The LGBTQ movement strategically promotes an image of tolerance and acceptance – it’s good for their brand. Yet, after a closer look inside the ranks, it’s clear that division and prejudice exist between the community’s very members.
According to LGBT advocacy group GLAAD, September 19 through 26 is #BiWeek – where activists will make a concerted push toward normalizing bisexuality through panels, social media campaigns and general awareness. The extremely successful process of normalizing gay and lesbian lifestyles was largely accomplished through media, whose power organizations like GLAAD leveraged well. Now, the bisexual community is striving to do the same.
The process of normalizing bisexuality and transgenderism is working to break down the “world that operates within binaries,” as bisexual-identified and trans activist Fiona Dawson worded it. Media will be key in this attempt. Dawson reported a GLAAD statistic stating that "84% of Americans continue to learn about transgender people through the media," including award-winning shows like Transparent. Thus, GLAAD’s “Bi Representation in the Media” panel held in NYC last week was a strategic meeting of the minds with a very targeted purpose – leveraging media power to change views by highlighting more bisexual characters and plotlines.
Yet interestingly enough, the media might need to begin their re-education efforts with the homosexual community. Bisexual people report that they receive a lot of rejection from their gay and lesbian compatriots.
Back in August, Advocate published an article entitled “#27BiStories: When Did You Come Out? What Was the Response Like?” The comments from average bisexual people were telling. “I am sad to say that I have gotten most of the biphobic comments and micro-aggressions from LGBTQ people,” one contributor anonymously stated. “The gay community has always treated me like a pariah. My experience has been that my community frequently negates me or my contribution because I’m ‘not gay enough,’” added another. “The gay community was much less accepting. Cries of ‘Pick a side!’ and ‘poser, faker, whore’ came from lesbians and gay men alike,” a third declared.
Looks like some people aren’t practicing the acceptance they preach. In a Daily Beast article, contributor Samantha Allen discussed University of Massachusetts research pointing to comparable levels of bisexual-directed discrimination from both the gay and straight communities. Researcher Tangela Roberts told Allen that “This is the thing that isn’t talked about. It’s like airing out the dirty laundry of the supposed ‘LGBT community.’ It’s saying, ‘Look, we haven’t been acting like this community that we’re supposed to be and we need to do something about that.’”
