Bi History Group

[bihistorygroup-blog]

Bisexual (Cis, Trans, Gender Nonconforming) Women visibly participating over the years in the NYC LGBT Pride March

[thetrevorproject]

As ‪#‎LGBTQHistoryMonth‬ ends, we honor folks who are paving the way for brighter ‪#‎bisexual‬ futures, like advocates Faith Cheltenham of BiNet USA, Camille Beredjick of GayWrites and GLSEN, and Mimi Hoang of Los Angeles Bi Task Force. ‪#‎biawareness‬

[thetrevorproject]

As #LGBTQHistoryMonth ends, we honor young voices in the #LGBTQ community who are documenting history and their communities, like Bisexual writer and advocate, @elielcruzwrites. http://elielcruz.com/

[bihistorygroup-blog]

HuffPost Live

HuffPost Live is a live-streaming network that attempts to create the most social video experience possible. Viewers are invited to join discussions live as on-air guests. Topics range from politics to pop culture.

[LGBT History Month 2015]: Monday October 19th 2015 @ 10:15AM PST / 1:15PM EST BiNet USA​  president Faith Cheltenham; Robyn Ochs, Activist, Writer & Speaker​; Goddard College​ Professor, co-editor of Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men-An Anthology​ and founder of Black Funk: The Center for Culture, Sexuality, and Spirituality​ Dr Herukhuti​;  joined Alex Berg on HuffPost Live​ for an interesting and wide-ranging talk on important figures in Bisexual History as part of their ongoing series on LGBT History Month!

Tune in to hear it live or catch up with it later online and learn about so many fascinating, creative bisexual people and all the great amazing things and contributions so many of us in our big beautiful bisexual tribe have done, are still doing and will continue to do into the future.  

[biresourcecenter]

I am proud of my intersecting identities as a bisexual transgender woman of color. I recognize that I live at the margins of mainstream society, even within loosely formed LGBT communities.

[bihistorygroup-blog]

Andrea Jenkins shares some important history about the Stonewall Riots and warns everyone -- Don't believe the 'whitewashed' version coming soon to a theater near you.

"When you watch the trailer ask yourself, where are the people of color that made the Stonewall Inn their hangout? There were very few places that Black and Latina “drag queens,” stone butch lesbians, and openly bisexual folks could hang out because they were not welcome in many other places... The night of the police raid of the Stonewall was actually Marsha P. Johnson’s birthday ... Unlike many of the white men who frequented other gay clubs, these Trans women had very little to lose ... The working and middle class white [gay] men who hung out in Greenwich Village had jobs and other liabilities they could not risk by confronting the police and rioting. That is why police felt so comfortable raiding these establishments frequently... After the night, Marsha [P. Johnson] and Silva [Rivera] organized marches and rallies advocating for equal rights and the end of police harassment. They formed an organization called S.T.A.R.S., Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries to address the needs of homeless youth, offer clothing, shelter, and other basic needs. One year later, bisexual woman Brenda Howard worked with people [Gay Liberation Front (GLF)] to organize a commemorating march that eventually became the annual Pride march that people perform around the world. Says Ms. Jenkins, "I am proud of my intersecting identities as a bisexual transgender woman of color. I recognize that I live at the margins of mainstream society, even within loosely formed LGBT communities... This erasure of trans women of color is transphobic, racist, and xenophobic and it needs to stop..."

Andrea Jenkins, Board Chair at Intermedia Arts is an artist-activist, and award-winning poet and writer. She has been awarded fellowships from the Bush Foundation, Intermedia Arts, and the Playwrights Center; has won writing and performance grants and scholarships from the Givens Foundation, Intermedia Arts, The Loft, the Napa Valley Writers Conference, and Pillsbury House Theater. Ms. Jenkins who was a keynoter at the 2015 BECAUSE Conference is the co-curator of Queer Voices at Intermedia Arts, the longest-running series of its kind in the nation, and currently works collecting oral histories from hundreds of people in the Upper Midwest transgender community as an Oral Historian in the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.

[bisexual-community]

i understand how the idea of "bisexual chic" can be used to erase bisexuality, but is the concept entirely biphobic? or was there/is there a period when bisexuality is seen as 'trendy' and celebrities tend come out as bi?

Why yes, there have been periods and places when bisexuality was seen as ‘trendy’.  For example in Western Culture the period from 510 BC to 323 BC springs readily to mind … But seriously, the answer is a resounding “No!”. 

If you stop to look at what was Really going on you will soon see that it coincides with a time when many people - celebrities included - were finally starting to come out as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual as well as Trans/Gender Non-conforming.  And indeed THAT phenomena does/(or at least did) come in waves, depending on how safe and accepting society seemed to be at that time.  

