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What Is the Right Way to Come Out as Bisexual at Work?

Q. Dear Civil Behavior: I’m bisexual (female), and I want to be out at work. I just don’t quite know how to slip it into conversation … But, bisexual visibility can only get better if people like me don’t cop out and say we are gay when that’s not true. Any advice on how to make “out bisexual” a little easier? ~ Erica, East Brunswick, NJ

A. Over the years I’ve frequently heard from my bi friends that it’s harder for them to come out than it is for those of us who are gay or lesbian because of the enduring myths about being bisexual. Stereotypes persist, and many people think that identifying as bi means

  1. you’re going through a phase
  2. you’re promiscuous or
  3. you’re really gay but not telling the truth.

If more bi folks come out of course visibility increases. But is work the right place to do this? … BUT without making a “declaration,” don’t our straight colleagues routinely discuss how they spent the weekend with their opposite-sex partner, which is a nonchalant way of proclaiming their sexual identity …

Context is key here … Two bisexual activists, A.J. Walkley and Lauren Michelle Kinsey who write the column Bi the Bi: Two Bi Writers on Big Bi Issues also recommended casual “water cooler”ways of bringing up your sexual identity through current events.

“I was thrilled to hear that Clive Davis came out as bisexual, being bisexual myself,” or “Did you hear that same-sex couples will soon be able to marry in Delaware? It means a lot to me since I’m bisexual.”

Context isn’t the only thing that matters here – consider your company and its commitment to diversity and inclusion as well. Many corporations now have LGBT employee groups; think about getting involved as an out bi person and use that public role to reduce the invisibility of bisexuals in the workplace.

Click HERE to Read the full column

Every other Tuesday, Steven Petrow, the author of “Steven Petrow’s Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners: The Definitive Guide to LGBT Life”, addresses questions about gay and straight etiquette in his column Civil Behavior in the New York Times. Send questions for Civil Behavior to stevenpetrow (at) earthlink (dot) net.

[USA]: News You Can Use - FAFSA Forms to simply list "Parents" instead of "Mother/Father"

No longer will the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Form say, “Mother” and “Father”. Instead, the form was changed so that a student’s Legal Parents can be listed in a Gender-independent manner.

Today the US Department of Education announced that beginning with the 2014-2015 federal student aid form, the Department will—for the first time—collect income and other information from a dependent student’s legal parents regardless of the parents’ marital status or gender, if those parents live together.

The 2014-2015 Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, will provide a new option for dependent applicants to describe their parents’ marital status as “unmarried and both parents living together.” Additionally, where appropriate, the new FAFSA form will also use terms like “Parent 1 (father/mother/stepparent)” and “Parent 2 (father/mother/stepparent)” instead of gender-specific terms like “mother” and “father.”

(via Bi Parents)

Being Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Asexual and Christian An Affirming Talk and Question and Answer Session with Pastor Maggie Gillespie

bisexual-community:

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Are you Christian and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Asexual, Allied or Questioning? Do you have religious questions or concerns?

This Saturday, May 11th 2013 at 2 PM the Bloomsburg Danville Berwick PA LGBTA Community invites you to join them at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church located on East Main and Iron Street in Bloomsburg PA for an Affirming Talk and Question and Answer Session with Pastor Maggie Gillespie.  Dr. Gillespie is currently the Protestant Campus Ministry at Bloomsburg University.  Refreshments will be served.

Can’t make it to this event? Please join our Facebook Page: Bloomsburg/Danville/Berwick PA LGBTA Community, a group for LGBTA people in the greater Bloomsburg PA Area to connect,network and support each other.

Our group is for ALL people in the area who otherwise do not have access to support and fellowship so all local residents can receive such as well as students and alumni of various universities. Together, community, students and alumni we can improve all our lives.

