Coming out bisexual
Posted incoming out mental health politics

Coming out bisexual

The first of January, the beginning of a new year, means a new start. Resolutions, if you like. And for some, the idea of new beginnings means coming out.

I spend quite a lot of time on Twitter these days, and various retweets – or repostings by others, if you don’t know about Twitter – are from or about people who’ve decided they are finally going to tell other people they are bisexual.

Coming out as bi can be complicated, mainly because you have to tell people over and over again. People you don’t know will assume that you are either gay or heterosexual, depending on whether your partner is a man or a woman. If you are single, or dating several people, or poly – that can be easier.

There’s no bisexual “look”, in many places there’s no bi scene, the fact that other bisexuals seem hard to find (other than on the internet)... all these things can be annoying if you are looking for support.

But telling the world you are bi is important, really important.

Most of the world thinks that there is no such thing as bisexuality, that bi people are straight people playing at being gay (bi women) or gay people running away from their real sexuality (bi men). You know that it’s not like that – for you and for many others. The more of us who come out, the easier it is for those people who are not out yet.

And there are many people who cannot be out yet, because it is too difficult. They are too unsure of their feelings, their religion says it is wrong, it is illegal in their country, everyone around them thinks it is wicked, their family actually would beat them up and throw them out. They need to know there are people in the world who can support them, however far away they are or whether or not they know them personally.

So coming out is a public service.

It’s also something to do for yourself. Telling people you are bi, especially potentially tricky ones like parents and partners, means you are telling the truth about yourself. You don’t have to lie about a significant part of yourself. Yes, it will be difficult sometimes, but you may also be surprised by the people who will help and support you.

A bi man I once interviewed - deep in the closet, with a conventional life that felt he couldn’t threaten - said that he longed to “live out loud, like other people”. Coming out is the first step to doing that.

Happy New Year. And good luck!
Coming out bisexual
Posted incoming out mental health politics

Coming out bisexual

The first of January, the beginning of a new year, means a new start. Resolutions, if you like. And for some, the idea of new beginnings means coming out.

I spend quite a lot of time on Twitter these days, and various retweets – or repostings by others, if you don’t know about Twitter – are from or about people who’ve decided they are finally going to tell other people they are bisexual.

Coming out as bi can be complicated, mainly because you have to tell people over and over again. People you don’t know will assume that you are either gay or heterosexual, depending on whether your partner is a man or a woman. If you are single, or dating several people, or poly – that can be easier.

There’s no bisexual “look”, in many places there’s no bi scene, the fact that other bisexuals seem hard to find (other than on the internet)... all these things can be annoying if you are looking for support.

But telling the world you are bi is important, really important.

Most of the world thinks that there is no such thing as bisexuality, that bi people are straight people playing at being gay (bi women) or gay people running away from their real sexuality (bi men). You know that it’s not like that – for you and for many others. The more of us who come out, the easier it is for those people who are not out yet.

And there are many people who cannot be out yet, because it is too difficult. They are too unsure of their feelings, their religion says it is wrong, it is illegal in their country, everyone around them thinks it is wicked, their family actually would beat them up and throw them out. They need to know there are people in the world who can support them, however far away they are or whether or not they know them personally.

So coming out is a public service.

It’s also something to do for yourself. Telling people you are bi, especially potentially tricky ones like parents and partners, means you are telling the truth about yourself. You don’t have to lie about a significant part of yourself. Yes, it will be difficult sometimes, but you may also be surprised by the people who will help and support you.

A bi man I once interviewed - deep in the closet, with a conventional life that felt he couldn’t threaten - said that he longed to “live out loud, like other people”. Coming out is the first step to doing that.

Happy New Year. And good luck!
A critique of the coverage following the lifting of the lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with men
Posted inanalysis bisexuality criticism discrimination evidence based policy politics

A critique of the coverage following the lifting of the lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with men

For those of you who don't already know, last week it was announced there would no longer be a lifetime ban on men who have had oral or anal sex with men (MSM) giving blood. Men will now be able to give blood a year after they last had sex with another man.


