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University of Colorado, Boulder
October 11, 1995
by Loraine Hutchins
I. INTRODUCTION
Thank you so much for inviting me here to celebrate National Coming Out Day with you! I want to take a moment to honor the bravery and courage and beauty of all the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people of Colorado tonight and to THANK YOU ALL for fighting for all of us, especially over these last four years, for NOT giving up your hope OR your pride! In preparation for coming here I've been reading BOULDER VOICES, a wonderful book which has the voices of many of you here in it and it's really helped me get in touch with some of what you've been through the past few years.
I want to tell you MY own personal Coming Out Story
and talk a little about the Stories of Our National Bisexual Movement,
but before I do,
I need to clear the air,
sweep some of the BIPHOBIA out of here.
One of the most important things we do in local bisexual groups and nationally, as BiNet USA: The National Bisexual Network, is to educate people, to help them face their fears and misunderstandings, to UNlearn biphobia.
Biphobia is the fear of intimacy and closeness to people who don't identify with either the heterosexual or the homosexual orientation.
Bisexuals also inTERnalize biphobia, where it becomes self-hatred and shame that poisons and disempowers us from fully being ourselves. It not only keeps bisexuals in BOTH our closets (closets in the heterosexual community and closets in the gay community) -- it also keeps others from validating bisexual feelings or behaviors, in themselves or others.
We are constantly told, by gay and straight alike, that we are REALLY gay or REALLY straight; in other words that our feelings aren't important or possible. And if we are acknowledged as bisexual its usually in a negative way because we're being labeled as confused, in a phase, or as part of a group that spreads disease to others.
Who benefits from this stereotyping and stigmatizing of bisexuals? Not gay people. Not open-minded heterosexuals either. The only thing that gains is hate and ignorance and fear. So I've devised a little quiz for you tonight and we're all going to take it together. You'll find copies of it around the auditorium. We're all going to rate ourselves on an 8 point BIPHOBIA SCALE while I read the levels aloud from the stage. (Don't worry if you don't have a copy, just listen.) The first four are negative attitudes, the second four are more "evolved."
(READS BIPHOBIA SCALE ALOUD .... )
* * * * * *
Okay, keep your scores to yourself and just reflect upon them.
(8 min.)
Bisexuals are looking for new ways to define commitment, grappling with the confusion our society feels about sex and sexual choices. Some of us are exploring whether our bisexual desire is a phase or rather something we want to expand into a lifetime, and that's alright.
There's been a lot of tension in the larger queer movement about whether
we're part of you or not, but one good thing right wing hate has done is
put our silly differences more in perspective. It's too bad it took AIDS
and Amendment Two for a lot of us to come out and support each other, but
it's alright too.
I used to think that our enemies could use bi activism against the larger
queer movement, perhaps arguing that there were really a smaller number of
"pure" gays than people thought, or that a lot of us are "really heterosexual,"
too.
Read Nashanga Bliss's piece in the new book, Bisexual Polities, "Why You MUST Say 'And Bisexual.'" She talks about how bisexual-behaving people and other queers together actually make up at least 40% of the population if we'd all come out about it.
So I no longer fear that bis will dilute the gay movement because I've seen what an important role we play in teaching EVERYONE that there's a little bit of queer in many folk who don't identify that way, and that retreating to a stance of biological victimhood ("we're born this way, we can't help it") not only ignores the vast complexity and diversity of human sexual experience, it also just doesn't work as a defense. If someone argues that bisexuality is a choice, not a given, I fight for my right to that choice, too.
What is this obsession with finding out the scientific CAUSE of homosexuality? (No one worries about what causes heterosexuality.) Homosexuality's cause would not be important unless it was stigmatized in the first place. That's what we have to keep in mind.
What's powerful about defending choice is that it flies right in the face of this culture's great dislike and distrust of sex, it's erotophobia. It assumes that choice is alright, that we can trust each other with choices, that there is, more than one right way to be, and that that's fine. And that the world won't fall apart if people love whom and how we please. Or if it does, maybe there were some things that needed changing about it in the first place, and we CAN rebuild it in a BETTER way.
