Bi-supremacy - Untitled

“We were told we [could] only talk about the effects on our lives of being attracted to other women or femmes because “no one is oppressed for being in a heterosexual relationship.” We were accused of internalized homophobia… or being the reasons lesbians are fetishized and making lesbians look bad - that bisexual women were the reason why straight men thought that lesbians were sexually available… I never understood it, but it came up a lot… If you didn’t seem like you were a lesbian, or could be confused for one, then your position was a lot weaker. Your opinion didn’t quite matter as much. You were less likely to be one of authority in the group. Your loyalty to the community was more likely to get questioned. You were more likely to get accused of your ideas being part of the problem. Any time something came up, and you talked about it from the perspective of not being a lesbian, you were more likely to be told that your need to bring that up was part of the problem of why progress wasn’t being made.”

- Rylee, quoted by Jayna Tavarez, The Bi-ble: New Testimonials, Further original narratives and essays about bisexuality

*approaching the four horsemen of the apocalypse* are you looking for a fifth

“I don’t like gay and lesbian people’s ignorance about bisexuals. It’s rare to find a politically savvy bisexual person who isn’t involved in the gay and lesbian community, but many gays and lesbians have no knowledge of bisexual people. We’re still laughed at, trivialized, seen as purveyors of disease, seen as riding on the coattails of the gay rights movement, as if we weren’t there all along.

To me, these attitudes toward us come from ignorance and self-hatred. If somebody feels really good about who they are, they don’t feel threatened by what other people are…

Heading and saying “gay, lesbian, and bisexual” is music to my ears. Because the more unity we achieve, the more we put aside petty differences, the more strength we have.”

- Dr Maggi Rubenstein, Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out

“Students also felt they needed to hide their bisexual identities in order to remain engaged in LGBTQ* campus spaces… Some students noted they didn’t even openly identify as bisexual within LGBTQ* campus spaces. They often felt more comfortable identifying as gay, lesbian, or queer instead of bisexual. Ashlynn falsely identified as a lesbian rather than bisexual in order to ‘avoid the additional stigma’. Similarly, Jeremiah and Sierra felt that openly identifying as gay and queer, respectively, was much easier than identifying as bisexual. Other students, like Rylee, chose to not identify as anything, avoiding disclosing their sexuality entirely, choosing not to answer questions about their sexuality, and not correcting inaccurate assumptions about their sexuality.”

- Jayna Tavarez, The Bi-ble: New Testimonials, Further original narratives and essays about bisexuality

“But if it rejects us, the gay movement loses more than numbers and strategic force. It also loses another opportunity, similar to that offered by other “sexual minorities,” to re-examine its commitment to sexual freedom rather than to mere interest-group politics. What would it mean for the gay movement to acknowledge that some people experience their sexuality as a lifelong constant, others as a series of stages, some as a choice, and many as a constant flux? It would certainly mean a drastic reworking of the standard categories which have grounded gay politics over the last decade. And it might mean a renewed commitment to the revolutionary impulse of gay liberation, which, believing that homosexual desire is a potential in everyone, insisted that “gay” is a potentially universal class, since sexual freedom for all people is the ultimate goal of our struggle.”

- Lisa Orlando, Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out

“As bisexuals we have to create a safe supportive atmosphere in our lives. We have to sometimes ask for it from people we don’t know, and yes, demand it from people who love and respect us. How can we feel secure or have self-respect if we are closeted from our friends and allies? How else do we change the stereotypes and the media image? How else do we get the respect we deserve if we are hiding from it? What does our community look like? We are the ones who must define it.”

- Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka’ahumanu, Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out