First of all: I welcome this change. In 2004 I collected signatures to ask the National Blood Service to review their policies as I felt at the time it was unnecessarily discriminatory. Since then however, I have changed my mind somewhat. Being able to give blood shouldn't about the feelings of the donors but about the health of those who receive the blood. MSM make up a significant proportion of those living with HIV, when compared to the proportion of the total population who are MSM. Because of this, I can understand why evidence had to be looked at before lifting the lifetime ban. If the recent study had found that the lifetime ban had remained in place in order to secure the blood supply, I would have supported this as long as the evidence had supported this. I do think that there is room for improvement though. As it stands now, a gay man in a committed relationship will still not be able to give blood, even if both partners have been faithful for the last 12 months. I'd be in favour of a further change which only ban those who have had a new partner in the last 12 months. However, if there isn't any evidence to support this change, then I can accept that it can't be made. Chris Ward, a writer for Lib Dem Voice appears to share my views and writes about them more eloquently here. This doesn't mean I think that all gay men are inherently at risk from being infected with HIV. In fact, I think it's nonsensical that a committed gay couple still can't give blood whereas a man or a woman who sleeps with a different partner of the opposite sex each week will be able to.

The coverage for this change has been mixed. Even the best article about it have been misleading, at least as far as the headline goes:

From Pink News: One-year blood donation deferral for UK gay men
The headline implies the new policy only applies to those men who identify as gay. However, it doesn't. Thanks to this change, men who now identify as straight who experimented in his youth will now be able to give blood. Thankfully though it goes on to rectify this in the very first paragraph:
The Department of Health has announced it will remove the lifetime blood donation ban on any man who has ever had gay sex.
I can forgive the headline because the alternative would have been almost as long winded as my own.

However, unsurprisingly, the coverage from The Mail and the Telegraph hasn't been as good. The problems with The Mail's coverage starts with the laughable headline:
Lifetime blood donor ban for gay men lifted - as long as they haven't had sex for a year
The lifetime blood donor ban for MSM has been lifted and replaced with a one-year deferral. To try and say that a lifetime ban would still be in place if the man has had sex in the past year is simply wrong and logically non-sensical. Not only that, this rule wouldn't stop bisexual men who have had sex with women in the past year. Also, gay men occasionally have sex with women. It's not the norm but it happens. Those men who identify as gay who for some reason have only had sex with a woman or women in the past year would not be banned under the new rules.

The writer just refused to qualify throughout the article that the lifetime ban didn't just impact gay and bisexual men but also men and those who may have experimented in their youth and those who didn't have much choice in the matter. The Mail also seems to break basic rules of writing articles, saying that LGB organisations welcome the changes in the paragraph directly before this one:
Deborah Jack, chief executive of the National AIDS Trust, said: 'The lifetime ban on gay men donating blood has been at the centre of much controversy and debate in recent years, particularly as it became clear that this rule and current science were completely out of sync."
The NAT isn't an LGBT rights' organisation, it never has been. From its 'about us' page:
NAT is the UK's leading charity dedicated to transforming society's response to HIV. We provide fresh thinking, expertise and practical resources. We champion the rights of people living with HIV and campaign for change.
A better quote to follow the previous paragraph would have been from Stonewall's statement, which they have very helpfully provided on their website. They also make a massive clanger:
Most new HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infections in the UK still result from men having sex with men.
In the latest statistics I can find (from 2010) MSM only made up 39% of those newly diagnosed with HIV. But research, what's that Mail?

I didn't think it'd be possible for anyone to outdo The Mail's bad journalism but somehow on this occasion, the Telegraph rose to the challenge.

Even the headline is an amazing example of scaremongering:
Gay men can give blood after discrimination claims
Coming from The Telegraph one instantly gets the impression the paper thinks this is "a bad thing" which must be stopped. It seems to suggest the reason why the lifetime ban has been lifted because of pesky homosexuals demanding their pint of blood to be sucked from their arteries. This could not be further from the truth if it tried. Yes, some gay men have been campaigning for the blood ban to be re-examined, including Peter Tatchell (more on him later). However, what lead to the change was a study of empirical evidence by The Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SABTO) which concluded there would be no higher risk of people acquiring HIV and other blood borne viruses with a one year deferral when compared to a lifetime ban. They also included this lovely paragraph:
It is not thought that the change will result in large numbers of new donors, however, since most homosexual men are sexually active.
Yeah, those pesky homosexual men, they're all at it, unlike the... er... rest of humanity? Unlike in The Mail's article, bisexual men aren't even mentioned here.