Bisexuals, at least the queer-identified ones, are not co-opting the gay movement but opening it up, helping it return to its radical roots, saving it from reformist accommodation to the status quo. For example, gay marriage is important, domestic partnerships are very important. And I will fight for them with all my heart because people who want that deserve to have that. But what about injecting some discussion about redefining the institution of marriage itself in a more egalitarian way too? And how about examining how marriage can embrace committed, caring relationships between MORE than two people, too.
I read a wonderful comment by a bi woman writing in a lesbian newspaper in St. Louis. Her piece, entitled, "No Couples, No Guys, No Butches, No Bis" was a complaint against the categorizing way that some people have of eliminating whole classes of people from their personal ads. Her point was that rather than see being attracted to both sexes, as something too confusing, too loaded, too overwhelming, too sexual, that she saw it quite different. She said, "when BOTH genders are game than neither is game, and gender loses its power." I know what she meant. It's not that sex loses its magic. No. What she meant is that when anyone can be your lover, then anyone can be your friend. It disrupts the rigid, binary way of looking at things, which both heterosexuality and homosexuality, as world views, tend to perpetuate.
This is why transgender people also upset the apple cart. This is why the transgender struggle is integrally related to ours and needs to be understood in all we do. Gender definition is very disputed territory in this society, not only because assumptions about gender roles are in the midst of some change but also because the word "gender" is being made to do the work, inappropriately, for a lot of confusion our society hasn't sorted out yet. For example, people often say "gender" when they mean "sex." I guess they're hoping "gender" sounds less threatening than "sex," I mean, we are in an erotophobic society here, a society that can't even talk about healthy sex education or safer sex practices, without panicking. But what does that do? It clouds the issues even more. Gender is behavior, sex is biological, they are NOT the same thing. Sexual orientation and gender identity are also not the same thing, but until we can learn to talk about how what we're attracted to -- is our orientation and how we see ourselves -- is our gender identity, we won't get beyond this confusion.
What the hell is gender equity, gender equality? I think it's a cowardly euphemism for not talking about feminism, for not talking about the reality of male power and male privilege, how one sex dominating another affects the way the world is organized. (Everytime I hear "gender equity" I want to scream.) Gender is culturally determined characteristics we assign by consensus to certain groups of folks, it's not the same as what we're biologically born with at all.
This gender thing came up at the Bejing United Nations International
Conference on Women last month. Some of the more conservative-led governments
there complained that other countries were using the word "gender" as a catch-all
term to mean everything from abortion rights to accepting homosexuality.
Maybe, given the double-talk I've been pointing out, there was some truth
to their complaint. However, I've even heard right wing loonies complain
that we're trying to teach school children that there are 5 genders -- lesbian,
gay, bisexual, male and female. (Notice the absence of heterosexual? It's
not mentioned because it's assumed as the only norm.)
WE AREN'T DOING THAT!
We don't believe queers are different genders.
But it's a crafty language trick.
Just like the "family values" debate,
it appropriates our language against us.
If you speak in terms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, male and female,
you're subtly implying that OUR gender expressions are not male or female
and that we have no families,
and no values.
To show how totally absurd our culture's obsession with gender labeling
is, the best thing you can do for yourself is to go out and read a copy of
Leslie Feinberg's STONE BUTCH BLUES. I don't have time to
read to you from it tonight but I wish I did. There's an amazing passage,
set in the 60s, where this working class lesbian, who has been "passing"
as a man in factory jobs in upstate New York moves to NYC and falls in love,
. . . with a man who is passing as a woman. When I read that passage to
audiences I always ask, "ok, is this a homosexual relationship, a heterosexual
relationship, a bisexual relationship, a transgender relationship, or all
of the above? And why does it matter?"
Our society is so insecure about gender, sexual orientation, and sexuality
in general right now. It matters because we live in a polarized society
where people are constantly choosing up sides. But to get beyond this and
build common bonds among diverse groups of people we need to recover our
own histories and come out to ourselves and others, first.
II.
In our book BI ANY OTHER NAME we talk about being caught between two worlds, our straight family and our gay family, and wanting both to make up and get along with each other.
This is something that many people can relate to, almost everyone has felt caught between several groups or people, who are all important, and who don't agree. Mixed race, multi-cultural people particularly understand this. Peace comes from making peace with the blend and owning all of ones elements fully, not from choosing sides.
Way before I ever knew I was bisexual,
I understood what it felt like to be caught between two worlds.
I was born and bred in Washington, DC --
the Nation's capitol,
but a mostly black city;
located BELOW the Mason Dixon line,
but considered "up North."
