Can we talk about bisexuality?

[Pluvia]

Just that really. I'm a lesbian, one of a number seeking to rebuild new lesbian and LGB networks after our established communities and events and hang-outs and culture have been trashed by the TQIA+ brigade.

Lesbians and gay men are feeling really beleaguered. We've seen almost every sphere of gay and lesbian life infiltrated by 'queer', trans and spicy straight people all using the events and groups we've founded for their own purposes — mainly of validation. Pride has been taken over by the T. Our cafes, pubs, bars, all gone.

I think a significant number of gay and lesbian activists are finding it increasingly difficult to work out where bisexuality fits into all this. I'm in a number of different LGB groups and this issue has started to crop up in them. People who join describing themselves as bisexual and wanting to get involved in helping rebuild their local LGB communities turn out to be in long-term, stable heterosexual relationships. Some of them for 20+ years. Some bi people in such relationships want to involve their straight partners on the basis that although the partner is straight, they are in relationship with a bi person who isn't — but who, to the outside world, looks straight.

Does it matter? Well, if you're in a heterosexual relationship you're unlikely to experience the everyday (usually minor) moments that most of us who are out still encounter. Things like the need to come out regularly to people who assume that we're in straight relationships, the slight but still palpable 'othering' that sometimes comes when people realise they're talking to someone who isn't just like them. Sometimes it's much more pointed. And if we hold, say, an LGB club night, so that LGB people can associate without the straight gaze, should we allow bisexuals to bring their straight partners? Doesn't that negate the intention of the event?

Bisexual people who are living in a heterosexual relationship have the security of being undercover. They may not see it like that, of course, but they pass as straight. I'm pretty sure that one of the bi women who's involved in one of the groups I'm in is a straight woman who bases her bisexual identity on the fact that she had a relationship with a woman while at university, many years ago.

I don't know if there's a solution to this. I think lesbians and gay men are much more cautious around the dangers of self-ID and identity politics than they ever were. How are other groups handling this?

You've specified that you meant how people thought of themselves rather than publicly stating their sexuality, so no one can know how many people identified as bisexual in the past, other than by relying on self-reported retrospective accounts.

My point is that saying more people identify as bisexual now than in the past (taking 'identify' to mean how one thinks of oneself) can only ever be conjecture, there's no reliable evidence to support it. If you were defining 'identify' as being 'out' I would definitely agree with you.

There have been bisexual people for decades. But when homophobia was extremely common, many hid this part of themselves from all but a few trusted people. Now more people are open about being bisexual.

In terms of groups, I think you have to think what is the purpose of a group or a social space. There are still gay pubs around, but they are open to everyone. Because their aim was never to have a gay only space, but simply to have a social space where it was safe to be openly gay and snog your dame sex partner for example.

If you are talking about a group where you want people to have more shared experiences, it does make sense to limit the group to women either single or with same sex partners. You are not denying that women in a relationship with a man can be bisexual, simply saying their day to day experiences are different. For example, there is an older lesbian group where I live. It would eb a nonsense for a bisexual woman in a very long term relationship with a man to attend. Her experiences are totally different.

If a night is for LGB then no, straight male partners of Bs should not be there. I also think that Bs who are in long term heterosexual relationships should have the decency not to go, even though technically they are invited. If they are single or in a L or G relationship then that's fine. It's an unpopular opinion I know but the L and the G have been colonised by basically straight people. I have this view mainly because I am more focused on reality than identity or ideology. Bs in long term heterosexual relationships can have their own group if they want to.

@adminicle The first recorded use of the word bisexual was in 1898. Lots of people after that point would never have heard of the word. So they may not have thought of themselves as totally straight, but they would have had no concept of the identity of bisexual either.

I came out at the end of the 80s and the message from lesbians and gay men in the circles I moved in was predominantly that bisexuals didn't exist, or if they did it was because they were all into swinging or something like that, and you had to pick a side. Everything was lesbian and gay, not LGB.

This is why I stay away from the 'community'. I know I'm not welcome. Can't be bothered with it.

That is because at the time it was common with young people with internalised homophobia to identify first as bi and then lesbian or gay. Even if they had never fancied even once someone of the opposite sex.

@poemsandwine what would you be looking for in being involved in the NGB community?

Just to add, there was an organised bisexual community in the eighties and nineties. They were very welcoming to transgender people, people into S & M and kinksters. So unfortunately it simply reinforced the stereotypes about bisexual people being kinky.

It's just an overall feeling that bisexuality is erased, that we 'should make our mind up.' So, what am I looking for? I'm in my late forties, I've stopped looking. The community isn't looking to include me - even less so these days - so I just get on with life. And being who I am.

Not aware of that at all, and I was in London and thought I was quite aware of what was going on in the 80s and 90s.

What would bisexuality not being erased look like?

And LGB student groups are full of bisexual people, they are easily in the majority.

Yeah I think that's what I was referring to as well. It seemed mainly around sex rather than around feminism, activism and community more generally.

@Pluvia the different bi groups had banners at London Pride. They also had national events and local groups.

I wasn't in the UK at that time. I should have clarified that, perhaps. Although I was in a country known to be accepting. Probably should not have commented on this thread. It goes against just getting on with life. :) Have a good afternoon.

@KnutsfordCityLimits I agree. But that is what the bisexual people who were involved wanted.
Every community that wants something has to organise it. If you want a bisexual feminist or activist type group you need to organise it.

The LGB community encompasses a massive range of people and events. Everything from — let me think — the Gay Outdoors Club, primarily men but very welcoming to lesbians, and lesbian biking and camping groups, through (now) to monthly lesbian discos in London as well as more political or rights-based groups. Once you've got involved with one of the publicly advertised events/ groups you'll find that many more, not publicly advertised, will open to you. How you can say you're not welcome in any of them I don't know, because it won't be true.

No that is you. Lesbians and Gay men fought for years against exclusion and now that is exactly what you want to do to bisexuals or their possible straight partners.

My controversial opinion is that bisexual women in relationships with men are so used to being welcomed anywhere without question, that finding one or two lesbian groups do not welcome them is a total shock.
And I agree, most groups are for lesbian and bi women. So to say there are none that welcome you will simply not be true. And gay pubs will even welcome you with your male partner.

@Toolardy why should you be included everywhere?
Do you really think a lesbian and bi women's group should welcome your male partner?

Exactly!

Lots of things are conjecture. Again, what is your point?

I was suggesting that a variety of cultural changes could mean that some people who in the past didn't really think of themselves as bisexual, do now.

I'm basing this on what I see with young people in particular, up into their 20s. A passing attraction, maybe going out on a date once with someone of the same sex, a bit of experimentation - these things in the past didn't tend to result in people thinking of themselves as bisexual if that's all there was to it. But it does now, even if they subsequently settle into heterosexual relationships only.

Even older women who might feel some sexual attraction to some other women, if that didn't include romantic attraction, tended not to think of themselves as bisexual.

I think the landscape with that has changed and it means, in part, that there is a group of people who probably would never really have been involved in LGB groups before - even under the b - who may be appearing now.

@TempestTost I agree, I know a man in his sixties who says he is bisexual. Never had any sexual experiences with men ever, not one. Has been married to his wife in a monogamous relationship for about 35 years. Realistically what does he have in common with gay men over and above what any man would have?

Good luck finding a gender critical bisexual group. They simply don't exist.

Set one up then? There seem to be plenty of bisexual people in the LGB alliance you could advertise to?