I haven't found some of the response from gay rights' campaigners to be altogether helpful either. For instance Peter Tatchell wrote in the Guardian last Friday to say that the changes should go further:
Most gay and bisexual men do not have HIV and will never have HIV. If they always have safe sex with a condom, have only one partner and test HIV negative, their blood is safe to donate.
I completely agree with him here, but what SABTO needs is data to prove this, not rhetoric. So what I think would be more helpful would be to ask for the next study to examine allowing those in committed relationships to give blood, rather than insisting the change must happen regardless.

In Stonewall's statement, their CEO Ben Summerskill is quoted as saying:
To retain a blanket ban on any man who has had sex with another man in the last year, even if he has only had oral sex, remains disproportionate on the basis of available evidence.
However, if you actually read SABTO's report which was published by the Department of Health it says:
The risk with oral sex is very low but HIV transmission does occur, however, given the lack of data it is difficult to make summary estimates for the transmission risk through oral sex.
So according to the official report, no such data relating to oral sex exists. However, the rest of the statement seems quite sensible:
Stonewall will continue to push for a donation system based on the real risks a potential donor poses. People wanting to donate blood should be asked similar questions - irrespective of their sexual orientation - that accurately assess their level of risk of infection.
I'd welcome this, although the donor questionnaire might get a bit busy. Perhaps another study is required? (I perhaps should have mentioned I'm an analyst at heart ;-))

I never thought I'd say this: congratulations to the coalition for coming to a good decision. You're not there yet, but maybe as more evidence becomes available you'll get there eventually.
A critique of the coverage following the lifting of the lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with men
Posted inanalysis bisexuality criticism discrimination evidence based policy politics

A critique of the coverage following the lifting of the lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with men

For those of you who don't already know, last week it was announced there would no longer be a lifetime ban on men who have had oral or anal sex with men (MSM) giving blood. Men will now be able to give blood a year after they last had sex with another man.


First of all: I welcome this change. In 2004 I collected signatures to ask the National Blood Service to review their policies as I felt at the time it was unnecessarily discriminatory. Since then however, I have changed my mind somewhat. Being able to give blood shouldn't about the feelings of the donors but about the health of those who receive the blood. MSM make up a significant proportion of those living with HIV, when compared to the proportion of the total population who are MSM. Because of this, I can understand why evidence had to be looked at before lifting the lifetime ban. If the recent study had found that the lifetime ban had remained in place in order to secure the blood supply, I would have supported this as long as the evidence had supported this. I do think that there is room for improvement though. As it stands now, a gay man in a committed relationship will still not be able to give blood, even if both partners have been faithful for the last 12 months. I'd be in favour of a further change which only ban those who have had a new partner in the last 12 months. However, if there isn't any evidence to support this change, then I can accept that it can't be made. Chris Ward, a writer for Lib Dem Voice appears to share my views and writes about them more eloquently here. This doesn't mean I think that all gay men are inherently at risk from being infected with HIV. In fact, I think it's nonsensical that a committed gay couple still can't give blood whereas a man or a woman who sleeps with a different partner of the opposite sex each week will be able to.

The coverage for this change has been mixed. Even the best article about it have been misleading, at least as far as the headline goes:

From Pink News: One-year blood donation deferral for UK gay men
The headline implies the new policy only applies to those men who identify as gay. However, it doesn't. Thanks to this change, men who now identify as straight who experimented in his youth will now be able to give blood. Thankfully though it goes on to rectify this in the very first paragraph:
The Department of Health has announced it will remove the lifetime blood donation ban on any man who has ever had gay sex.
I can forgive the headline because the alternative would have been almost as long winded as my own.

However, unsurprisingly, the coverage from The Mail and the Telegraph hasn't been as good. The problems with The Mail's coverage starts with the laughable headline:
Lifetime blood donor ban for gay men lifted - as long as they haven't had sex for a year
The lifetime blood donor ban for MSM has been lifted and replaced with a one-year deferral. To try and say that a lifetime ban would still be in place if the man has had sex in the past year is simply wrong and logically non-sensical. Not only that, this rule wouldn't stop bisexual men who have had sex with women in the past year. Also, gay men occasionally have sex with women. It's not the norm but it happens. Those men who identify as gay who for some reason have only had sex with a woman or women in the past year would not be banned under the new rules.