I went to church in DC
but moved to Maryland when I was young and crossed back and forth across
the border all the time.
It's a good example of what we in the bi movement call -- both/and, NOT either/or
-- embracing all our aspects, not diminishing ourselves by identifying with
anything less than the whole.
I didn't start off knowing I was bi. It took me years to shake off the heterosexist conditioning and realize I could love women as well as men. When I was in college during the sixties there was no Queer Nation, no gay bookstores, no gay community centers. However the civil rights movement gave me a vision of equality and inspired me to take a stand for what I believed in and to trust that others would stand with me. I knew, at age 19, when I panicked after becoming engaged to a man, that I needed to seek a different path. Finding the women's movement helped me to develop self reliance and a more concrete sense of alternative options. By then I knew I was bisexual, but I still FELT pretty shy about telling others I was bi. It seemed so personal, so private, not like other people's marriages and dating arrangements. And I had my share of negative experiences with being disrespected and discounted when I did come out to people. I still get that, but the difference now is that I know there are others like me, that we have each other, that we're not crazy, that we're beautiful and special in fact, just like all human beings. That's what bi community and support can do.
(pause: GET OUT MAGIC BAG)
Even though I was out for years as a bisexual during the 70s and early 80s, what really helped politicize and empower me was visiting San Francisco for the Lesbian Gay Freedom Day Parade in 1985. An old girlfriend told me she thought I ought to meet Lani Kaahumanu who was organizing a buncha bisexuals to march in the Parade. So I went over to Lani's house and everyone was sprawled around making Biphobia Shields which we would hold up in the crowd whenever we were booed (SHOWS SHIELD HERE), and painting signs that said Bi and Proud, Bi Cuspeds, BiPeds, Bi Focals, Bi Any Means Necessary. Lani was making one for herself that said, Bi and Large. She explained that everyone was dressing up as famous bisexuals and told me she thought I ought to be Janis Joplin. So I got out my cowboy boots, a long flowered skirt, a low-cut blouse and a bottle of Southern Comfort, which I emptied down the drain and filled with orange juice. I painted a sign with Janis' quote on it, "Don't compromise yourself, it's all you've got." And helped two other folks dressing up as Eleanor Roosevelt and her driver paint a sign for their convertible that said, "Eleanor Roosevelt had BOTH her lovers in the White House. (This is true, you know ....)
Still, when I returned home to Washington, DC, that year there was NO
bi contingent in OUR Pride parade.
I decided I had to act alone.
I decided to be -------- Wonder Woman With
A
Hard On.
I picked the "hard-on" part because I wanted to play with the gender assumptions
people have about strong butch women I guess - either that we want to be
men, or really are male and female both, you know, all that stuff. I knew
Wonder Woman came from an all women's island and I loved the way she used
to twirl around in her bizness suit and transform into her trouble-fighting
leotard complete with magic weapons. (Speaking of twirling ....I happen to
know that there's at least one member of this audience tonite who harbors
a secret fantasy. She'd like to organize a vibrator precision drill team
in the next gay pride march here. Speak to me later if you want me to put
her in touch with you.)
I dressed up and entered the 1986 Washington DC Gay Pride Parade as a bisexual contingent of one, riding my BYcycle, carrying a sign saying "Peace to All Closet Bisexuals, And to Those Already Out, Too."
People cheered and asked to feel my Hard ON. It was a lot of fun.
Another aspect of being Wonder Woman is that I had to deal with body
acceptance and my shame and insecurities about my body and its beauty in
a whole other way.
Whatever weight I was, whether I was buff or not, I had to deal with
my right to be loved and to love myself, just the way I am. I had to face
people's stereotypes and prejudices against larger women, against aging women,
while coming out about my bisexuality too. I learned a lot about fat liberation
and it got better as I went along. Now there's even a magazine out in San
Francisco called ------ FAT GIRL, and I hear they're making a Fat Barbie
Doll who has fun clothes to dress up in like leather jackets and black lace
and bright colors too.
Another thing about my Wonder Woman persona is that her breasts don't always stay inside her clothes. And that's taboo in this society. But what kind of a society do we live in where we have to look at men's chests all summer and can never be top-free ourselves. Now THAT's a Supreme Court issue, for sure!.
