera interviews with elders from the LGBTQ+ community throughout the United States. The archive headquarters are based in Los Angeles, with the entirety of their digital collection provided to the public for free through their official website. The nonprofit's stated mission is to "capture, preserve, and share the stories of LGBTQIA2S+ elders, to build community and catalyze social change."
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) community in San Francisco is one of the largest and most prominent LGBT communities in the United States, and is one of the most important in the history of American LGBT rights and activism alongside New York City. The city itself has been described as "the original 'gay-friendly city'". LGBT culture is also active within companies that are based in Silicon Valley, which is located within the southern San Francisco Bay Area.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of non-heterosexual conforming people of Asian and Pacific Islander ancestry, who may identify as LGBTIQGNC, men who have sex with men, or related culturally-specific identities. This timeline includes events both in Asia and the Pacific Islands and in the global Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora, as the histories are very deeply linked. Please note: this is a very incomplete timeline, notably lacking LGBTQ-specific items from the 1800s to 1970s, and should not be used as a research resource until additional material is added.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBTQ topics:
The following is a timeline of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) journalism history.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of non-heterosexual conforming people of African ancestry, who may identify as LGBTIQGNC, men who have sex with men, or related culturally specific identities. This timeline includes events both in Africa, the Americas and Europe and in the global African diaspora, as the histories are very deeply linked.
The following is a timeline of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) history in the 20th century.
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.
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