Bisexual Awareness Month

I said negatively impacted, because it very much sounds like you are, maybe I’m wrong?
How often is this happening? I’m 44, I could probably count on two hands the number of comments I’ve had. One was a very good friend of mine, she used to tell me, fairly lightheartedly, that I was greedy, and should pick one or the other. I could have found that upsetting I guess, but I knew that was not her intention, she just couldn’t get it, and that’s ok, so I’d just joke back and we’d both laugh about it. But even with her, she only raised it a few times over maybe 10 years, she didn’t treat me any different or make any outright offensive comments.

My point about growing a thicker skin though is not to stop others making these comments, that’s the whole purpose, you can’t stop them, dickheads will always exist, all you can do is manage your reaction, and by that I don’t just mean external reaction, but internal too. If someone is making a comment with the intention of being offensive, then these month long ‘celebrations’ aren’t going to change them, and if someone is not trying to be offensive, then they’re probably open to listening. No one likes to be told they’re wrong though or preached to, which is why I think a how we approach it, matters.

In my experience, gently challenging ignorant comments with humour, actually gets a pretty positive reaction, it’s persisted whining that leads to accusations of being a snowflake etc.

I appreciate you are not asking me directly, but I've never "come out" at any stage of my life or in any setting, including work, because I never hid my bisexuality in the first place, and yet I've still been on the receiving end of much the same comments. I didn't invite them, it's a consequence of people knowing that I was formerly in a relationship with a man, and then later discovering I was in a relationship with a woman, and jumping to conclusions.

E.g. "Bi is just being greedy" or "lesbians that haven't come out yet".

I should be able to talk about my weekend plans with my girlfriend without people then asking questions about my sex life. I should be able to say "by the way I'm bisexual" without people asking questions about my personal life too.

It's really important IMO.

It offers insight into the company culture and that if you are Bi you should feel that if you want to talk about your girlfriend/boyfriend both, that the company will not tolerate harassment or discrimination. Its about telling line managers clearly what the company stance is and reinforcing their responsibility to take "jokes" or "banter" seriously, and that they will be culpable if they don't.

I'm unsure why you think I would be "negatively impacted" by refusing to grow a thicker skin. As I explained, I already shrug individual comments off, because one individual comment is not in itself particularly jarring. It's the disheartening effect of having it happen repeatedly, over and over, across a significant period of years, and the fact it hasn't really let up any in this supposedly enlightened 2020's era where there is no more requirement for education.

So tell me, how will me shrugging this off even harder by growing an even thicker skin lead to other people no longer making these sorts of assumptions? Surely that will do nothing at all and it will just continue.

And again, people who do challenge it directly are usually perceived as the thin-skinned ones who are just looking to take offence at everything so they can create a scene, and they are invariably told to get over themselves and grow a thicker skin. 😂

Of course not, Combattingthemoaners, thanks for explaining how it is for you. The 'coming out' with every new job must be an absolute bind as is the assumption that you have a husband. It shouldn't be this way. I'm probably unaware of what workplaces are generally like now as I've been in the same job for 15 years. Mine is diverse, it's international and hearing of same sex relationships doesn't have impact at all; it's not the same elsewhere. I worked for several councils before my current job and that is full of managers who are white, middle-aged men - and bigoted as they come.

I know that people do make comments because I get told by the person commented on and it's shocking. I had a black colleague who told me that she was groped on the tube and it impacted her so badly that she left the job. As a female (white), I was used to getting groped by grim men but had no idea of the difference for a black woman and was ashamed that I tried to reassure her.

I think the sooner that people can feel confident and accepted in their conversations, the better. You absolutely should be able to talk about your homelife without people making assumptions or horrible comments and why the hell should you feel that you can't talk about this? I don't know what the answer is.

I don't know what the answer is to the 'celebration' days or weeks is either? When it doesn't affect you, it doesn't necessarily register but it should, I get that. Nobody should feel stifled and perhaps hetero-normal should be a standard to which every other should rise up to and be supported until it is itself, the standard?

I'm not explaining well but I do hear what you're saying and I'm sorry that things are as difficult as they are.

The people saying they have experienced prejudice for their bisexuality. Of course I am sorry to hear that but have they stopped to think that absolutely everyone gets shit from people at some point in the work place? For being very young/green, old, fat, unattractive, too attractive, a different colour, neurodiverse, their religion, their sex, shyness/introversion, mental health, disability, embaressing medical issues, the wrong class, wrong accent, wrong clothes/aesthetic, a different nationality, where they were educated, no kids/too many kids, perhaps your face just doesn't fit. I've had many life made fairly hellish a few times over my career, if it's bad then report it, if it's minor or not meant to be personally offensive then it really is best to just brush it off. I do think people are too sensitive these days.