I'm a sex radical, which means I think censorship is wrong, sex education and information is important to defend. People deserve pleasure, to explore their sexuality outside the rigidly proscribed boundaries we're usually brought up with. I was featured, along with ten other women, in Betty Dodson's nationally-acclaimed video, "Selfloving: Portrait of a Women's Sexuality Seminar." When Betty (who, if you don't know, is known as the masturbation queen and has been helping women, through her workshops and books, have better orgasms for over 30 years ) first called me to participate in the video she complained that she couldn't get any big women to agree to be filmed. That convinced me. In the film I say, "I'm here for all the big and bigger women who are afraid to love ourselves just the way we are."
Now I know there are people in the audience right now, saying to themselves,
oh my god, this woman is old enough to be my mother, I hope she's not wearing
her Wonder Woman (with a Hard-On) costume under her clothes, I hope she's
not going to stand up there and strip down to it right now, like Spiderman
or Wonder Woman. No, I'm not.
But I did bring it to show you
(HOLDS UP LEOTARD & dildo)
...yes, I really do fit all of me into this ...
and I have some pictures, later, for the really devoted fans.
This stuff could be just playful, just fun. And yet it has become so loaded in our society right now. When we dress up and play with our fantasies, we're told we're dangerous, wrong, that we need to conform to a "respectable" idea of what gay means, to be accepted, to be able to exist. Think about it. It's not the kind of society I'm working for. It's not the kind of place where I want to live. I believe we have to create a freer, safer, more comfortable way, by taking risks and by educating, not alienating. It's a fine line, a line we have to evaluate every day, I know.
It's been difficult being so "out." I've never regretted it but I also
haven't learned to take care of myself very well yet either. It can be
disorienting and overwhelming. I don't like being judged, having everyone's
negative (or positive) sexual fantasies projected on me, (yes that's what
people do to bisexuals), or being accused of every evil anyone can think
of that really has nothing to do with me personally, just illustrates the
accuser's distress.
I don't like that I've absorbed too much of their pain and stress, taken
it too much into my body, not learned enough, or been free enough, about
taking care of myself and my health. I also know that I start right here,
loving myself today, and that it is always, only this way.
And a word about the privilege, the luxury, of being out.
I understand everyone can't do it, or at least that we all do it to different
degrees, feeling out our comfortablity as we go along.
I've had human service, non-profit, progressive jobs all my life, which have made it fairly easy for me to risk coming out. I don't have any children who might be taken from me. I also live in a city where I'm protected by a law preventing employment discrimination against me because of my sexual orientation. I consider the risks I take being "out" a great responsibility and a great gift. I act on behalf of all of those people who want to act with me and can't, or aren't ready yet.
Since sexuality is such a tense topic these days, we who come out publicly have no choice but to take ourselves seriously as leaders and role models. We need to know when to be the warrior Wonder Woman, when to be politician, diplomat, counselor or teacher.
And part of taking ourselves seriously as resource people is developing leadership skills, learning how to patiently educate others about sexuality, even or especially when we find ourselves in hostile situations. The other part of it, especially on the front lines like here in Colorado right now, is knowing when we're fragile and spent, trusting that we can pull back, that taking care of ourselves is often the most important thing to do.
Coming out is not an act, it's a process we continue as we grow.
I came out to my parents 25 years ago, and many times in between, but they didn't take me seriously. They were embarrassed for me, protective, uncomfortable with their own conflicted ideas about sexuality that I challenged. "I wish she didn't have the same last name," my mother confided in my sister, when I'd warned them the book was coming out. THAT'S when they started taking it seriously, when they knew they were going to be outed as the parents of a bisexual. And I worked with them about that, carefully, for months, I didn't just spring it on them.
But you shouldn't have to publish your story nationally to get your parents attention.
My mother also told my sister she thought bisexuality was MORE repulsive
than homosexuality. "Oh, so you can tell my sister that who I love and how
I love is "repulsive," but you won't say it to my face. How do you think
that makes me feel?" I told her, -- and that began a long series of discussions
and arguments and reconciliations, family counseling sessions, during which
I realized that actually, it was my coming out as polyamorous, able to love
more than one person at once, that was upsetting them much more than the
fact that I loved my own gender. So we worked on that too.
(We're still working on it ....)