And the Award for Coolest Parents Ever! goes to this family

bisexual-community:

As they explained —

“Last year, our teenage daughter came out to her mother and I as being bisexual.
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We have always fostered an open atmosphere as parents so the ease with which she told us did not come as a surprise. Looking back now, I can safely say I was more surprised in her absolute certainty and the matter-of-factness with which she told us. This was not a choice. This was not a phase. This was her saying, “This is who I am” …

… Being the type of parents that we are, my wife and I decided to look for ways to show our daughter support and to become involved as a family…and so, the LGBT playing card deck idea was born … each suit has a LGBT symbol inside the suit’s symbol. Next, each suit’s Ace and Face Cards are symbols associated with the sexual orientation they represent. Finally, we did away with Jokers and advertising cards and dedicated these four cards to explaining the origins and meanings of each symbol represented in the deck.
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Our hope for this deck is to not only give the LGBT community a set of playing cards which celebrates diversity but that also has the ability to open lines of communication which may have otherwise been closed.”

Now these are some REAL Family values!

They are raising money for this worthwhile family project thru Kickstarter. And unlike a plethora of other projects designed more to exploit the rising purchasing power of the bisexual community this one’s ♥ and head seem to be in the right place.

(Source: facebook.com)

Transcending Boundaries Conference 2014 Keynote Speaker: Wintersong Tashlin

transcendboundaries:

Trancending Boundaries Conference 2014 Keynote Speaker: Wintersong Tashlin

Houston we have a keynote speaker! The Transcending Boundaries Conference is thrilled to announce the keynote speaker for our 2014 conference will be long time friend of TBC, Wintersong Tashlin!

E. Winter/Wintersong Tashlin is an educator, blogger, shaman, photographer, and activist with over a decade of experience running rituals and teaching classes that range from private one-on-one instruction, to workshops at some of the premier events in the United States. Topics he presents on include alternative sexuality & BDSM, spirituality, magic, queer/LGBT issues, polyamory, and disability management.

He is associate editor for the LGBT blog The Bilerico Project, and an assistant producer/programing coordinator for Dark Odyssey Events. Organizations he has presented for include Transcending Boundaries, Five College Queer Sexuality & Gender Conference, National Tourette Syndrome Association, Dark Odyssey, The Floating World, Free Spirit Alliance, and The Pagan Kingdom of Asphodel.

His ritual work particularly focuses around rites of personal transformation, and he is a founder and council member of Clan Tashlin, a magical and spiritual order built around a unique relationship between people and the energies of the world around us. He has appeared in television documentaries featuring topics such as polyamory, spirituality, and genital integrity in both the United States and Great Britain.

His photography has appeared in Salacious Magazine, on the websites of Crash Pad and Fruit Punch Productions, as well as in a number of both pagan and mainstream books. Winter received a Bachelors of Arts from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA.