However while people coming out as Lesbian/Gay were seen as brave, forward-thinking pioneers to be respected, admired and applauded as role-models … both Bisexual AND Trans/Gender Non-conforming people tended to be held up to ridicule or as some sort of trendy or even weird “Hollywood” or Publicity-seeking phenomena. And they were also belittled with phrases such as “Bisexual Chic” and “Bi Curious” as well as “Gender-fuck”, “Tranny”, etc. Including and especially from inside the LGBT Community itself. So for example:

when Harvey Milk, a Gay Man decided to run for SF City Supervisor in 1973 he was courageous role-model for the entire LGBT Community nationwide;

when “Walk on the Wild Side” a song about LGBT life in NYC included discussing Trans/Genderqueer people as members of the Community  – written and performed by Lou Reed,a Bisexual Man (and produced by David Bowie BTW) reached Number 16 on the “Billboard Hot 100 Singles Charts” in the Same Year … That was simply dismissed as an example of “Bisexual Chic”. 

Those interested in reading just a few articles of many the topics of the Dismissal + Erasure of Bisexual and Trans/Genderqueer People in the Modern Queer Rights Movement may wish to read:

“Bisexual Manifesto” (1990) historic declaration about what it means to be bisexual as defined by members of the bisexual community themselves from the magazine “Anything That Moves”, a literary, journalistic, and topical magazine published in the USA from 1990 to 2002.

“How I Spent My Two Week Vacation Being a Token Bisexual” (1993) including text of first speech ever allowed to be delivered by a (openly) bisexual person at a national March On Washington for Gay/Lesbian Rights by Lani Ka’ahumanu

“GL vs. BT: The Archaeology of Biphobia and Transphobia Within the US Gay and Lesbian Community” (2004) by Trans legal scholar Professor Jillian Todd Weiss

“Words, binary and biphobia, or: why ‘bi’ is binary but 'FTM’ is not” (2011) by Mizrahi Bi-Queer Theory Academic and Author Shiri Eisner

“Biphobia: Not in My Name” (2014) by Bi-Trans Academic and Activist Aud Traher

[caffeinevoid]

In a October 1987 article, Newsweek portrayed bisexual men as “the ultimate pariahs” of the AIDS epidemic. Dr. Alan Rockway, bi activist and person with AIDS, spoke against the stereotype. Dr. Rockway was also a pioneering psychologist who helped write and defend the first LGBT employment non-discrimination ordinance to be approved in a major city. Dr. Rockway’s contributions are often “bisexually erased” and he is often misoriented as a gay man instead of being properly identified as bisexual. Photo Credit: WYPR News (x)

[caffeinevoid]

A co-worker at the LGBT non-profit I worked at told me bisexual history was “difficult to find,” and that is why we only teach people about gay and lesbian history. That’s not just lazy, it’s ridiculous.

[bihistorygroup-blog]

Brenda Howard, the “mother of gay pride”––who is credited for organizing the 1970 Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day Parade on the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots––was bisexual.

Given the discrimination that bisexual people still face––including biphobia within the LGBT community––and how bisexual identities and needs are so often erased within the broader LGBT movement, it is critically important to recognize that bisexual people have been leaders in this movement since its beginning.

[bihistorygroup-blog]

In Renaissance France, bisexuals were said to be au poil et a la plume, or “after fur and feathers”, like versatile hunters.

-Homosexuality & Civilization, Louis Crompton

[bisexual-books]

Bisexuality, Bisexuals, and Biphobia

From the Bi History Group on facebook -- “Have accidentally found a treasure trove of old essays and articles about Bisexuality The quality is uneven, some links are unfortunately dead, most are English + a few in French. However it is great historic artifact.”

[thebicast]

Please join us as we discuss the new edition of "Bi Any Other Name with co-editors Lani Ka'ahumanu and Loraine Hutchins. Learn why this book is as important now as when it was first released. "I wa...

“I want a book of bisexual stories that I can sit down and read to find myself.” ~ Lani Ka’ahumanu, co-editor

On the eve of the release of a new updated version, please join us as we discuss the new edition of “Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out” with co-editors Lani Ka’ahumanu and Loraine Hutchins. Learn why this book is as important now as when it was first released.

“Bi Any Other Name” 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.

[bihistorygroup-blog]

John F. Nash Jr., Mathematician Whose Life Story Inspired ‘A Beautiful Mind,’ Dies at 86

The narrative of Dr. Nash’s brilliant rise, the lost years of severe mental illness, and the eventual awarding of a Nobel Prize captured the public mind.

[Princeton NJ USA]: Reporting the sad loss of well known Princeton University mathematician (+ Bi Elder) John F. Nash Jr and his wife Alicia Lopez-Harrison de Lardé, a physics major and computer programmer, on 23 May 2015, when the taxi they were traveling in on New Jersey Turnpike was involved in an car crash. Nash was 86. Alicia Nash was 82 and they resided in Princeton Junction. Dr. Nash is survived by a sister, Martha Nash Legg and two sons, John David Stier from an earlier relationship and John Charles Martin Nash.

Nash was an American mathematician whose works in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations have provided insight into the factors that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life. His theories are used in economics, computing, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, accounting, politics and military theory.

In 1959, Nash began showing clear signs of mental illness, and spent several years at psychiatric hospitals being treated for paranoid schizophrenia. After 1970, his condition slowly improved, allowing him to return to academic work by the mid-1980s.

Serving as a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University during the latter part of his life, he shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with game theorists Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi.

