{"id":8393,"date":"2018-12-31T13:56:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/?guid=7702b36ffe113e4ca985878a79615a35"},"modified":"2018-12-31T14:28:40","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:28:40","slug":"2018-in-bisexual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/2018\/12\/2018-in-bisexual\/","title":{"rendered":"2018 in Bisexual"},"content":{"rendered":"

Something I wrote for the BCN website<\/a> wrapping up loads of bi news from the past twelve months…<\/i><\/p>\n

So, 2018 has been and gone.<\/b> Here are our bi-lights of the year past.<\/p>\n

Seen On Screen<\/h3>\n

We had more bis on TV than ever including shows with bisexual leads The Bi Life<\/a>, Sally4Ever<\/a> and The Bisexual<\/a>, as well as bis in shows like Riverdale<\/a>, The Good Place<\/a>, Jeremy Thorpe drama A Very English Scandal,<\/a> bi poly life in the 1940s with Professor Marston & The Wonder Women<\/a>, and the Freddie Mercury film Bohemian Rhapsody<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Research<\/h3>\n

Research showed bisexuals are far more closeted than gay and lesbian people<\/a> \u2013 and more likely to experience violence and abuse<\/a>. So much for the \u2018best of both worlds\u2019. The BiReCon<\/b> (bisexuality research conference) events that have happened each even-numbered year since 2008 took a break but there was a day-long event in a similar vein in Manchester<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The government published the findings of the biggest LGBT survey ever conducted in the UK \u2013 and pulled out the bi findings where they were interesting, and often sadly reflected how bi people face additional challenges compared to gay and straight people. Among the resulting work programme they promised to ban \u2018conversion therapy\u2019<\/a> \u2013 the discredited practice of trying to persuade people into being straight or gay rather than gay or bi.<\/p>\n

Politics<\/h3>\n

Political life in the UK is in a bit of turmoil, but in some parts of the union more than others. While the Conservative-DUP not-a-coalition struggles on in Westminster, and the Sinn Fein-DUP deadlock sees nothing happening in Stormont, there\u2019s a working coalition in Cardiff Bay, and a minority government in Holyrood similarly getting on with its own agenda.<\/p>\n

And so Scotland<\/a> and Wales<\/a> both announced improvements in sex and relationship education in schools \u2013 thanks in part to SNP education minister John Swinney and Lib Dem education minister Kirsty Williams but importantly thanks to long lobbying campaigns by individuals and campaign groups like TIE. Working for change takes time but the changes set for classrooms in Wales and Scotland will make all the toil of recent years feel worth it. England and Northern Ireland may be waiting a bit longer for equivalent improvements. We got our fifth equality minister<\/a> at Westminster in the space of two years: I suppose they last longer than Brexit secretaries.<\/p>\n

Referendums continued to be a poor way to decide human rights: while Ireland voted the right way on abortion, giving people rights over their own bodies rather than over one anothers, Taiwan rejected same-sex marriage<\/a>, and Romania debated redefining the word \u2018family\u2019<\/a> to exclude same-sex couples.
Meanwhile in the US midterms the voters put Kyrsten Sinema<\/a> in the Senate alongside other LGBT winners in other races while the Republicans\u2019 most prominent out bisexual defected to the Democrats<\/a>. The Danish minister for Education<\/a> came out as bisexual, and Colombia got its first out-bi Senator<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Looking Back<\/h3>\n

Many events for LGBT History<\/a> Month in 2017 had focused on 50 years since a bisexual MP (Home Secretary and later SDP leader Roy Jenkins) had enabled the partial decriminalisation of sex between men.  This year we had other key anniversaries with round numbers involved \u2013 40 years since the Rainbow Flag<\/b>, 30 years<\/a> since Section 28<\/b>, and 20 years<\/a> of the bisexual flag<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Proud Allies<\/h3>\n

There were bi stalls at more LGBT Prides than ever (we reckon) with BiPrideUK\u2019s campaign of publicity stalls reaching much of the smattering of prides that local groups like Bothways, BiPhoria and BiCymru don\u2019t reach in an average year.<\/p>\n

It was a summer where a small clique of transphobic people<\/a> disrupted Pride in London and inspired many other Prides to show their rejection of transphobia.<\/p>\n

Bi events<\/h3>\n

BiCon<\/b> came to Salford for the first time \u2013 and went rather well. Next time it\u2019s in Lancaster<\/a>. Smaller BiFest events were successes in Birmingham<\/a>, Swansea<\/a>, London<\/a> and Stirling<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bi Visibility Day<\/b> (and that does seem to be gaining ground as the name used for it worldwide now rather than just in the UK) was huge once again<\/a> \u2013 with its children, BiWeek<\/b> and BiMonth<\/b> growing in usage as well.  Twitter joined in with a special BiWeek emoji<\/a>. and BiVisibilityDay trended hard<\/a> in the UK on September 23rd.<\/p>\n

Big Bi Fun Day<\/b>\u2018s future was left in doubt<\/a> with no-one coming forward to run it in 2019.<\/p>\n

Us<\/h3>\n

And there were of course six fabulous<\/a> issues<\/a> of<\/a> BCN<\/a> magazine<\/a>. Subscribe to get the next six now.<\/a><\/b> <\/p>\n

The future<\/h3>\n

It turned out there will be a sexuality question in the census<\/b> in 2021<\/a>, along with a trans question \u2013 but they\u2019ll be optional and people will still have a blunt \u201care you male or female\u201d question, so there is still more work to do. Making it optional implies a degree of shame about the answer, if you ask us.<\/p>\n

And so to 2019,<\/b> whose anniversaries include 50 years since the Stonewall riot in the USA, 30 years since the UK\u2019s LG(BT) lobbying group named after it was launched, and 25 years since BiPhoria formed \u2013 the UK\u2019s oldest extant bi group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We might even see progress on making Civil Partnerships more equal<\/a>. And, of course, there\u2019s Brexit<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Something I wrote for the BCN website wrapping up loads of bi news from the past twelve months…So, 2018 has been and gone. Here are our bi-lights of the year past.Seen On ScreenWe had more bis on TV than ever including shows with bisexual leads The B…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,56,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bi","category-ldb","category-the-b-word"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8393"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9134,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393\/revisions\/9134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}