My parents go to a downtown Washington, DC church, near the White House. The church's congregation embraces Congresspeople, diplomats, refugees, homeless people, Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, and out gay people, a church with a bilingual day care center and an AIDS mission. Here's an example of how far they've come, from a few short years ago when they couldn't say "bisexual" without gagging. My parents helped sponsor a gay couple, as members. They've become centrally involved in the church's Reconciling Congregations debate about gay rights in the church, ordination, marriage, etc. My mother facilitated a church committee mediating the split between the conservative and liberal factions on this matter. The committee wrote some proposals that all said "gay/lesbian," "gay/lesbian" and my mother called up the minister and said, "You left out bisexual. Read my daughter's book." (And then proceeded to get a copy from me and SELL it to him.)
I'm like, whoa, and this is the woman I was upset about? Now I'm proud to report to you that last week, after four years of emotional debate, the church board voted to become a Reconciling Congregation!
This is in the face of knowing that, because it is currently Clinton's church this has already made them the target of right wing attacks. And doing it nevertheless.
I'm so proud of my mother and the role she played in that!
III. BEYOND BINARY -- HOW BISEXUALITY DISTURBS THE CATEGORIES
There's something else about Coming Out Bisexually that I want to mention. Coming out bisexual challenges current assumptions about the immutability of people's orientations and society's supposed divisions into discrete (non-permeable) groups. Bisexuals' Coming Out challenges other peoples' understandings of themSELVES. Our bisexuality reflects on society as a whole. It exposes the fact that the either/or binary assumption about sexual desire (desire for one cancels out desire for the other sex) is a lie.
Think about it. Gay, lesbian and heterosexual people have some shared assumptions.
The institution of heterosexism NEEDS homosexuality to exist, needs to define it as its inferior "opposite" and claim there is a fence, with nothing in between. This monosexual framework posits two mutually exclusive sexual orientations on either side of the "fence," protecting one from the other. This monosexual framework creates the LINE where privilege begins and ends. It also effectively marginalizes lesbian and gay men as other. But it makes bisexuals invisible. As long as bis are silent, gay/lesbian and heterosexual people can bond in the fact that they are only attracted to either same or "opposite" gender folk, mutually "otherizing" those of us outside that duality (which is a vast number of people, maybe the majority) who are drawn to more than one gender. As my friend Lani Ka'ahumanu says, "Visible bisexual and transgender people are subversive to the status quo. We expose how society is based on the denial of complexity."
"The denial of complexity."
I don't know how many of you have seen "Gay Rights Special Rights," but you all should. This piece of right wing hate propaganda is a good example of how the right wing is using white people's unresolved racism and conservative blacks unresolved homophobia to drive a wedge between the liberal alliance for gay rights. How are they able to do that? Because we whites haven't worked on our racism, within the queer movement or beyond it, enough. And because the black community still needs to work more on its homophobia too. Race is such a sore point right now, and it needs to be. The debates over Affirmative Action, welfare and immigration all relate to it. There shouldn't be any question about how queer liberation connects to these issues. Queers come in all colors and believe me, the same people are our common enemies. The same people behind the English-only anti-immigrant movement are against Affirmative Action, against the environmental movement, against queers.
There's an interesting new study on race and attitudes and beliefs that different races have about each other. It just came out in the wake of the OJ Verdict. One of the things it says is that white people have a very skewed, exaggerated idea about how many people of color there are in this country right now and how much money they make. Most white people think people of color are much better off and much more numerous, than they really are. Think about why that is.
It also frightens and angers me when white gay publications and leaders
speak of the movement for Gay rights as "The Civil Rights Movement of the
90s," -- as if there were no civil rights for people of color left to win.
It disturbs me that we appropriate the powerful language of the civil rights
movement without learning its powerful lessons about how coalition-building
is key.
The civil rights movement is one of the best examples I know of a coalition
effort that tried to unite diverse people for a common dream, by appealing
to moral values, a sense of justice and love.
The best bisexual organizing I've seen performed is among many different
groups, not building yet another separate advocacy group or turf-focused
orientation, but focusing on changing people's understanding of possibility
in sexuality and relationships overall.
I don't work as a bisexual activist just to create my own piece of turf.
Over the last several years I've worked with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign Fund, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, the National Campaign to End Homophobia, DC's Whitman-Walker Clinic, and other groups, to facilitate "Lesbian and Bi Women's Dialogues" and "Unlearning Biphobia" workshops that raise consciousness within the lesbian and gay movements, as well as in the larger world.
