Boston's Vibrant Bi+ Community

Members of the bi+ community carried the bi pride flag through the streets of Boston behind the two bi Boston Pride Marshals, Woody Glenn and the author, in the 2015 parade. Credit: Branden Kornell.

Many people do not know bi+ history; nor do they know that bi+ organizations have stood against a binary way of seeing sex and gender for decades.

Local groups help to make Boston a safe, supportive space for bi+ folks to proudly come out

By Ellyn Ruthstrom

In 2015, I was extremely honored to share the role of Pride Marshal in Boston’s Pride Parade with Woody Glenn, one of the founders of the Bisexual Resource Center (BRC). We were the first out bi leaders in the community to be recognized in the parade’s history. As Woody and I rode ahead in our convertible, waving to the boisterous crowds lining the route, it was an incredible feeling to have a large contingent of bi+ community members carrying the 45-foot bi pride flag behind us. That same year, the BRC was marking its 30 th anniversary as an organization, and being saluted by our hometown crowd was a powerful statement of visibility, validation, and community inclusion. One that is sadly uncommon to many of us in the bi+ community.

As a long-time leader within the bi movement, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to lead from within a community that is still considered by many to be nonexistent. The B has been a part of LGBTQ since the late 80s and early 90s, after many of us did a lot of educating on how our issues are linked with those of gays and lesbians and on how important it is to unite for a larger constituency. Only in recent years have the data made it possible to show that bi+ people represent half of the LGBTQ population (Williams Institute 2011), but you would never know that from the limited amount of bandwidth the greater community gives to bi+ issues. Yet, despite a few decades of purported acronym unity, bisexuals are still marginalized and derided within the greater movement and even within cultural representations that explicitly address a gay and lesbian audience.

In February, on an episode of The Real O’Neals, a biphobic ‘joke’ by Noah, the young gay character, that likened bisexuality to irrelevant problems such as “webbed feet” received public backlash. Bi activists, such as actress Sara Ramirez, who had played an out bi character on Grey’s Anatomy, took to social media to ask the series producer, Dan Savage, to acknowledge the problem and to apologize to the bi community. Many bi activists also spoke out about the absence of bi characters in Dustin Lance Black’s recent mini-series, When We Rise, which focused on San Francisco’s LGBTQ movement. Indeed, San Francisco’s bi community was very active during the several decades depicted in the program.

The BRC made a strong showing in the 2015 Pride Parade, marking a momentous occasion for the visibility of Greater Boston’s bi+ community.Credit: Courtesy of the BRC.

It’s these kinds of cultural slights, oversights, misrepresentations, and erasures that motivated many bi leaders in the early days of the gay and lesbian rights movement to devote some of their energy to building an independent bi segment of the movement. Their objective was to provide support and validation when bi people weren’t accepted by their queer ‘siblings’. The 1990 “Bisexual Manifesto”, which was published in the national bi magazine Anything That Moves, stated clearly the radical vision of the bi movement: “Bisexuality is a whole, fluid identity. Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or duogamous in nature: that we have ‘two’ sides or that we must be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don’t assume that there are only two genders. Do not mistake our fluidity for confusion, irresponsibility, or an inability to commit. Do not equate promiscuity, infidelity, or unsafe sexual behavior with bisexuality. Those are human traits that cross all sexual orientations. Nothing should be assumed about anyone’s sexuality, including your own.”

Many people do not know bi+ history; nor do they know that bi+ organizations have stood against a binary way of seeing sex and gender for

decades. They don’t know that, in multiple cities, bi+ leaders were at the forefront, working with transgender leaders to fight for both communities to be incorporated into the current LGBTQ acronym. Unbeknownst to many, Boston has one of the most vibrant, organized, and politically active bi+ communities in the US. The oldest bi-specific national organization, the BRC, is based in Boston and has a number of support and social groups that bi+ folks can access, as well as community events throughout the year, such as Celebrate Bisexuality Day in September, in which they can participate. To find a rich network of meetings and events, please visit the Bi Community Activities page on meetup.com.

Another group that has been instrumental in creating an enduring safe space for the bi+ community is the Boston Bisexual Women’s Network (BBWN). Several local bi women convened a meeting at the Cambridge Women’s Center in 1983 and thus BBWN was conceived. For many years, the weekly Bi Women’s Rap group met at the Women’s Center and was a key social and support system for hundreds of bi+ women, especially those who were newly coming out. BBWN continues to host monthly brunches in members’ homes all over Greater Boston and has fostered friendship circles that have endured for 20 or 30 years.

As a feminist and trans-inclusive collaborative group without officers, BBWN has survived for over three decades on volunteer energy, and has regularly published the newsletter Bi Women since 1983. It is now a quarterly (Bi Women Quarterly, or BWQ) distributed nationally and internationally, in print and through email distribution as a PDF. Copies of the newsletters from 1983 to 2010 are digitized in a searchable format by the Schlesinger Library at Harvard. Also, please visit BiWomenBoston.org for current issues of BWQ and more information about BBWN activities.

Each year, the BRC names Bi Ally awardees at its Celebrate Bisexuality Day event to recognize those individuals, organizations, and businesses that support and speak up in behalf of the bi community.

Honorees have included Gautam Raghavan, an LGBT liaison in the Obama Administration who invited us to host the first Roundtable on Bisexual Issues at the White House in 2013. Also honored was Dr. Judy Bradford (who sadly passed away this year), co-chair of The Fenway Institute and instigator of the first meeting in 2014 of the Bisexual Research Collaborative on Health (BIRCH). [In recognition of her decades of dedicated service to all constituencies of our community, Dr. Bradford has been named as an Honorary Marshal for Boston Pride 2017. –Ed.] It’s a positive sign that each year it becomes easier to spot the bi allies, and I hope that this trend continues. Supporting all parts of the queer community is essential to our political power and our inclusive spirit. As we rise, we must rise together.

Ellyn Ruthstrom is Executive Director of SpeakOUT Boston, the oldest LGBTQ speakers bureau in the nation, which celebrates its 45th year in 2017. Ellyn was President of the Bisexual Resource Center for 10 years and coorganized the first Bisexual Roundtable on Bisexual Issues at the White House in 2013. She edited BBWN’s Bi Women newsletter for nine years.