bimagazine: The Lambda Literary Foundation describes LGBT Studies as scholarly work oriented toward academia, libraries, cultural professionals, and the more academic reader. Bi Magazine reviewer Anil Vora would argue that one doesn’t have to be a geek to read and appreciate these books. On the contrary, books on LGBT studies provide history and context on queer movements worldwide, movements from which we can draw inspiration and energy to drive our own continued struggle for equality. These books are also some of the most successful in articulating a vision of hope for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Vora’s review includes three nominated books: Acts of Gaiety: LGBT Performance and the Politics of Pleasure by Sara Warner, The Invention of Heterosexual Culture (L’Invention de la culture hétérosexuelle) by Louis-Georges Tin, and South Africa and the Dream of Love to Come: Queer Sexuality and the Struggle for Freedom by Brenna Munro. Also included is J. Jack Halberstam’s Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal, which was submitted for Lammy consideration but did not make the final list.
bimagazine: The Lambda Literary Foundation describes LGBT Studies as scholarly work oriented toward academia, libraries, cultural professionals, and the more academic reader. Bi Magazine reviewer Anil Vora would argue that one doesn’t have to be a geek to read and appreciate these books. On the contrary, books on LGBT studies provide history and context on queer movements worldwide, movements from which we can draw inspiration and energy to drive our own continued struggle for equality. These books are also some of the most successful in articulating a vision of hope for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Vora’s review includes three nominated books: Acts of Gaiety: LGBT Performance and the Politics of Pleasure by Sara Warner, The Invention of Heterosexual Culture (L’Invention de la culture hétérosexuelle) by Louis-Georges Tin, and South Africa and the Dream of Love to Come: Queer Sexuality and the Struggle for Freedom by Brenna Munro. Also included is J. Jack Halberstam’s Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal, which was submitted for Lammy consideration but did not make the final list.
bimagazine: The Lambda Literary Foundation describes LGBT Studies as scholarly work oriented toward academia, libraries, cultural professionals, and the more academic reader. Bi Magazine reviewer Anil Vora would argue that one doesn’t have to be a geek to read and appreciate these books. On the contrary, books on LGBT studies provide history and context on queer movements worldwide, movements from which we can draw inspiration and energy to drive our own continued struggle for equality. These books are also some of the most successful in articulating a vision of hope for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Vora’s review includes three nominated books: Acts of Gaiety: LGBT Performance and the Politics of Pleasure by Sara Warner, The Invention of Heterosexual Culture (L’Invention de la culture hétérosexuelle) by Louis-Georges Tin, and South Africa and the Dream of Love to Come: Queer Sexuality and the Struggle for Freedom by Brenna Munro. Also included is J. Jack Halberstam’s Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal, which was submitted for Lammy consideration but did not make the final list.
bimagazine: The Lambda Literary Foundation describes LGBT Studies as scholarly work oriented toward academia, libraries, cultural professionals, and the more academic reader. Bi Magazine reviewer Anil Vora would argue that one doesn’t have to be a geek to read and appreciate these books. On the contrary, books on LGBT studies provide history and context on queer movements worldwide, movements from which we can draw inspiration and energy to drive our own continued struggle for equality. These books are also some of the most successful in articulating a vision of hope for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Vora’s review includes three nominated books: Acts of Gaiety: LGBT Performance and the Politics of Pleasure by Sara Warner, The Invention of Heterosexual Culture (L’Invention de la culture hétérosexuelle) by Louis-Georges Tin, and South Africa and the Dream of Love to Come: Queer Sexuality and the Struggle for Freedom by Brenna Munro. Also included is J. Jack Halberstam’s Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal, which was submitted for Lammy consideration but did not make the final list.

bimagazine:

The Lambda Literary Foundation describes LGBT Studies as scholarly work oriented toward academia, libraries, cultural professionals, and the more academic reader.

Bi Magazine reviewer Anil Vora would argue that one doesn’t have to be a geek to read and appreciate these books. On the contrary, books on LGBT studies provide history and context on queer movements worldwide, movements from which we can draw inspiration and energy to drive our own continued struggle for equality. These books are also some of the most successful in articulating a vision of hope for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

 Vora’s review includes three nominated books: Acts of Gaiety: LGBT Performance and the Politics of Pleasure by Sara Warner, The Invention of Heterosexual Culture (L’Invention de la culture hétérosexuelle) by Louis-Georges Tin, and South Africa and the Dream of Love to Come: Queer Sexuality and the Struggle for Freedom by Brenna Munro. Also included is J. Jack Halberstam’s Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal, which was submitted for Lammy consideration but did not make the final list.

How Does My Topic Influence Culture?

gayandlesbianstudies:

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I found this mural on the website: www.queerculturalcenter.org , and It shows many different cultures of people in the LGBT community expressing themselves in ways that they can relate to from their experiences and showing them through art.  Also, it shows how no matter  you identity yourself and no matter what customs you may have, art is plays an escape, because it allows a person to be free and not hide from anything or anyone do to fear of non acceptance.

