http://bimedia.org/blogs Bringing Bi Blogger Voices Together Thu, 16 May 2013 17:11:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2013/05/inspired-by-too-many-recent-lgbt.html http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2013/05/inspired-by-too-many-recent-lgbt.html#comments Wed, 08 May 2013 22:12:00 +0000 Jen http://bimedia.org/blogs/?guid=8c17578f893d9e60f1648b79e3296dc2 http://bimedia.org/blogs/4482/inspired-by-too-many-recent-lgbt-activist-organiser-spaces/feed/ 0 http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2013/04/bi-life-10-years-ago.html http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2013/04/bi-life-10-years-ago.html#comments Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:10:00 +0000 Jen http://bimedia.org/blogs/?guid=963470f232e65133f50b3be92b30f352 http://bimedia.org/blogs/4478/bi-life-10-years-ago/feed/ 0 http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2013/04/from-jens-little-book-of-wisdom.html http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2013/04/from-jens-little-book-of-wisdom.html#comments Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:50:00 +0000 Jen http://bimedia.org/blogs/?guid=257e03240d43f12b9dbc28c5192a54b9 http://bimedia.org/blogs/4469/from-jens-little-book-of-wisdom/feed/ 0 http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2013/01/bisexuals-and-lgbt-history-month-2013.html http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2013/01/bisexuals-and-lgbt-history-month-2013.html#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:34:00 +0000 Jen http://bimedia.org/blogs/?guid=06b0c807cce88e86e76851aa6b36f865 http://bimedia.org/blogs/4448/bisexuals-and-lgbt-history-month-2013/feed/ 0 http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-do-you-want-to-read-in-bcn-next.html http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-do-you-want-to-read-in-bcn-next.html#comments Fri, 28 Dec 2012 18:19:00 +0000 Jen http://bimedia.org/blogs/?guid=8a1ae95c0bc10f15025857103e73e25f http://bimedia.org/blogs/4125/what-do-you-want-to-read-in-bcn-next-year/feed/ 2 http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/12/getting-bi-on-film.html http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/12/getting-bi-on-film.html#comments Sun, 09 Dec 2012 14:53:00 +0000 Jen http://bimedia.org/blogs/?guid=33b74aa510bead53616585d4b411c400 http://bimedia.org/blogs/3851/getting-bi-on-film/feed/ 0 http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/11/brightons-bi-celebrations-on-film.html http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/11/brightons-bi-celebrations-on-film.html#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:56:00 +0000 Jen http://bimedia.org/blogs/?guid=05d41e13323641b9dac00481aa906347 http://bimedia.org/blogs/3700/brightons-bi-celebrations-on-film/feed/ 0 http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/10/bi-women-article.html http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/10/bi-women-article.html#comments Wed, 03 Oct 2012 12:24:00 +0000 Jen http://bimedia.org/blogs/?guid=3f2288d4b2b9a8536851f6fedeb54f62 Bi Women. As the issue is now out and online as a pdf for people to read it seems fair to crosspost it here too. I've not tried to write for an overseas audience before... for a UKanian audience I'd've used phrases like Yes Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, from “across the pond” in the UK...
A Downing Street Bi Breakthrough
By Jen Yockney

On July 24th I had the unexpected honor of being the first person invited to represent the bi community at the annual LGBT Garden Party held by UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

A few days earlier I had received an unexpected note: “The Prime Minister Requests The Pleasure Of Your Company.” Well, if he was putting it like that who was I to say no? So to London and to Downing Street. First you meet charming yet obviously armed police at the entrance to Downing Street who check your passport and check if your name is on their list. You pass through scanners and suddenly you’re past the security point and stepping onto one of the most filmed places in England, normally the preserve of senior ministers and visiting dignitaries. On the TV it looks like a grand sweeping arch of space but it’s a surprisingly small road: they must keep the TV cameras on wide-angle lenses to get the feeling of space.

In through the door of Number 10 (and as a politics geek from a young age, you cannot imagine how hard it is not to bounce off the walls with excitement) and Number 10 staff direct you along corridors lined with portraits of premiers past, down stairs and into the garden of the Prime Minister.

Cue endless canapes and staff making sure your glass stays topped-up; I was wise to go for the fruit juice as I might have had to be carried out if I’d drunk that much wine. There was about an hour of milling about, meeting and talking with around 100 other people from around the UK who do fantastic things in other parts of the LGBT community. As a bisexual genderqueer woman it was good to spot a couple of familiar bi faces and a couple of familiar trans faces; they were invited for non “bi activist” briefs though. There were many religious figures, all of Britain’s senior out-LGBT clergy: the theme of this year’s gathering being the UK government’s plans to legislate for same-sex marriage.