The writer just refused to qualify throughout the article that the lifetime ban didn't just impact gay and bisexual men but also men and those who may have experimented in their youth and those who didn't have much choice in the matter. The Mail also seems to break basic rules of writing articles, saying that LGB organisations welcome the changes in the paragraph directly before this one:
Deborah Jack, chief executive of the National AIDS Trust, said: 'The lifetime ban on gay men donating blood has been at the centre of much controversy and debate in recent years, particularly as it became clear that this rule and current science were completely out of sync."
The NAT isn't an LGBT rights' organisation, it never has been. From its 'about us' page:
NAT is the UK's leading charity dedicated to transforming society's response to HIV. We provide fresh thinking, expertise and practical resources. We champion the rights of people living with HIV and campaign for change.
A better quote to follow the previous paragraph would have been from Stonewall's statement, which they have very helpfully provided on their website. They also make a massive clanger:
Most new HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infections in the UK still result from men having sex with men.
In the latest statistics I can find (from 2010) MSM only made up 39% of those newly diagnosed with HIV. But research, what's that Mail?

I didn't think it'd be possible for anyone to outdo The Mail's bad journalism but somehow on this occasion, the Telegraph rose to the challenge.

Even the headline is an amazing example of scaremongering:
Gay men can give blood after discrimination claims
Coming from The Telegraph one instantly gets the impression the paper thinks this is "a bad thing" which must be stopped. It seems to suggest the reason why the lifetime ban has been lifted because of pesky homosexuals demanding their pint of blood to be sucked from their arteries. This could not be further from the truth if it tried. Yes, some gay men have been campaigning for the blood ban to be re-examined, including Peter Tatchell (more on him later). However, what lead to the change was a study of empirical evidence by The Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SABTO) which concluded there would be no higher risk of people acquiring HIV and other blood borne viruses with a one year deferral when compared to a lifetime ban. They also included this lovely paragraph:
It is not thought that the change will result in large numbers of new donors, however, since most homosexual men are sexually active.
Yeah, those pesky homosexual men, they're all at it, unlike the... er... rest of humanity? Unlike in The Mail's article, bisexual men aren't even mentioned here.

I haven't found some of the response from gay rights' campaigners to be altogether helpful either. For instance Peter Tatchell wrote in the Guardian last Friday to say that the changes should go further:
Most gay and bisexual men do not have HIV and will never have HIV. If they always have safe sex with a condom, have only one partner and test HIV negative, their blood is safe to donate.
I completely agree with him here, but what SABTO needs is data to prove this, not rhetoric. So what I think would be more helpful would be to ask for the next study to examine allowing those in committed relationships to give blood, rather than insisting the change must happen regardless.

In Stonewall's statement, their CEO Ben Summerskill is quoted as saying:
To retain a blanket ban on any man who has had sex with another man in the last year, even if he has only had oral sex, remains disproportionate on the basis of available evidence.
However, if you actually read SABTO's report which was published by the Department of Health it says:
The risk with oral sex is very low but HIV transmission does occur, however, given the lack of data it is difficult to make summary estimates for the transmission risk through oral sex.
So according to the official report, no such data relating to oral sex exists. However, the rest of the statement seems quite sensible:
Stonewall will continue to push for a donation system based on the real risks a potential donor poses. People wanting to donate blood should be asked similar questions - irrespective of their sexual orientation - that accurately assess their level of risk of infection.
I'd welcome this, although the donor questionnaire might get a bit busy. Perhaps another study is required? (I perhaps should have mentioned I'm an analyst at heart ;-))

I never thought I'd say this: congratulations to the coalition for coming to a good decision. You're not there yet, but maybe as more evidence becomes available you'll get there eventually.
Bisexual blog, Bisexual Pride
Posted inBi Community Events Invisibility politics

Bisexual blog, Bisexual Pride




It’s five years tomorrow since I started this bisexual blog. I don’t update it regularly any more, but it has been very important to me as an outlet for my ideas on bisexuality when other outlets have seemed a bit sparse. And, as hundreds of thousands of people have visited it, it must have been of some interest and importance to a few other people too.

Below, I’m going to post a link to the entry with which I opened this blog. I wrote about EuroPride, held in London that year. Tomorrow is the Pride march in London too. I had a great time at EuroPride in 2006, but in general I find the lack of politics at Pride in London combined with vacuous celebration a bit wearing and tedious. And believe me, I LOVE celebrations in general.