[Chicago]: LGBT suicide prevention symposium held The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) hosted an LGBT suicide prevention symposium at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago IL on April 20. About 100 people gathered to hear leaders in the field of mental health and the LGBT community present information on suicide prevention and survivor support within the LGBT community… Brother Michael Oboza, Orthodox Catholic Eastern Rite monastic, a founder of Bisexual Queer Alliance Chicago and the first bisexual liaison to the Center on Halsted, spoke about bisexual equality and suicide prevention. Many people don’t understand or won’t accept that bisexuals exist within and outside of the LGBT community, noted Oboza. Studies show that bisexuals struggle at a higher percentage than their gay, lesbian and straight counterparts, Oboza remarked. Then Oboza talked about his suicide attempt at the age of 31. He also shared the stories of four bisexual individuals (Bill Clayton, August Provost, Anthony Stubbs and Kitty McGuire) who committed suicide. As Oboza told their stories, he held up their picture and then ripped the picture in half, symbolizing their deaths … The day also featured a number of panel discussions: Panel on LGBT throughout Life; Panel on Law; Panel on LGBT in the Media, including Bi Social Network’s Adrienne Williams a bisexual editor, writer and activist. Ms. Williams also represented the AFSP Media Watchers Group; and the Panel on LGBT Community Resources
[Chicago]: LGBT suicide prevention symposium held The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) hosted an LGBT suicide prevention symposium at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago IL on April 20. About 100 people gathered to hear leaders in the field of mental health and the LGBT community present information on suicide prevention and survivor support within the LGBT community… Brother Michael Oboza, Orthodox Catholic Eastern Rite monastic, a founder of Bisexual Queer Alliance Chicago and the first bisexual liaison to the Center on Halsted, spoke about bisexual equality and suicide prevention. Many people don’t understand or won’t accept that bisexuals exist within and outside of the LGBT community, noted Oboza. Studies show that bisexuals struggle at a higher percentage than their gay, lesbian and straight counterparts, Oboza remarked. Then Oboza talked about his suicide attempt at the age of 31. He also shared the stories of four bisexual individuals (Bill Clayton, August Provost, Anthony Stubbs and Kitty McGuire) who committed suicide. As Oboza told their stories, he held up their picture and then ripped the picture in half, symbolizing their deaths … The day also featured a number of panel discussions: Panel on LGBT throughout Life; Panel on Law; Panel on LGBT in the Media, including Bi Social Network’s Adrienne Williams a bisexual editor, writer and activist. Ms. Williams also represented the AFSP Media Watchers Group; and the Panel on LGBT Community Resources

[Chicago]: LGBT suicide prevention symposium held

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) hosted an LGBT suicide prevention symposium at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago IL on April 20. About 100 people gathered to hear leaders in the field of mental health and the LGBT community present information on suicide prevention and survivor support within the LGBT community…

Brother Michael Oboza, Orthodox Catholic Eastern Rite monastic, a founder of Bisexual Queer Alliance Chicago and the first bisexual liaison to the Center on Halsted, spoke about bisexual equality and suicide prevention. Many people don’t understand or won’t accept that bisexuals exist within and outside of the LGBT community, noted Oboza. Studies show that bisexuals struggle at a higher percentage than their gay, lesbian and straight counterparts, Oboza remarked.

Then Oboza talked about his suicide attempt at the age of 31. He also shared the stories of four bisexual individuals (Bill Clayton, August Provost, Anthony Stubbs and Kitty McGuire) who committed suicide. As Oboza told their stories, he held up their picture and then ripped the picture in half, symbolizing their deaths …

The day also featured a number of panel discussions: Panel on LGBT throughout Life; Panel on Law; Panel on LGBT in the Media, including Bi Social Network’s Adrienne Williams a bisexual editor, writer and activist. Ms. Williams also represented the AFSP Media Watchers Group; and the Panel on LGBT Community Resources

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