And then here’s Cameron. He speaks for about ten minutes off the cuff, praising the work of many in the crowd, and talks about “gay marriage” and how he thinks the churches are making a big mistake in opposing it. For US readers, imagine a Republican President condemning the church for not supporting same-sex marriage and saying his party had been wrong to be against LGBT equality in the past. He may not be word-perfect on his queer terminology, but this is a man elected seven years ago on an anti-gay rights ticket, so it is great to hear him having come so far in that time.

Then more drinks and mingling and—about 45 minutes after the official end time—the Downing Street staff usher us out. Of course being outside Number 10 means spending half an hour on the doorstep taking photos of one another. This time there was just me; a great honor to be the first, but the UK has many brilliant and vibrant bi projects: BiUK, Bisexual Index, BiPhoria and more. I do hope next year there are three or four of us.

So that was my 39th birthday. I’m a little worried how to top it for my 40th next year!

Jen is the editor of the UK magazine, Bi Community News and has been a bi activist for a very long time ]]> http://bimedia.org/blogs/3391/bi-women-article/feed/ 0 http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/09/18-years-of-biphoria_3.html http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/09/18-years-of-biphoria_3.html#comments Mon, 03 Sep 2012 21:06:00 +0000 Jen http://bimedia.org/blogs/?guid=45d45ccf580501fb5f31499b85f850a0 Bi Community News under the headline "Manchester's 18".  A few reflections on the story of eighteen years of a local bi social & support group; it would have been more navel-gazing and reflective without the word limit on the article!


BiPhoria emerged, like so many bi groups, from Manchester bis meeting up at BiCon and getting talking, and deciding they wanted a bi group back home.  There were already bi groups in the city - one for men, one for women.  However it seems the penny dropped that meeting in separate groups when the uniting factor was that you were people for whom gender was less of an issue was a little peculiar.  At the very least there was room to get together as well.

The model used took organising ahead of each group meeting: every month’s meeting had a defined topic with workshops planned out for months ahead. That seems to have been the case with most other bi groups at the time.

The group started out meeting at Manchester's Lesbian & Gay Centre on Sidney Street. It was a good central location close to bus and train routes, and familiar to people attending the men’s or women’s bi groups.

The first few years were quite energetic, as seems to often be the case where a new bi group forms in an area with pent-up demand.  The monthly calendar had clubbing nights, cinema trips, a bi hill-walking group and more.  Among the spin-off projects was one to lobby the city council, whose equality policies and monitoring firmly declared everyone to be either gay or straight, and to challenge the “no bisexuals” door policies of several gay venues in the city in the 90s.

But after a time early impetus dies out, people find their lives are taking them elsewhere and in the odd case the realisation that you don’t get paid for running this puts people off too.  Planning meetings saw a diminishing pool of people willing to run the group. This was a crunch point - I wound up running the group and if I’d stepped away too there would have been no volunteer base left. 

Groups have momentum and this downward arc continued; for about six months we had typically 3 people a month to meetings, where the group would consist of me, someone who had last been to the group a year or two earlier asking “where is everyone?” and a new member who would never come back on the grounds that it clearly wasn’t the place to meet bi folk after all.  It is hard work summoning up the energy to go back again each month at times like that.  But the steady grind of small publicity work (flyers and posters) and luck of the draw meant eventually breaking out of the cycle - you get a month where four ‘occasional’ members and two or three new people means the mood in the room changes and things start to grow back up from there.

This slow build included bidding for the 2000 BiCon to come to the city.  For years BiCon had moved around the country from year to year without ever landing in Manchester. This turned into a bit of a joke - with Queer As Folk all over the TV, that Manchester was too busy partying the night away to host a BiCon.  The team were mostly not part of the group though: hosting BiCon 1998 had torn apart the Cambridge group, and Manchester wasn’t strong enough to face that kind of stress.
While all eyes were on BiCon there were changes afoot: the city's Lesbian & Gay Switchboard and gay men's sexual health project HGM were merging, and once again the dilapidated Sidney Street building was under threat of closure.  Most groups meeting at Sidney Street merged into this new Lesbian & Gay Foundation, but BiPhoria stayed at arm’s length, meeting in the new LGF building but remaining independent.

This meant finding funding: previously group costs were met by a quick whip-round at each meeting and room hire was free.  Now room hire cost £30 a time so some of the energy that would have gone into group work had to go into funding bids and accounting to these.  But that also meant a greater engagement with other LGBT groups in the city, and a slightly higher profile. 

That profile and more members getting involved again with organising aspects of the group’s work meant the tide was now flowing with the group; we had day-long events to mark Bi Visibility Day in 2001 and 2002, were drawn into the city’s Local Strategic Partnership work and in 2003 published a research report on bi needs in the city based on funded qualitative interviews.  The shape of group meetings changed, with a three-stage evening that starts with half an hour new members’ induction, 90 minutes of discussion normally without a pre-assigned subject, and then adjourning to a nearby quiet pub for chatter over drinks.