I think the purpose of Pride should be political as well as celebratory – just as a quick for instance, there are homophobic attacks in the UK, and essential solidarity with people in countries where same-sex is illegal and strictly punished. There are tremendous queer activists, such as David Kato in Uganda who was murdered this year, to honour.

In the Pride press pack, their Love Without Borders campaign is one of the things they do talk about. But if you saw the Pride poster (seen on the London underground, but nowhere that I can find on the interwebs), you’d have to search hard to figure out what sort of Pride it was. Smirnoff Pride, perhaps.

There will be a bi stall and bi banner at Pride, London tomorrow and I really wish those attending all the best. It is absolutely essential that bi people are properly visible and there is even an international campaign about it.

Moving on up
Thanks (in a large part) to social media, there seems to be a lot more of a bisexual community than there was back in 2006, in the UK and elsewhere. Twitter and Facebook have put loads of people in touch with each other, and not just virtually. Ideas spin around the world soon as anything.

Also, there are many more bi bloggers than there were in 2006 when I couldn’t find any British ones at all. It’s very hard to keep blogging in the long term and many have opened and closed. But thanks to the Bi Bloggers aggregator site, organised by the ever-efficient Jen Yockney, anyone who’s interested in British bi bloggers can see that there’s quite a lot of it about. And of course there are many other bi bloggers around the world (particularly North America). If a bi celebrity comes out, or a prominent queer columnist such as Dan Savage opines on bisexuality, there are plenty of other people who can write about it. There are other aspects of bisexuality that people don’t write about, though, and when I write here in the future that’s what I’ll be covering.

Anyway, as anyone who knows a smidgeon of blogging theory can tell you, less is most definitely more. So happy bisexual birthday and Pride – whether it’s been or still to come where you are – and be happy that things really can and do get better.

Here’s what I wrote in 2006.
Bisexual blog, Bisexual Pride
Posted inBi Community Events Invisibility politics

Bisexual blog, Bisexual Pride




It’s five years tomorrow since I started this bisexual blog. I don’t update it regularly any more, but it has been very important to me as an outlet for my ideas on bisexuality when other outlets have seemed a bit sparse. And, as hundreds of thousands of people have visited it, it must have been of some interest and importance to a few other people too.

Below, I’m going to post a link to the entry with which I opened this blog. I wrote about EuroPride, held in London that year. Tomorrow is the Pride march in London too. I had a great time at EuroPride in 2006, but in general I find the lack of politics at Pride in London combined with vacuous celebration a bit wearing and tedious. And believe me, I LOVE celebrations in general.

I think the purpose of Pride should be political as well as celebratory – just as a quick for instance, there are homophobic attacks in the UK, and essential solidarity with people in countries where same-sex is illegal and strictly punished. There are tremendous queer activists, such as David Kato in Uganda who was murdered this year, to honour.

In the Pride press pack, their Love Without Borders campaign is one of the things they do talk about. But if you saw the Pride poster (seen on the London underground, but nowhere that I can find on the interwebs), you’d have to search hard to figure out what sort of Pride it was. Smirnoff Pride, perhaps.

There will be a bi stall and bi banner at Pride, London tomorrow and I really wish those attending all the best. It is absolutely essential that bi people are properly visible and there is even an international campaign about it.

Moving on up
Thanks (in a large part) to social media, there seems to be a lot more of a bisexual community than there was back in 2006, in the UK and elsewhere. Twitter and Facebook have put loads of people in touch with each other, and not just virtually. Ideas spin around the world soon as anything.

Also, there are many more bi bloggers than there were in 2006 when I couldn’t find any British ones at all. It’s very hard to keep blogging in the long term and many have opened and closed. But thanks to the Bi Bloggers aggregator site, organised by the ever-efficient Jen Yockney, anyone who’s interested in British bi bloggers can see that there’s quite a lot of it about. And of course there are many other bi bloggers around the world (particularly North America). If a bi celebrity comes out, or a prominent queer columnist such as Dan Savage opines on bisexuality, there are plenty of other people who can write about it. There are other aspects of bisexuality that people don’t write about, though, and when I write here in the future that’s what I’ll be covering.

Anyway, as anyone who knows a smidgeon of blogging theory can tell you, less is most definitely more. So happy bisexual birthday and Pride – whether it’s been or still to come where you are – and be happy that things really can and do get better.

Here’s what I wrote in 2006.