Object away, but it’s you who will be negatively impacted, no one else. Personally I think challenging these views (in person) with humour is the best approach.

I can understand that. Given the way that bisexuality has been historically ignored, though, I guess I’d rather have people be sick of hearing about it than live in a society where people act like it doesn’t exist.

Well congratulations. The educational efforts aren't aimed at you, and you can pretty much ignore them. The point is to get it to click with the people who either do consciously treat people differently, or perhaps spur those who lack awareness and make assumptions to think a bit more before they open their mouths.

As I've explained over and over, it's nothing to do with "craving attention".

I'd get plenty of that, if it was what I wanted, by actually correcting people who make lazy assumptions about me to my face.

I hope you don’t mind me jumping in? From my experience it feels very much like having to “come out” every time you start a new job or meet somebody new. I don’t look like a “stereotypical” gay woman so people always ask me about my husband. I know no one is doing this deliberately to make me feel awkward but it becomes tiresome always having to correct people. I have also worked at places where people would make openly homophobic comments not knowing I was gay and this made me censor my life out at work. Imagine never being able to tell people who you were going on holiday with or what you did at the weekend or where you’re going tonight?

I do understand why people eye roll when they hear of another week or day they have to “celebrate” and that’s why this kind of thing loses its impact. We should just be able to live and work in an environment where everyone accepts people are different and they don’t assume but I don’t know how you create that culture without first highlighting differences exist?

Its self-indulgent navel-gazing. We cannot go around constantly validating and cheering perfectly ordinary, run of the mill variations in society. Healthy, well-developed adults do not crave such attentions. People feeling the need of such things I would advise they invest more in their hobbies etc, your sexuality shouldn't be the defining feature of who you are.

Frankly, I object to being told to grow a thicker skin.

My skin is plenty thick enough, as demonstrated by the fact that I don't outwardly react to or confront people who make assumptions about me despite it being a constant minor irritant across my adult life. I'd still like it to stop though, and I think there are better ways to go about trying to stop it than me throwing a tantrum or challenging people. Especially since that will inevitably lead to the accusations of being a special snowflake, making a scene, "nobody cares anyway", etc etc

I’m a bisexual woman in my late thirties and I think biphobia is a real, serious, and sometimes very hurtful and isolating thing. I’m not a fan of any kind of “awareness” stuff or identity-based events in the workplace.

But if those events are going to exist, I think bisexual people deserve them as much as anyone else does. If workplaces want to lecture about Islamophobia or trans rights or whatever else, then I’m glad bisexual awareness is included.

Deal. But only if talk like a pirate week is in bisexual month, so that I can talk about being bisexual in a pirate voice.

Thank you, it does I think. We had to use bloody fountain pens too in junior school, can you imagine the state of the left handed kids left shirt sleeves?!

People don't stop being Bisexual the moment they step out of their bedroom, so no, the issue isn't solely concerned with what goes on in people's bedrooms, and it's staggeringly ignorant to frame it as such.

This.

It's not about "offence", not that any single individual is the arbiter of what is or is not offensive anyway, it's about the continual, utterly tiresome "ffs this again" aspect of repeatedly encountering people who still assume a hetero default to everything and everyone, and never stop for a moment to consider whether it applies to you or not.

After decades of it, it really grates, especially when you are told over and over that we live in an enlightened society, people are not phobic, and nobody cares. Well I care, and it's difficult not to just write these people off as idiots, even though I know there is rarely any malice to it.

It's naive ignorance, but it's still ignorance, hence why sometimes a bit more awareness wouldn't go amiss.

Naunet, I know this thread isn't about this but I'm also left-handed and I can remember being teased/bullied for smudged writing as a child. Feeling different and unable to change it, it stays with you.

Your post resonated with me.

Everyone I know is sick of this stuff, we are sick of hearing about it. No one needs to hear this tedious drivel. Why on earth does anyone I work either need to know if I've been sexually involved with men, women or both? Who bloody cares??

Our society is sick, no wonder the younger generation are struggling, having been stuffed with a steady diet of this meaningless guff during their formative years.

And again, we already have laws in place to deal with that in the work place.

Clearly we’re not going to agree, but let me explain something about my position on this, I was abused as a child, I was actually seriously victimised, and do you know what it does? It makes you never want to be a victim again. So I choose not to let so called ‘microagressions’ about being left handed, child free, short, or bi impact me, because A. They are literally nothing compared to real abuse, and B, because some dickheads thoughts on bi people being promiscuous doesn’t actually make it true, it doesn’t change my life in the slightest, it won’t stop me being bi, it won’t change how I live my life or what I talk about. I’m not responsible for how they feel and they are not responsible for how I feel. You will never have a perfect society where rude people, or just people who don’t agree with you, don’t exist, so you have to have somewhat of a thicker skin.