The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
(Source: goodreads.com)
Tracks
WHAT DOES BIPHOBIA LOOK LIKE?
Copied from here because I wanted it to be in a text post, so people would read it.
I’ve bolded statements that bear extra truth. The experiences I’ve had today after letting slip in an office full of straight (or straight acting) people that I’m bisexual has worn me out.
Biphobia, funnily enough, seems to be OK. I imagine if I’d come out as gay, things might have been a little less embarrassing for all involved.
- Assuming that everyone you meet is either heterosexual or homosexual.
- Supporting and understanding a bisexual identity for young people because you identified “that way” before you came to your “real” lesbian/gay/heterosexual identity.
- Expecting a bisexual to identify as heterosexual when coupled with the so called different gender/sex.
- Believing bisexual men spread AIDS/HIV to heterosexuals.
- Thinking bisexual people haven’t made up their minds.
- Assuming a bisexual person would want to fulfill your sexual fantasies or curiosities.
- Assuming bisexuals would be willing to “pass” as anything other than bisexual.
- Feeling that bisexual people are too outspoken and pushy about their visibility and rights.
- Automatically assuming romantic couplings of two women are lesbian, or two men are gay, or a man and a woman are heterosexual.
- Expecting bisexual people to get services, information, and education from heterosexual service agencies for their “heterosexual side” (sic) and then go to gay and/or lesbian service agencies for their “homosexual side” (sic).
- Feeling bisexuals just want to have their cake and eat it too.
- Believing that bisexual women spread AIDS/HIV to lesbians.
- Using the terms “phase” or “stage” or “confused” or “fence-sitter” or “bisexual” or “AC/DC” or “switch-hitter” as slurs or in an accusatory way.
- Thinking bisexuals only have committed relationships with so called different sex/gender partners.
- Looking at a bisexual person and automatically thinking of their sexuality rather than seeing them as a whole, complete person.
- Assuming that bisexuals, if given the choice, would prefer to be in an different gender/sex coupling to reap the social benefits of a so-called “heterosexual” pairing [sic].
- Not confronting a biphobic remark or joke for fear of being identified as bisexual.
- Assuming bisexual means “available.” - THIS THIS THIS!!!
- Thinking that bisexual people will have their rights when lesbian and gay people win theirs.
- Being gay or lesbian and asking your bisexual friend about their lover or whom they are dating only when that person is the “same” sex/gender.
- Believing bisexuals are confused about their sexuality.
- Feeling that you can’t trust a bisexual because they aren’t really gay or lesbian, or aren’t really heterosexual.
- Expecting a bisexual to identify as gay or lesbian when coupled with the “same” sex/gender.
- Expecting bisexual activists and organizers to minimize bisexual issues (i.e. HIV/AIDS, violence, basic civil rights, fighting the Right, military, same-sex marriage, child custody, adoption, etc.) and to prioritize the visibility of so called “lesbian and/or gay” issues.
- Avoid mentioning to friends that you are involved with a bisexual or working with a bisexual group because you are afraid they will think you are a bisexual.
Adapted by Lani Ka‘ahumanu and Rob Yaeger/BiNet USA, 1996, from Rape Crisis Center of West Contra Costa County, CA, and from Lesbians: A Consciousness Raising Kit, by the Boston Lesbian Task Force, and by Building Bridges, March, 1995.
What will it take for the gayristocracy to realize that bisexual, lesbian, transgender and gay people are in this together we can and will move the agenda forward.
But this will not happen until public recognition of our common issues is made, and a sincere effort to confront biphobia and transphobia is made by the established gay and lesbian leadership in this country.
In 1971 Petty Officer Robert A. Martin Jr. became the first US Servicemember to publicly fight his discharge for being a LGBTQ person. Said journalist Randy Shilts in his 1993 book Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military,
In the tens of thousands of hearings since World War II where comparable actions had been taken on the basis of comparable evidence, the matter ended there, with the sailor skulking away in disgrace. Petty Officer Martin, however, went public with what had happened to him and swore to fight for an honorable discharge
Despite the support, he received a general discharge in 1972, but he continued to fight and in 1977 his discharge was upgraded to “honorable”. wrote historian David Eisenbach in his 2006 book Gay Power: An American Revolution,
Martin’s groundbreaking public battle against the Navy kicked off a series of well-publicized challenges to military discharges that harnessed and directed the energy of the gay rights movement in the 1970s.
Despite the words gay, gay , gay being endless thrown about Petty Officer Martin, (who is better known by his nom de guerre Stephen Donaldson and his pen name Donny the Punk) is a famous and important bisexual activist.
