Bisexual Awareness Month

[InPulaCuSatelitul]

Apparently we’re celebrating this at work, which seems to consist of endless blogs about being bisexual and being “visible.” Fine, no problem with that, but why do I need to know in the workplace? Does it affect how they do their job?

I’m not being goady, I genuinely don’t see why I need to know.

As a bisexual person who keeps my bisexuality completely out of work and 99% of social situations, this kind of thing makes me cringe tremendously.

None of my colleagues need to know which sets of genitals are my favourites. It's completely irrelevant to my job and life outside of the bedroom.

Cringey.

Have you asked your company?

And put a target on her back as some sort of phobe?

Eh, I sort of get it. There is a lot of biphobia. But they’re also going a bit ott and and may cause more more biphobia.

Biphobia? What fresh hell is this? There's way too much oversharing now. Just do what you want in the bedroom but please nobody assume I either want to know or give a shit.

I'm bisexual and I find this ridiculous.

Who I have sex with is nobody's business but my own and I certainly don't want my sex preferences to be 'visable' at work.

It's fucking stupid.
Being gay and bisexual is normal. It doesn't need to be celebrated or made 'visible'
That infers it's something out of the ordinary or special. It's fucking not.

I'm absolutely sick to death of this rainbow bullshit and so many of my bi and lesbian friends feel the same way.

I’m about 20 years older and a lot more senior than the bloggers, so no, I’m not going to say anything.

No one needs to know what everyone's bedroom preferences are in the workplace. The workplace is not your family.

That's the thing isn't, emperor's new clothes. 90 odd percent of people are thinking it but too scared to say it.
Maybe just say it mater of factly, "I love bi-sexuals and their visibility as much as the next person, but what does it have to do with the manufacture of widgets? Couldn't we focus on that instead?"

Pathetic. Why would I want or need to know about a colleague's sexual preferences? Unless we were all prostitutes and it was a way of divvying up customers.

As a bi woman of 44 years, I strongly disagree. Biphobia isn’t a thing, an outbreak of people wanting a victim status is.

I don't understand why everybody's personal business has to be brought to work. Of course if there is a serious issue that is necessary to tell boss or colleague (serious illness of spouse or partner, for example) then fair enough, but otherwise things like your sexuality, religion, politics, should remain private. There will be people who prefer not to discuss their private lives at work and they shouldn't feel pressured to share.

Agree.

There's some men and women that have a preference that their partners be straight (or gay) and I dont see anything wrong with that. We're all entitled to our preferences and we can't force people to be intimate with anyone they don't want to be. A lesbian not wanting to have sex with a bisexual woman isn't biphobic, rheyre lesbians who want to be with lesbians. A straight woman not wanting to have sex with a bisexuality man isn't biphobic, they're just a straight woman wanting a straight man.

The term "phobic' is stuck to so much these days

It's inappropriate.

People at work are allowed to have whatever views they want about sexuality, they just need to keep them to themselves, because it's work.

As soon as the employers start spouting off you have created a situation where by rights, people should be able to say what they think. Except they are not allowed.

It's just like they started going off about some kind of religion, say Scientology. It's all well and good for Bob in accounting to mention he had a nice weekend in Newcastle at the Dianetics Conference. Anyone who has a problem with it can mind their own business (though Bob has no recourse if it changes their opinion of him.)

Quite another for the workplace blog to go on about Scientology, how everyone has to be good with it, and so on. At that point if Jill has a real problem with the whole thing she is essentially being bombarded with ideology at work and that's not on.

Unfortunately biphobia does exist, but surely that is even more of a reason not to draw attention to yourself. And given yesterdays thread about people not employing non binary people, it seems sensible to remember that your colleagues are not friends, and to avoid drawing a target on your back.
I am not saying that this is a good thing -it isn't- but this is reality.

devil's advocate but 99% of the random shit that is part of "workplace culture" isn't immediately relevant to the actual job being done, is it? I'm assuming you're talking about stuff like blogs on the intranet, maybe an optional lunchtime talk or whatever? Which tbh is pretty easy to avoid if it's not for you. Same as the posts about the cupcake sale in the staff room or the reminder for everyone to clean up their dishes or Sue's request for her marathon sponsorship or photos of Dan's new baby or info on the latest wellbeing initiative etc. Don't care, delete.

You might think it's pointless and unnecessary, other colleagues clearly like it and think it's worthy if they've bothered to contribute to blogs etc. Neither of you are wrong or right, you just have different priorities.

My line in the sand is 'does this directly and negatively affect me?' e.g. if I was told I had to put my pronouns in my work signature, or had to attend a full day seminar on bisexual visibility when I have a strict deadline I might query it. If it's a random blog or email I can skim past if it doesn't affect me, why stress about it?

Biphobia really is a thing.
There's loads of people who feel it's pure exhibitionism because you could just 'choose to be straight'. Therefore even amongst people who say they are OK with homosexuality you still get biphobia. And of course you get it from everyone homophonic too.
You get people saying it's just hypersexuality and not a real sexual orientation.
You get gay people saying it's disgusting and not really gay and that they'd never date anyone bi. You get straight people saying it's disgusting and that they'd never date anyone bi.
You get flack for saying you are bi because 'no one needs to know that' however if you don't talk about it then people assume you are straight, and act wierd if they somehow find out that you've had same sex relationships because it's a shock to them.
Another facet of it is people saying bi people can't be faithful because they will always be thinking about missing sex with the gender of partner they aren't currently with.

It is totally irrelevant, annoying, uninteresting and has no place at work. Like the OP I don’t give a fuck about any of my colleagues’ sexual preferences - as long as they aren’t breaking any laws it’s a non-issue for everyone else at work. Sexual orientation is not an identity, it’s just a trait. I thought we'd moved past the stage where someone being gay/bi had any impact on their working life.

It’s just a cheap way for businesses to tick the “diversity and inclusion” box without doing any hard expensive work like improving disabled access.

Also, why is it a full month?🤔

Ffs what fresh hell is this now 🥴😫 I can’t keep up.

This makes me weirdly happy. Sexuality shouldn’t be a shameful secret or something that needs to be private! Would be lovely if everyone was more open and accepting of one another. Acceptance - not a very Mumsnet thing though 😂

But do I need to know if Sandra in HR is bi, how will that help sort out the stationery cupboard or remember the formula for concatenation in Excel?