23 September 1999: First Bi Visibility Day kicks off in Manchester
The first International Day of Bi Visibility was celebrated on 23 September 1999.
As well as being marked in South Africa at the International Lesbian and Gay Association Conference, a group of bi people also gathered together in Bar 38 in Manchester’s Canal Street.
Organised by BiPhoria, the event was the only one in the UK to mark the first Bi Visibility Day.
The day has been celebrated every year since. It’s also a chance to celebrate a diverse range of bi identities, such as pan and queer people.
Bi people have historically been the forgotten or hidden part of the LGBT community.
Their experiences are commonly assumed to be the same as lesbian and gay experiences, and bi identities are frequently made invisible or dismissed as something that doesn’t exist, by people both inside and outside of this community.
Bi people face a number of negative stereotypes - greedy, manipulative, incapable of monogamy and indecisive and assumptions about bi people are also gendered.
Bi women are more likely to be viewed as ‘actually straight’, their sexual orientation merely a performance to attract straight men, whereas bi men are frequently seen as going through a ‘phase’ on the way to coming out as gay.
Stonewall research shows that half of bi men (46 pe cent) and a quarter of bi women (26 per cent) aren’t open about their sexual orientation to anyone in their family, compared to 10 per cent of gay men and just five per cent of lesbians.
However, things are changing and last year Krysten Sinema made history by becoming the first openly bi member of the US Senate. Simon Hughes was the first openly bi British MP after he was outed by The Sun in 2006.
More recently, there have been a number of high-profile artists coming out as bi and talking positively about bi identities. Janelle Monae’s Way You Make Me Feel has become something of a bi anthem. Keke Palmer – I Don’t Belong To You – also explores being bi, as does Rita Ora’s Girls.
On its release, Ora’s song received widespread criticism from the LGBT community, which only served to prove that bi people are still policed when they talk about their sexuality, identity and experiences.