international celebrate bisexuality day

International Celebrate Bisexuality Day

23 Sep 2019 by Axel Hotels

Bisexuality Day, also known as International Bisexual Visibility Day, is celebrated every year on September 23rd since 1999, although it is a celebration that today is little known and spread among the media and all of us. It was first celebrated in 1999 when three bisexual rights activists from the United States – Wendy Curry […]

Bisexuality Day, also known as International Bisexual Visibility Day, is celebrated every year on September 23rd since 1999, although it is a celebration that today is little known and spread among the media and all of us.

It was first celebrated in 1999 when three bisexual rights activists from the United States – Wendy Curry of Maine, Michael Page of Florida, and Gigi Raven Wilbur of Texas – decided it was the day to start the fight. The latter said: «After the Stonewall rebellion, the gay and lesbian community has grown in strength and visibility. The bisexual community also grew strongly, but in many ways we are still invisible. We have also been conditioned by society to automatically cross out when we see ourselves walking hand in hand as heterosexuals or gays, depending on the perceived gender of each person ».

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Why is it important to celebrate Bisexuality Day?

According to different sociological studies, such as the Williams Institute and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, it is specified that about 50 percent of people who identify as non-heterosexual, identify as bisexual. This makes the bisexual population the largest group within the LGBTQ community, however, it also tends to be the least represented and visible group.

We are, all of us, a community that includes people of all gender identities, from cis to trans, and encompasses other sexual orientations, such as queer and pansexual, among many others. The most wonderful of all is that we are a community that has the capacity to love beyond the limits of sex and gender.

That is why we must do everything on our part to eradicate the stereotypes and hatred (biphobia) that exists around bisexuality and people who identify as bisexual.

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Some of the stereotypes and biphobia that bisexual people face

Bisexual people are often subject to biphobic stereotypes about what it means to be bisexual. Whether their sexuality is ruled out as a phase, they are told that it is only “vice” or that they simply are not “able” to decide. And if, in addition, you are a bisexual woman, you have to deal with heterosexual men who eroticize your sexuality and the hypersexual stereotype of bisexual women, where they are only seen as a pornographic category or mere more sexual and promiscuous entities.

But one of the hardest things about being bisexual is that these comments often come from people in the LGBTIQ + community itself. Despite the fact that bisexuals make up more than 50% of the LGBTIQ + community, the community frequently condemns ostracism and makes bisexual people invisible to the rest of the community.

A bisexual girl published a few years ago a reflection in the Switch Board magazine due to Bisexuality Day where she explained the following:

«This lack of acceptance seems to come from the belief that bisexuals do not fight the same as homosexual or transsexual people. It is seen that bisexual people are betraying the LGBTIQ + community when they date someone of the opposite sex, and they are benefiting from a direct privilege. But while it is easier to exist in public as a couple when dating someone of the opposite sex, internally it is difficult. This pain of having your identity erased or assumed based on the gender (assumed) of your current partner causes bisexual people a lot of internal confusion. Not to mention that often bisexuals in relationships with the opposite sex no longer feel welcome or comfortable in strange spaces, and as a result they no longer have the same community as lesbians and gay men.”

There is another latent misconception that people have about bisexuality. Many think that a bisexual person is equally attracted to men and women, and that bisexuality is inherently binary. There is a quote from the writer and bisexual activist Robyn Ochs that takes into account that a bisexual person may be attracted to all genders, not equally, not in the same degree and not all the time. And that kind of knowledge is what we need to understand both at the level of society in general and within the collective itself.

If you want to know what are the most common phrases, stigmas or stereotypes in which we fall when we talk about bisexuality, have a look at this video of the blogger and youtuber IGUALDAD LGBT.