1,000 years extra free

This weekend I had the pleasure of co-organising a bi-focused event for LGBT History Month.

The misleadingly named “2,000 Years of Bisexuality” was a two hour long exploration of bisexuality in history from 3,000 years ago to present times. Call it 50% extra free. It was academically rigorous as a talk, with slides, which was something that was only possible thanks to having guest speakers who came up from London for the event. There was even an extensive Q&A with the audience at the end which proved many of them had stayed awake the whole way through; and I'm hoping BCN will run a series of profiles of arguably-bi figures from history following on from it.

About 40 people came along despite the refusal of the local council - let's name and shame those perennialy dodgy on bi issues folks at Manchester Town Hall - to provide support by publicising the event in their History Month literature (they did however for example give ample publicity to a lesbian and gay line dancing event 'for LGBT history month').

What I like most about making this event happen is that it is different from the usual run of bi events in the city and around the UK. It's as accessible to non-bis as to bis, and as relevant to people who are just coming out as bi as to people who have been out for years and can recite their Klein grid scores in their sleep.

The bi community, such as it is, is much better at parties and newbie events and lacks that extra diversity and range in what we put on; this means if you are not part of the perceived cliques it is hard to see why you would keep coming back to events. Widening out the range of things we put on challenges that problem, and this has to be a good thing in growing a wider sense of bisexual identity and community.

Captain on Captain action

The new issue of BCN has another great photo to wow the readers - this one is a somewhat homoerotic pose between John Barrowman and James Marsters, courtesy of the BBC promoting Torchwood season two.

We have a regular problem at BCN in that most of the volunteers we have for coverbi status are female (or have more complex gendered identities but tend to look female). It's good to be getting a little bit more balance in there, and as Torchwood is the best sci fi on telly bar the remake of Galactica, even better to have a couple of hotties out of Torchwood to be doing the gender rebalance with.

Stonewall comes clean?

Stonewall has faced much criticism from bisexuals over the years for being an LGB charity that only ever talks about lesbians and gay men.

A copy of the 2007 Stonewall christmas card has made its way to the bimedia team this week, and finally puts that one to rest: on the back it states, “Stonewall: the lesbian and gay charity”.

That sorts that one out then.

1 in 100?

This weekend's newspapers are reporting - with an undertone of homophobic glee - that an Office for National Statistics poll of 4,000 people found that "only" 1 in 100 described themselves as gay or lesbian. So that's the 1 in 10 figure squished, and the 6% the government used when planning for Civil Partnerships.

Read more closely and it becomes a little clearer.

A further 1 in 100 identified as bisexual and 1 in 200 as "other", while 15% were not recorded because the interviewer chose not to ask the question. Yup, this was not some safely anonymous survey by form with layers of anonymising the interviewees in place, it was members of the public being asked directly by a complete stranger whether they were bi, straight or gay.

The real story here is not "only 1 in 100". It's a remarkable 1 in 40 non-heterosexuals who are so comfortably out about their sexual orientation that they don't feel they have to lie when being interviewed by a complete stranger.

The votes are in...

...a nation waits with bated breath to see whether BiCon will hold the coveted Fifth Place for Best Gay Event Of The Year 2007 in the Pink Paper awards.

I noticed last time I dropped in at the local LG community centre that they have a framed certificate on their wall that they came third in the category they were nominated for last year. Perhaps there will be a shiny framed certificate for display in the reception area of BiCon 2008.

The most influential bis in British politics?

As gay news site PinkNews.co.uk unveils their list of the "50 most influential LGBT people in politics", I find myself writing on BiMedia.org asking: where are the bisexuals?

Sure, there's Lib Dem Party President and London MP Simon Hughes, and Green MSP for Glasgow Patrick Harvie who never returns emails from the bi press. There are a few debatable names in there too: does Michael Portillo count for your definition of bisexuality? He reminds me of a late-night Channel 4 show in about 1990 where Jimmy Somerville did a piece to camera saying "a short message for Cliff Richard. Cliff, if the rumours are true, please, please, please, don't come out you would set the whole movement back years."

But the whole list reflects the relative strengths of the L, G, B and T strands of the queer community. Lots of gay men, quite a smattering of lesbians, not a lot else. A lot of people who we infer are gay men because there really isn't any further evidence and it's not in their interests socially or politically to be anything beyond gay or straight.

But it shouldn't be like this. Every half-decent bit of research out there says there are more bisexuals than lesbians and gay men put together, almost no matter how you happen to define "bi". Bisexual politicians should be making up more than half the list.

Well. Here's hoping 2008 is a year when a few more people in political life can put their heads above the parapet as openly and proudly bisexual politicians.

It seems obvious once you think of it

One of the problems with the Bisexual Recruitment Army website has been the lack of interactivity. It's pretty and silly and we've made a biiiiiig banner for waving on parades, but it's terminally "web1.0" as things stand.

But if we made a Facebook group to associate with it... well, it's still not a completely web2.0 project, but at least it has cranked up to web1.1!

Growing the bi profile

For what I think might be the first time, a bisexual event has made the top five LGBT events of the year in gay newspaper The Pink Paper’s reader’s poll of the year. In the category, “Best festival, Pride or event” the shortlist on which readers will vote in a second round of polling in the next few days is: Manchester Pride, Brighton Pride, BiCon, London Pride, Glastonbury.

That's fantastic as you'd expect me to say - even moreso if that list is in order of popularity rather than randomised, though that's probably overoptimistic! It also perhaps reflects that while more people go to some of the Pride events around the country than go to BiCon, people probably get more out of BiCon and it's a more motivated, politicised community than the cross-section of average Pride goers.

The awards voting page is at http://www.pinkpaper.com/awards/ppra08b.html by the way - I do hope we get a good showing for BiCon even though to be honest, the competition is pretty tough there and fifth place will still be an amazing placing to pull off.