2018 in Bisexual

Something I wrote for the BCN website wrapping up loads of bi news from the past twelve months...


So, 2018 has been and gone. Here are our bi-lights of the year past.

Seen On Screen

We had more bis on TV than ever including shows with bisexual leads The Bi Life, Sally4Ever and The Bisexual, as well as bis in shows like Riverdale, The Good Place, Jeremy Thorpe drama A Very English Scandal, bi poly life in the 1940s with Professor Marston & The Wonder Women, and the Freddie Mercury film Bohemian Rhapsody.

Research

Research showed bisexuals are far more closeted than gay and lesbian people – and more likely to experience violence and abuse. So much for the ‘best of both worlds’. The BiReCon (bisexuality research conference) events that have happened each even-numbered year since 2008 took a break but there was a day-long event in a similar vein in Manchester.

The government published the findings of the biggest LGBT survey ever conducted in the UK – and pulled out the bi findings where they were interesting, and often sadly reflected how bi people face additional challenges compared to gay and straight people. Among the resulting work programme they promised to ban ‘conversion therapy’ – the discredited practice of trying to persuade people into being straight or gay rather than gay or bi.

Politics

Political life in the UK is in a bit of turmoil, but in some parts of the union more than others. While the Conservative-DUP not-a-coalition struggles on in Westminster, and the Sinn Fein-DUP deadlock sees nothing happening in Stormont, there’s a working coalition in Cardiff Bay, and a minority government in Holyrood similarly getting on with its own agenda.

And so Scotland and Wales both announced improvements in sex and relationship education in schools – thanks in part to SNP education minister John Swinney and Lib Dem education minister Kirsty Williams but importantly thanks to long lobbying campaigns by individuals and campaign groups like TIE. Working for change takes time but the changes set for classrooms in Wales and Scotland will make all the toil of recent years feel worth it. England and Northern Ireland may be waiting a bit longer for equivalent improvements. We got our fifth equality minister at Westminster in the space of two years: I suppose they last longer than Brexit secretaries.

Referendums continued to be a poor way to decide human rights: while Ireland voted the right way on abortion, giving people rights over their own bodies rather than over one anothers, Taiwan rejected same-sex marriage, and Romania debated redefining the word ‘family’ to exclude same-sex couples.
Meanwhile in the US midterms the voters put Kyrsten Sinema in the Senate alongside other LGBT winners in other races while the Republicans’ most prominent out bisexual defected to the Democrats. The Danish minister for Education came out as bisexual, and Colombia got its first out-bi Senator.

Looking Back

Many events for LGBT History Month in 2017 had focused on 50 years since a bisexual MP (Home Secretary and later SDP leader Roy Jenkins) had enabled the partial decriminalisation of sex between men.  This year we had other key anniversaries with round numbers involved – 40 years since the Rainbow Flag, 30 years since Section 28, and 20 years of the bisexual flag.

Proud Allies

There were bi stalls at more LGBT Prides than ever (we reckon) with BiPrideUK’s campaign of publicity stalls reaching much of the smattering of prides that local groups like Bothways, BiPhoria and BiCymru don’t reach in an average year.

It was a summer where a small clique of transphobic people disrupted Pride in London and inspired many other Prides to show their rejection of transphobia.

Bi events

BiCon came to Salford for the first time – and went rather well. Next time it’s in Lancaster. Smaller BiFest events were successes in Birmingham, Swansea, London and Stirling.

Bi Visibility Day (and that does seem to be gaining ground as the name used for it worldwide now rather than just in the UK) was huge once again – with its children, BiWeek and BiMonth growing in usage as well.  Twitter joined in with a special BiWeek emoji. and BiVisibilityDay trended hard in the UK on September 23rd.

Big Bi Fun Day‘s future was left in doubt with no-one coming forward to run it in 2019.

Us

And there were of course six fabulous issues of BCN magazine. Subscribe to get the next six now.

The future

It turned out there will be a sexuality question in the census in 2021, along with a trans question – but they’ll be optional and people will still have a blunt “are you male or female” question, so there is still more work to do. Making it optional implies a degree of shame about the answer, if you ask us.



And so to 2019, whose anniversaries include 50 years since the Stonewall riot in the USA, 30 years since the UK’s LG(BT) lobbying group named after it was launched, and 25 years since BiPhoria formed – the UK’s oldest extant bi group.

We might even see progress on making Civil Partnerships more equal. And, of course, there’s Brexit…

Paddy Ashdown

My first proper Paddy Ashdown memory was in the 1992 election. Paxman was giving him a manifesto grilling about whether the voters of Yeovil were crying out for the abolition of section 28 and equalisation of the age of consent.

At a time when it was far from popular - the ink was still wet from Section 28 coming into law remember - Paddy put him back in his box as "we don't campaign for these things based on whether they are popular but because they are the right thing to do".

I already knew I was too left wing for Labour and the Tories, but it helped nail down which way to vote a couple of weeks later.

Yellow Peril

France has protests about fuel prices.  The "yellow vests" are out in force across the country, bullying and attacking not just their enemies but their friends in a delusional, blinkered rage against the world.

Except, like the ones we had here circa 2000, they really aren't the spontaneous grassroots types they have been spinning themselves as to the media. To a great degree, they're puppets whipped up into entitlement by profiteering forces we saw then too - big oil, terrified of its own future and trying to prevent the actions needed to keep most of the planet liveable in an era of man-made climate change.


This time though there's another force at work - one that wasn't clearly a part of the UKanian fuel protests. Russia hates that they failed in their efforts to control the French presidential election - they were hit by a double whammy as the Macron campaign knew they were coming for them and took appropriate measures, and Putin's choice of President was unappetising to too many French people.

Militant capitalism on one side. A failed state on the other.

It suits both the traditional christian-democrat and social-democrat groups for Macron to come a cropper - will they happily be Putin's puppets or stand up against the 'gilets' and their demand for a shittier planet and subservient Europe in the interests of financially and politically motivated outside forces?