Another BiCon in 2004 was our last big blow-out, since when there have been small to mid size events each year - a BiFest or something to mark LGBT History Month - and things have balanced out with structured group meetings and pub / cafe meets.  We’ve had a consistent profile elsewhere too at local LGBT conferences and at Prides in our wider catchment area (which goes right up to Carlisle!) - something that can only happen with enough volunteers making time in their lives to do that outreach and visibility.  In the end the local council even admitted bisexuals exist.

And here we are 18 years on, inheriting along the way the mantle of the oldest bi group in the country as other groups from the early 90s have folded.  Join us to celebrate our 18th birthday downstairs at Taurus, 1 Canal St on September 1st (from 3pm).  Bring cake!
]]> http://bimedia.org/blogs/3245/18-years-of-biphoria/feed/ 0 http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/08/selling-to-bisexuals.html http://jenyockney.blogspot.com/2012/08/selling-to-bisexuals.html#comments Thu, 30 Aug 2012 18:08:00 +0000 Jen http://bimedia.org/blogs/?guid=dd1426f956a6afa8b6d88d9d40103e40 The first (that I have seen) market research about the buying habits of bisexuals has been published in the USA. In the fine traditional comedic trope, I hereby present the next 12 months' bi news.


October.  With polls still close in the Presidential election, and polling showing bis split 12:1 in his favour, Barack Obama railroads the "Bis Vote Twice" bill through Congress.  The plan comes unstuck in November when bisexuals with a preference are nonetheless allowed to vote both ways.

November.  Prof Debunked of the Dodgy Research University publishes his latest findings about bisexuality.  He explains that subjects were shown gay and straight porn on different smartphones while sensors attached to their genitalia recorded whether that type of phone was doing it for them.

December.  The New York Times retracts its "iPhoneite, Androidite or lying" headline admitting the findings related more to how attractive the research assistant looked in a white lab coat.

January.  Apple announce their response to the findings that bisexuals are more likely to buy £100 android phones than functionally-similar £400 iPhones. "Clearly the problem is in our marketing feeling excluding to bi people," says a spokesPad, "and so we will be updating our rainbow striped apple logo to include a pink stripe next to the purple and blue ones."  The new biPhone will cost just £75 extra, and is available in five shades of purple.

February.  Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne slaps 20% VAT on valentines cards purchased by bisexuals, thus milking the Purple Pound for all it is worth.  "Woody Allen told me the bisexuals have twice the chance of a date on Friday night, and that means they must be buying twice as many valentines cards" he explains in an emergency budget statement. 

Stung by Apple's cornering of the bi market, Google releases a customised version of its phone operating system called pandroid.

March.  Not to be outdone by cheap pandroids, Apple launch the new biPhone2, with an extra button that speed-dials the complaints department at Stonewall. A new app for smartphones lets biphobic people automatically block calls from biPhones.

April.  After the quarterly economic figures reveal the valentines card ruse failed to raise a single extra penny, on account of the bis all being far too busy playing on their biPhones to remember to send one another cards, George Osborne goes on television to admit he's not the real Chancellor, just to be a schoolboy on a really long Jim'll Fix It.

May.  Apple takes Google to court over pandroid phones, claiming they are a blatant rip-off of the biPhone.  Google's lawyers defend the clear and vast difference between the two: "it is not just another word for the same thing. The pandroid phones are a touchscreen with a suffusion of purple, whereas biPhones are a suffusion of purple with a touchscreen".  The judge listens carefully and throws the case out of court on the grounds that everyone knows there is no such thing as a bisexual.

June.  Concerned that it is missing out on the purple pound and that the bi- and pan- prefixes have already been snapped up, Microsoft launches Windows Mobile Omnishambles.  Following the flop of a youtube 'viral' ad campaign where Gerald Ratner observes "people ask me how Microsoft can sell a phone this cheap, and I say: it's because it's total ...er, totally purple" it is reviewed as both completely unusable and the best implementation of Windows yet.

July.  At a star-studded television awards ceremony, the heads of Sky, BBC and Virgin make a joint statement on the findings that 73% of bi women and 44% of bi men regularly see biphobia in the mainstream media. They pledge to make the negative portrayal of bi men that bit more obvious to help the boys catch up.

August.  Despite the market research claims of a year earlier, sales figures of biPhone, pandroid and omnishambles handsets reveal the purple pound to be as yet a myth and the bisexual community resolves to go back to taking all research about itself with a pinch of salt.

September.  Market research work begins to find out what kind of salt bisexuals find most reassuring.]]> http://bimedia.org/blogs/3205/selling-to-bisexuals/feed/ 0