Nash had been in Norway on Tuesday to receive the Abel Prize for Mathematics from King Harald V for his work, along with longtime colleague Louis Nirenberg, for their work on nonlinear partial differential equations.

While The New York Times Obituary refers to, "his relationships with men", the feature film about him (2001's A Beautiful Mind starring Russell Crowe) had completely erased his bisexuality.

In fact, occurrences in Nash's life illustrate the pernicious and vicious evil of institutionalized biphobia + homophobia. In 1954, while in his 20s, Nash was arrested for indecent exposure in an organized "entrapment of homosexuals" in Santa Monica CA. Although the charges were dropped, he was stripped of his top-secret security clearance and fired from RAND Corporation, where he had spent a few summers as a consultant.

An astounding intellect and one of our own!

[bialogue-group]

By most counts, bisexuals make up the largest sexual minority group in the United States, and they have been litigating and advocating for their right to be free of discrimination since the early days of the gay rights movement. Yet they remain largely invisible in the case law and in the popular understanding of discrimination…

Although historically, if gathered at all, data regarding bisexuals were usually conflated with data about gays and lesbians, in the past few years, social scientists and others have begun to gather data specifically about bisexuals.

The results that are beginning to emerge are alarming.

This extremely important article published in the William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law Volume 21 (2014-2015), Issue 3 (2015) is just some of the absolutely wonderful work being done by the first ever American national organization of bisexual-identified lawyers, academics, law students, and their allies collectively known as BiLaw. Among the accomplishments of this amazing group is when they realized that absolutely no-one was including bisexual people and our concerns in the Marriage Equality cases being presented to the US Supreme Court they took it upon themselves to create and file what is called an amicus curiae (literally, friend of the court) brief with the US Supreme Court in support of Marriage Equality. Those interested can click here to read the document as submitted. BiLaw was later gratified – not to mention startled – to find that Chief Justice Roberts favorably mentioned the main argument they addressed in their brief, (gender discrimination) in one of his questions.

[goodbye-good-bi]

More from the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender History Museum in San Francisco: the front sign, buttons, protest chants, wedding dresses, wedding photo, and explanatory plaque, and a bi pride shirt

[goodbye-good-bi]

I went to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender History Museum in San Francisco, and they actually have pretty good bi material. The bi section takes up a whole wall of the small two-room building, and there’s some other bi stuff throughout.

[bihistorygroup-blog]

Remembering Our Dead: AIDS Quilt Panels of Bisexual People who had passed from AIDS. A ceremony of love and remembrance held during the US Bisexual Conference held in June 1990 in San Francisco CA USA.

AIDS had a profound effect on the bisexual movement. Bi men were stigmatized as spreaders of HIV from homosexuals to the "general population." In the late 1980s, as awareness of AIDS in women increased, bisexual women began be to stigmatized as spreaders of HIV to lesbians.

These developments spurred discussions about the distinction between sexual behavior and sexual identity (for example, many self-identified bisexual women did not have sex with men, while many self-identified lesbians did). Activists and public health officials alike began to emphasize behavior, not identity, as a risk factor for HIV infection. Many men who had been leaders in the bisexual movement became ill or died, and many other bi men and women turned their attention to AIDS-related activism and service work... In the late 1980s and early 1990s, students and youth became more active in the bisexual movement. College students began to include bisexuals by name in campus gay and lesbian organizations, with over 100 such groups in existence by the end of the decade... At the same time, a new "queer movement" had begun to take shape. Young activists, many of whom were involved with the AIDS activist group ACT UP, formed Queer Nation in the summer of 1990 ... Parts of the new movement emphasize the inclusion of bisexuals, transgender and other sexual minorities under the queer umbrella; other parts are less welcoming to those who are not exclusively homosexual... In June 1990, BiPOL organized a US National Bisexual Conference in San Francisco, with over 400 attendees. The conference was comprised of over eighty workshops on a broad range of subjects.

~excerpt from pamphlet "A Brief History of the Bisexual Movement" Liz Highleyman with editorial assistance from M Beer, S Berger, D Berry, W Bryant, A Hamilton and R Ochs, originally published by the Bisexual Resource Center late 1990's last updates in 2001.

[verycuriousnocure]

During World War II, Josephine Baker served with the French Red Cross and was an active member of the French resistance movement. Using her career as a cover Baker became an intelligence agent, carrying secret messages written in invisible ink on her sheet music. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre, and received a Medal of the Resistance in 1946. In 1961 she received the highest French honor, the Legion d’Honneur awarded by then President Charles de Gaulle.

Our loss, U.S.A….

[geekygothgirl]

If you don’t admire the shit out of J. Baker, who was also pretty openly bisexual and adopted NINETEEN children in addition to the badassery mentioned above, I want you to go sit in the corner and think about your life choices.

[queertrees]

um she was also a huge civil rights activist and her refusal to perform for segregated audiences at major clubs that were fallin over themselves to book her helped de-segregate vegas performance venues

aaaand she had a pet cheetah

[professorfangirl]

aaand she slept with Frida Kahlo.