Though he did die just short of his 50th birthday (yes from AIDS, in many ways he completely epitomized the “sex and drugs and rock-and-roll” lifestyle of his era with all it’s excesses, pitfalls and it’s joyousness) he had an amazingly full life and quite the wild ride. In 1966 he founded the first LGBTQ Student Group, he was an active member in the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) & Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) the groups that sprang to life immediately the day after the Stonewall Riots and most famously in 1972 he helped draft the Quaker Committee of Friends “Ithaca Statement on Bisexuality”, perhaps the earliest public expression of a new bisexual consciousness.
[History] Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out
Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out is the book that catalyzed the movement for bisexual identity and activism, helped spark at least ten other books (many by its own contributors) and was named one of Lambda Book Review’s Top 100 LGBT Books of the 20th century. It frequently appears on numerous LGBT reading lists, from assistance in coming out to queer studies curriculum guides.
Says Sarah Stumpf on Bilerico’s “10 Books Every Bisexual Should Read”, “One of the most famous books about bisexuality, and still one of the most important. In 1991 this book shattered the idea that there was a ‘typical’ bisexual by challenging the stereotypes that still plague us today … it was one of the first books I read that made me feel like home, like I had found my people.”
An anthology edited by Dr. Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka’ahumanu, is one of the seminal books in the history of the modern bisexual rights movement. It holds a place that is in many ways comparable to that held by Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in the feminist movement.
Wendy Curry, longtime bisexual rights activist and a former president of the American national bisexual civil rights group BiNet USA says:
“This groundbreaking book gave voice to a generation of previously unseen bisexuals. Rather than arguing statistics or debating the sexuality of long dead celebrities, Hutchins and Ka’ahumanu gave a space to normal bisexuals who told their lives. This created a new genre for books on bisexuality.”
The book comprises fiction and non-fiction pieces, poetry and art created by a diverse group of over seventy bisexual people speaking about their lives.
stuff all bisexual/non-monosexual people should know
The next time someone asks you why LGBT Pride Marches exist or why Gay Pride Month is June tell them “A bisexual woman named Brenda Howard thought it should be.”
Tom Limoncelli, in BiSquish, July 27, 2005 (via bi-pride)
There’s that, and the fact that the Stonewall Rebellion, when we all fought back against police brutality, happened in June.
(via mikelo)A militant activist who helped plan and participated in LGBT rights actions for over three decades, Howard was an active member of the Gay Liberation Front, the Lavender Menace and for several years chair of the Gay Activists Alliance’s Speakers Bureau in the post-Stonewall era.
She is known as the “Mother of Pride”, for her work in coordinating a rally and then the “Christopher Street Liberation Day March” to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Howard 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. Additionally, Howard is credited by Dr. Wayne R Dynes in his ‘Homolexis’ along with fellow LGBTQ+ Activists including bisexual activist Stephen Donaldson and gay activist L. Craig Schoonmaker who is credited with first using the phrase with popularizing the word “Pride” to describe these festivities.
(via bisexual-community)
reblogging with all the extra included information made necessary by those snidely superior sorts who are obviously unable to FOLLOW A LINK and READ SIMPLE DECLARATIVE SENTENCES. *smh*
The next time someone asks you why LGBT Pride Marches exist or why Gay Pride Month is June tell them “A bisexual woman named Brenda Howard thought it should be.”
Real etymology of “Bisexual”. Surprise! Actually has nothing to do with 50%/50%, hook-ups or cheaters.
Via gay .org.uk
ah yes, the old battle-cry of the bisexual rights movement, still relevant today
(Source: rebelsneedlove2)
We are tired of being analyzed, defined and represented by people other than ourselves, or worse yet, not considered at all. We are frustrated by the imposed isolation and invisibility that comes from being told or expected to choose either a homosexual or heterosexual identity.
Monosexuality is a heterosexist dictate used to oppress homosexuals and to negate the validity of bisexuality.
Bisexuality is a whole, fluid identity. Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or duogamous in nature: that we have “two” sides or that we must be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don’t assume that there are only two genders. Do not mistake our fluidity for confusion, irresponsibility, or an inability to commit. Do not equate promiscuity, infidelity, or unsafe sexual behavior with bisexuality. Those are human traits that cross all sexual orientations. Nothing should be assumed about anyone’s sexuality, including your own.
We are angered by those who refuse to accept our existence; our issues; our contributions; our alliances; our voice. It is time for the bisexual voice to be heard.