So. We've learned about biphobia and the limitations of binary, monosexual thinking. We've heard a little about my coming out story and my activism.
But what gives me hope? Where do I get the courage to go on when I'm
tired and irritable and discouraged? I get it from you. I get it from all
of us, in the history we are making, coming out each day of our lives.
Knowing our histories is so important. In the audience I've planted
some bi historical facts that very few people know about. I'm going to call
on my chorus in a moment and when you hear them I ask that you take these
facts with you, to broaden your living history sense of our queer movement
and what has made us.
These historical facts they're going to read are part of a bisexual press kit that BiNet USA is distributing around the country. Take it away, chorus:
*****
1. 1972 -- The Quaker Committee of Friends on Bisexuality issues the "Ithaca Statement on Bisexuality" which appears in the ADVOCATE, a nat'l gay and lesbian news magazine. The statement announces a new bisexual consciousness to gay readers.
Also in 1972, the Nat'l Bisexual Liberation Group forms in New York. Within 3 years more than 5,500 members in 10 U.S. chapters receive what is probably the earliest bisexual newsletter, The Bisexual Expression.
2. 1977 -- Alan Rockway, a psychologist and bisexual activist, co-authors
the nation's first successful gay rights ordinance put to public vote, in
Dade County Florida. When former Miss America and orange juice spokesperson
Anita Bryant initiates her viciously homophobic "Save Our Children" campaign
in response to the ordinance, Dr. Rockway conceives of and initiates a national
"gaycott" of Florida orange juice. The Florida Citrus Commission cancels
Ms. Bryant's million dollar contract as a result of the "gaycott."
3. 1979 -- Bisexual A. Billy S. Jones, one of the organizers of the first
national march on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights, goes on to organize
the local Wash., DC chapter and the National Coalition of Black Lesbians
and Gays and leads the first delegation of black gays to the White House
to meet with President Carter's staff.
4. 1983 -- While the groups of the 1970s were often mostly male in the 1980s bisexual women took the organizational lead. Many had worked in the lesbian and women's movements and the groups they formed often reflected their feminist politics. Bi women's groups formed in Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago. In Boston the bisexual women's group begins publishing Bi Women, the longest-lived bisexual newsletter in the U.S. More than 600 people currently receive Bi Women.
5. 1984 -- After a two year battle, BiPOL activist, AIDS educator, and therapist Dr. David Lourea (LUR'-REE-A) persuades the San Francisco Dept. of Public Health to recognize bisexual men in their official AIDS statistics. This acknowledgement sets the standards for health departments nationwide which previously had recognized only gay men. This acknowledgement is significant because it forces health care providers to recognize the existence of bisexual men, their potential risk for contracting HIV, and their need to be targeted for HIV prevention education.
6. 1984 -- The First East Coast Conference on Bisexuality is held at the Storrs School of Social Work at the University of Connecticut. About 150 people participate in what is the first regional bisexual conference in the U.S.
7. 1984 -- The Boston Bisexual Men's Network forms to address the social and support needs of bisexual men in the greater Boston area. At its peak in 1988 about 150 people receive their newsletter, Boston Bisexual Men's News.
8. 1988 -- Members of the Philadelphia group Bi Unity successfully lobby the Philadelphia Mayor's Commission on Sexual Minorities to form a work group on bisexual issues.
Also in 1988 -- The Seattle Bisexual Women's Network works with Seattle city agencies to educate service providers and policy makers about bisexual issues throughout the late eighties. For example, SBWN testifies at the Seattle Commission on Children and youth Public Hearings on Gay and Lesbian Youth and at the Seattle Women's Commission of the Mayor's Office.
9. 1989 -- Boston bisexual veteran Cliff Arnesen becomes one of the first "out" veterans to testify before Congress about health issues affecting lesbian, bi and gay veterans.
10. JUNE 1990 -- BiPOL sponsors the first National Bisexual Conference in San Francisco. More than 450 people from 20 states and 5 countries attend. The Mayor of S.F. sends a proclamation "commending the bisexual rights community for its leadership in the cause of social justice," declaring June 23, 1990 Bisexual Pride Day.
