Awareness
September 23rd marks the observance of Celebrate Bisexuality+ Day, an occasion to learn about the history of the Bi+ community, celebrate its vibrancy and diversity, and uplift the voices of all those who identify with any label under the Bisexual+ umbrella.
The Bisexual+ umbrella, also known as the multisexual umbrella, encompasses the vast array of identities that describe those who are attracted to two or more genders. The umbrella thus encapsulates Bisexuality, Omnisexuality, Pansexuality, Polysexuality, and many more beyond those four. Each identity that falls under the umbrella is unique and individual, but the commonalities that they share allow for the usage of a metaphorical ‘umbrella’ when discussing matters than can apply to all of these communities.
Celebrate Bisexuality+ Day takes place on the final day of Bisexual+ Awareness Week (which starts on the 16th) and has since the week was created by GLADD and BiNet USA in 2014. Today, many more groups and individuals alike recognize the week around the world. To quote GLADD, Bisexual+ Awareness Week serves as a call to spend time learning about and recognising the “history, culture, community, and current policy priorities of bi+ communities.” Celebrate Bisexuality+ Day provides both a compliment and contrast to these goals, capping off the week by serving to provide a time to not only look at the challenges Bi+ people face but to celebrate the rich and diverse communities that have grown around the labels that fall under the Bi+ umbrella.
The first day commemorating bisexuality was created by BiNet USA, the United States’ oldest bisexuality organisation, which was founded in 1990 as the North American Multicultural Bisexual Network. (NAMBN). NAMBN’s first meeting was held during the first National Bisexual Conference, in San Fransisco, where the mayor of San Fransisco proclaimed June 23rd, 1990, as Bisexual Pride Day, while also “commending the bisexual rights community for its leadership in the cause of social justice.”
Our modern Celebrate Bisexuality+ Day, however, was created in 1999. The brainchild of Wendy Curry, Michael Page, and Gigi Raven Wilbur, three Bi activists, Celebrate Bisexuality+ Day was created at an annual Bi convention when the three took note of a lack of events and time specifically dedicated to the Bisexual+ Community. For a long time, western society still saw sexuality as a binary construct, with folks being either and exclusively gay or straight. To quote Wilbur, “the bisexual community also has grown in strength but in many ways, we are still invisible.” Celebrate Bisexuality+ Day was thus imagined as a way to not only raise awareness, but also to showcase the incredible Bi+ people who had always existed, regardless of what society may have thought. When deciding the date, according to Curry; “We all loved the great bisexual, Freddie Mercury. His birthday was in September, so why not Sept? We wanted a weekend day to ensure the most people would do something. Gigi’s birthday was Sept 23rd. It fell on a weekend day, so, poof! We had a day.”
Celebrate Bisexuality+ Day was first observed at the 1999 International Lesbian and Gay Association Conference in Johannesburg, and rapidly grew from then on. In 2012, Berkeley, CA became the first US city to declare a day in recognition of the Bi+ community, unanimously proclaiming September 23rd as that day. The next year, in recognition of Celebrate Bisexuality+ Day, the White House held a meeting with almost thirty Bi+ activists to discuss issues important to the Bi+ community. On the same day, the UK’s minister for Women and Equalities, Jo Swinson MP, stated in part “I welcome Bi Visibility Day which helps to raise awareness of the issues that bisexual people can face and provides an opportunity to celebrate diversity and focus on the B in LGB&T.”
Bisexual+ people face a multitude of challenges both with and apart from the wider GSRD community. Bi+ people can face erasure not only from those outside of the community, but other GSRD folks as well. Bi+ folks—particularly masculine people—can be seen as ‘just gay’ folks who refuse to fully come out, while Bi+ femmes can be accused of only identifying as such to ‘get attention from men.’ People who are straight or identify as GSRD alike have claimed that identifying as Bi+ is ‘just a phase,’ or have presumed that Bi+ people are straight if with a partner of a different gender, or gay if their partner is the same gender, while fully ignoring the reality that a Bi+ person is always Bi+ regardless of their choice of partner. The prejudiced myth of the ‘promiscuous Bisexual’ is also incredibly pervasive in both straight and GSRD spaces, as is the idea that Bi+ people cannot possibly be monogamous. This is a categorically untrue idea—though polyamorous bisexual+ folks do indeed form an intrinsic part of the community.
All of these struggles, and the many, many more that Bi+ individuals face, contribute to the statistics such as the higher rates of anxiety and depression, the higher reporting of self-harmful behaviours or ideations, the higher rates of substance abuse, and the higher likelihood of not feeling comfortable in their identity for Bi+ people. Bisexuality+ Awareness Week and Celebrate Bisexuality Day are incredibly meaningful occasions for us to not only raise awareness and work to end these struggles, but to recognize the incredible perseverance of all the communities under the Bisexual+ umbrella as they live and love as their authentic selves.
This year not only marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first Celebrate Bisexuality+ Day, but also the tenth anniversary of the inaugural Bisexuality+ Awareness Week. Bi+ people have been and always will be an inextricable part of the GSRD community, and as we recognize these important events, we must reaffirm our commitment to supporting and uplifting Bi+ people not only during these times, but throughout the entire year.
