If invisibility is a superpower, it's a pretty dreadful one.
Especially if you're bisexual.
Bi-invisibility or bi-erasure are pretty common practices. It
works like this: you see a woman, romantically attached to another
woman, and she is presumed to be a lesbian. Likewise, if you see a
woman and a man together they are usually presumed heterosexual.
Polyamorous couples may get around this issue of invisibility by
having two or more partners of different genders, but then you have
to keep them around you at all times and that could get tedious -
especially when you're trying to find seats together on the tube or
something.
But gay city Councilman Kriss Worthington has decided that 23
September will be Bisexual Pride Day in Berkeley, California. A
resolution was passed on Tuesday night which said that the day will
be a "call for bisexual people, their friends and supporters to
recognize and celebrate bisexuality history, bisexual community and
culture and the bisexual people in their lives." Hooray!
"Some guy came up to me on the street yesterday and said 'thank
you for recognising the invisible majority of the LGBT community,"
Councilman Worthington said on Wednesday. "I didn't know we were
tapping into such a deep vein."
Other cities in the States host Bisexual Pride events on the same
day, and we have a somewhat unofficial adopted Bi-visibility Day over here.
In my experience, it's a day when you tentatively wear purple and
don't see anyone else wearing purple and maybe smile at a girl
wearing purple shoes but realise she probably just likes the colour
and you feel like some kind of purple weirdo grinning maniacally at
every shade of lilac.
Berkeley is the first US city that will give the event official
recognition. "I never knew so many people felt like they were a
parenthetical afterthought," said Worthington. "The woman who got
me working on this said, 'If I was gay or straight, I would feel
comfortable coming out either way, but since I'm bisexual, I don't
feel comfortable coming out to either side.' I felt that was so
sad. She was stuck in the middle."
Yeah, that sounds familiar. (Here's where I wrote about that last
week: click.)
Here in the UK we also have Bi-Con, which sounds pretty amazing
if I'm being honest. However, I can't really see Boris ever giving
us our own special day - especially when a huge number of the
population don't actually think we exist.
But pull up your purple socks on Sunday, just in case - you never
know who's watching.
IMAGE COURTESY OF STONEWALL