11. FALL 1990 -- Susan Carlton offers the first academic course in the U.S. on BISEXUALITY at UC Berkeley. Later Robyn Ochs offers courses at Tufts and MIT. She is teaching it again this semester and her syllabus is available upon request.
12. OCT 1991 - the first International Conference on Bisexuality is held at Vrije University, Amsterdam. About 250 people attend from 9 countries. The second International Conference is held in London a year later and more than 130 people attend from 13 countries. (The next one is in Berlin, THIS spring, so get your passports ready!)
13. APRIL 1992 - Minnesota amends its State Civil Rights Law to grant the most comprehensive civil rights protections for bisexual, lesbian, gay and transgender people in the country. Minnesota's bisexual community unites with lesbian, gay and transgender groups to lobby for this Amendment. Footnote: - in 1994 the Mayor of St. Paul refused to sign a joint declaration with the Mayor of Minneapolis proclaiming Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Day for the Twin Cities, because, he said, he could support lesbians and gays because they were "born that way," but NOT bisexuals and transgenders, because they "could change if they wanted to."
14. NOVEMBER 1992 - Colorado votes to deny civil rights protection for bisexual, lesbian and gay citizens by passing Amendment 2, the first such amendment to pass by popular vote in the U.S. The Colorado Supreme Court declares it unconstitutional in 94. Yesterday it was heard at the U.S. Supreme Court. Footnote: One reason bisexuals were included in the Amendment was because of the legal advice of right wing lawyers who argued that it was important to include them. Thus Colorado bi activists developed their slogan to the gay community, "The Right includes us, why don't you?"
15. APRIL 1993 -- BiPOL mobilizes a successful nationwide lobbying campaign for visible bisexual inclusion in the 3rd March on Washington. Openly bisexual people take key leadership roles in local and regional organizing for the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Bisexuals are included in the title of the March for the first time, and represented on stage by bisexual activist and author Lani Ka'ahumanu, whose speech is heard on CNN around the world. More than 1000 people march with the bisexual contingent, in addition to countless others who marched with other groups.
16. FALL 1994 -- Midwestern bisexual activist Brett Beemyn co-organizes the Sixth Annual Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Studies Conference - InQueery, In Theory, In Deed - at the University of Iowa. There's a bi keynoter, and large bi presence, and many fascinating papers on bisexuality presented and debated at the event.
17. FEBRUARY 1995 -- the Lambda National Gay Lesbian and Bisexual College
Conference meets at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, co-organized by Ron
Slomowicz, a bisexual activist and a senior at Vanderbilt. At the conference
bisexual students report problems -- being kicked out of the larger queer
group at Randolph Macon, having bi dropped from the name of the group at
the University of Pasadena-- and share triumphs, at well-attended workshops.
Conference keynoter Michelangelo Signorile is questioned by North Carolina
bi activist Brad Dent, "If you believe the essence of outing is the obligation
to out closeted gay people in positions of power whose actions are homophobic,
would you also advocate outing closeted bi people who pass as gay and are
in positions of power in the lesbian and gay movements and are acting
biphobically?" Mr. Signorile doesn't really respond . . .
18. SUMMER 1995 -- Art Freeheart, a female to male transgender bisexual
activist from the Twin Cities, is appointed as the first out transgender
person on the national coordinating board of BiNet USA.
19. OCTOBER 1995 -- is celebrated in 1995, for the FIRST time ever, as
NATIONAL LESBIAN, GAY AND BISEXUAL HISTORY MONTH. No longer is everyone
in history seen as only gay or only straight. It is admitted that we come,
and come out, in infinite variety and diversity.
Thank you.
I have a few copies of the press kit here, and there are also a few copies of BI ANY OTHER NAME and a wonderful new book: BISEXUAL POLITICS: THEORIES, QUERIES & VISIONS. They'll all be available after the talk.
In closing I'd like to read you a quote from the end of BISEXUAL POLITICS. This is by Starhawk, a bisexual, wiccan, peace activist; one of the foremost voices of ecofeminism. This is from "The Sacredness of Pleasure," a speech she gave in Washington, DC to the National Conference Celebrating Bisexuality, two years ago, on the eve of the 1993 March on Washington:
(In this passage, "The Sacredness of Pleasure", she's referring here to the persecution of witches during the middle ages....QUOTE ............)
******
Take care of yourselves!
Love yourselves!
Love each other!
Thank you very much.