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The term ‘bi’ is an umbrella term used to describe a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards more than one gender. Bi people may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms, including, but not limited to, bi, bisexual, pan and/or queer. There are a range of terms under the umbrella, and no ‘right’ way to be bi! Bi people can be trans, including non-binary. Bi people can be cis. Bi people can be ace.
To mark Bi-Visibility Day, the Bi Pride flag will be flown outside St Paul’s Hall today.
The University is a member of the Stonewall Diversity Champions programme and is working towards a submission to the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index. The Workplace Equality Index is an external benchmarking tool for the University to measure its achievements and progress on lesbian, gay, bi and trans inclusion in the workplace. The University is committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone can be themselves and reach their full potential.
The University of Huddersfield’s Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans*, Queer and Intersex + (LGBTQI+) Staff Network was set up in April 2018. Please view the current LGBTQI+ Staff Network - Terms of Reference or to find out more about this network, please contact Carson McCombe (Chair).
Visibility can break down barriers, challenge misconceptions and provide inspiration to others. Derry Canning, Research Project Officer and Jake Livingstone, a student at the University share their personal experiences of being Bi and why Bi+ visibility is so important.
“Aren’t you just being indecisive?”, “you’re faking it!”, “stop taking up space for real gay people!”- these are just some of the things I had said to me while marching in a Pride parade in 2015. I was 16, wrapped in a pansexual flag and finally starting to feel confident being ‘out’ in public. I had been invited by the local branch of my political party to join them in a Pride march and accepted. I saved up for weeks to order my pansexual flag online, and when it arrived, I was absolutely elated. Labels and terminology don’t mean something to everyone, but for me I had finally found a term that explained how I’d felt growing up. As an angsty emo teenager, gender just didn’t factor into my attraction, and it felt really confusing. Bisexuality kind of fit but didn’t emphasise how little gender factored into my attraction. Thanks to the internet, I started to understand that bisexuality is an umbrella term for a lot of different sexualities, and found pansexual. It immediately spoke to me and just knowing that other people felt like I did, made me feel so much confident in myself. I felt a sense of belonging and found peace and acceptance that I wasn’t strange or odd - that there were others out there who felt like me.
The march was a wonderful celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community. We danced, we waved flags, we sang, it was amazing. When we reached the end, most people started drinking. I was too young of course, and instead had a bake sale stall set up where I was raising money for a charity. I had anticipated some potential backlash from members outside of the Pride community but had never expected any negative comments from other queer people. As the night progressed, I received more and more questions about the flag I was wearing and what it meant. At first it was positive discourse, but it slowly fell into accusations of being “fake”, “indecisive”, and “greedy”. People demanded that I tell them my entire dating history to “prove” that I was bisexual in any way, never mind pansexual. I left my stall early and hid my flag. The most hurtful thing was that the people interrogating me were mostly gay men and lesbian women, belittling me and my experiences and telling me that I was taking up space that was meant for them.
I now know that comments and beliefs like this have a name - biphobia. It was particularly hurtful because this was a space that could have lifted me up, and celebrated my sexuality. Instead, it did the opposite and made me less confident in myself, and in the queer community. I haven’t been to a Pride event since then. Although I haven’t received any comments like this since (probably because I am less vocal about my sexuality), I seem to have internalised what they said. I am now in love with a man and have been for over 5 years. So, I am privileged enough to walk down any street hand in hand with my lover, and not be persecuted or looked at. But that doesn’t change my sexuality. I am still pansexual. I still think and feel about attraction as I did when I discovered pansexuality. This has led to some very confusing debates in my head about whether those people were right, what if I was faking it? What if I was just unsure? What if I was just young and confused?
Complete rubbish. I was not and I am not faking it. I’m not unsure, I am not young or confused, I know exactly who I am. That 16 year old girl was completely spot on. Some people’s sexualities change and fluctuate, but when someone is bold enough to tell you what their sexuality is, do not question it. I promise you, they are doing that enough themselves.
Bi+ visibility is becoming increasingly more and more important as the years go by. Before we can properly talk about why bi+ visibility is important, it is important to understand what is meant by the term “Bi+”
Bi+ is used as a catchall umbrella term for different identities that involve sexual attraction to multiple genders, with identities like bisexual, pansexual and polysexual falling under the umbrella of Bi+. With new research by Stonewall saying that only 20% of bi+ people are out to family members when compared with 63% of gay men and lesbians, bi-erasure and biphobia has a massive impact on the health and wellbeing of bi+ communities.
Bi+ people also face a number of different negative stereotypes, that we are “greedy” or “incapable of monogamy” (side note, while some bi+ people may be polyamorous, this is not because they are bi+), with assumptions about bi+ people being essentially gendered, with bi+ women being seen as “basically straight”, and bi+ men being seen as “basically gay”.
Bi+ visibility is so important to combat the biphobia that is occasionally rampant in the queer community at large, as both myself and quite possibly other bi+ people can attest that it ends up being easier to find matches on dating apps if all notion of being bi+ is removed from my profile.