Tracks
New York City: Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, veterans of the Stonewall Rebellion and founders of STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), march in the 1973 Pride Parade.
Aww … once upon a time in NYC … “Ah, but I was so much older then/I’m younger than that now”
That’s not my bi history! It needs us to tell it how it is – and how it was
Concerned? We are too! As Jen Yockney wrote in Bi Community News:
In 2010, I went to two events to mark LGBT History Month. Both of them left me thinking, ‘this is not my history’.
One was an event that promised to talk about bisexuality, but the presentation skipped most of the last 25 years worth of bisexual community activism. When I asked a question that referenced Bi Community News – one of the longest running bi projects in the country [ed note Great Brittan], after all – it got blank looks from the speaker.
So many theorists, activists, events, publications, erased from the record presented. And knowing that for other attendees, if I didn’t challenge what was being said, then it was likely they’d go away taking the history presented as fair and true.
In complete bewilderment we have watched the wholesale attempt to rewrite and redefine all of modern bisexual history to make us disappear. A trend that really started picking up steam in late 2005/early 2006 and it seems continues unabated.
One of the latest stunts being buzzed about in the Bisexual Community? A re-editing this past July 2012 of the meaning of the familiar rose lavender and blue gradient (the bisexual pride colours) that has been used since the 1970’s in the familiar “Bi-Angles” symbol and then later was adopted into the Bi Pride Flag. As was calmly noted someone changed the meaning specificially so as to give, “more detail on non-binary erasure in the flag”.
Why? What is the point? What is being gained by this? And by who?
[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.”
Frida Kahlo, Cultural Icon and Queer Trailblazer
Known for her haunting self-portraits and an existence marked by tragedy and political action, Kahlo was not passive or traditionally beautiful. She was la más chingona of the women of her time (and of ours). Openly bisexual, she had no qualms about declaring her opinion … Still, over a hundred years after her birth, she remains an omnipresent cultural representation of fortitude in the midst of adversity, fearlessness of the unknown, sexual liberation, and opposition to conformity.
I often wonder if Kahlo was aware of the trail she was blazing, or if she somehow possessed a furtive knowledge of the mark she would leave for the generations to follow … she was the consummate example of a queer feminist icon, and we would be remiss to discuss Frida Kahlo without noting the undeniable effect she has had on the feminist and LGBTQ communities. Not only was she a sexually liberated woman who proudly and openly declared a love for women and an appreciation for the power of transgressing gender norms, she was unafraid of being seen as different.
Unwittingly, she defined what it means to be queer and simultaneously validates the sense of community associated with it.
Homosexuality was invented by a straight world dealing with its own bisexuality. But finding this difficult, and preferring not to admit it, it invented a pariah state, a leper colony for the incorrigible whose very existence, when tolerated openly, was admonition to all. We queers keep everyone straight as whores keep matrons virtuous.
—Kate Millett, from her book Flying, part 1, 1974
(via pinkwithneurons)
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)
