Here’s where we’re meeting for the parade. Our usual visibility maximising theme is “Wear Purple For Pride”, and I have a few purple shirts somewhere, I’m sure (c;
Several months ago I sent emails to the organisers asking about Bisexual speakers at the rally, and if they had someone speaking about bi pride, or would they like me to find them someone, or would they let me volunteer to do it. Not a single one of my emails was ever replied to.
Pride London has restructured its role and engagement with the LGBT communities, this area is now Equality and Diversity. As it is now all groups are formally now part of pride London and are managed by specially appointed convenors for all areas.
(From pridelondon.org/about.php)
The communities/groups listed are: B.A.M.E (Black and Asian Minority Ethnic), Youth and Pride, Older Persons, Trans, Women and Disability. I’ve emailed again asking if they’ll consider having a Bi group, but I don’t expect I’ll receive a response…
Pride marches are important in many ways. Two good reasons are remembering that the great battles of the past were fought by people from across the LGBT spectrum and showing the world we’re not ashamed to be ourselves. But another important one is allowing the LGBT community to marvel at its own internal diversity, or lack thereof. If the Trans group or BAME group decided to boycott Pride one year then I’m quite sure people would notice – not just in the heirarchy of the organisation (because it’s an official Pride group) but also during the march due to the lower number of those people.
Would the same thing happen if we didn’t organise a bi presence? If we don’t show up, I’m not sure they would.
If you’re in London on Saturday, why not come down. Be in the march parade or at the rally or wave from behind the barriers. Wear purple, or don’t. But do please recognise – Bisexuals can have Pride.
Update:
So my email was “I never received a reply to my request re speakers. Why isn’t there a Bi Group and can we organise one?” Just received a hasty reply from Pride: I think I sent you a message as do recall this original email, as a rule we do not ask the sexuality of our speakers or participants, We would expect that all speakers address all issues i.e LGBT issues as a whole.
I resent my question about a bi group, and if the speakers included representatives from bi organisations and: I can say that sitting in every group , youth, Disabled, BME, Trans women we would expect there would be bi representation and in fact I am aware that in each group they are , so these need to be challenged as to ensure that the Bi element is on the stage.
So, there we have it. If no-one on stage mentions bisexual issues, it’s the fault of the other sub-groups which apparently have an offical Bi representative. And that means they don’t need a bisexual group.
Of course, I’d expect the BAME group to also include Trans, women, young, old and disabled people. And the same for each of those others…
