Fast Approaching Thirty!

The last few years have been tough for a lot of us - here's hoping 2024 will give us a break! If you've not already seen it, or could use a reminder of the events of the past 12 months, Bi Community News magazine has its annual "wrap up of the bi year" story here. 

In 2024 we will celebrate our 30th year as a bi group. BiPhoria started back in 1994 after a national bisexual conference, where people from the existing women's and men's bi groups came together and considered a new joint project. 

In doing so they recognised that it was a little strange to have people for whom gender was not the delineating factor in their attraction to meet solely in gendered groups, and that binary gendered groups meant a number of potential members didn't really have a group where they could be comfortable. 

The gendered groups died away over time - closing down by around 1998 - and new projects like our campaign group came to replace them.

Visibly Bisexual (in the village)

 

Our bi banner is back up on Canal Street - despite the city council nearly foiling our plans! 

 We've had it up most years since 2017 (there was a Covid hiatus!) and in the past it was on Sackville Gardens, where the Alan Turing statue is, looking out across to the middle of Canal Street. 

This year the council won't let us do that sort of thing any more but Kampus have kindly let us use their fence instead, facing out to the Piccadilly train station end of Canal Street. Cheers Kampus! And Manchester Pride ran an interview with us here.

You Showed, You Told!

 

Show & Tell Bi History was a massive success, thank you everyone who came along today!

The library had set us aside a space that could take eight people so ten of us had to bunch up to fit in for two and a half hours of going through the city's LGBT records and finding some of the "B" in Manchester's LGBT story.

It seems pretty certain we will be doing that one again. Big thanks to Manchester Central Library's archives unit for hosting us and sharing some of their treasures.

Manchester Pride 2023

 

We had a great start to our Manchester Pride weekend with the parade day - huge response to us from the crowd and especially to the new BI & PROUD placards we had for the parade.

Did you see us and take a photo we could use? Do let us have it!

Thanks to all our marching group and everyone who cheered and waved us on.

Pan Visibility

 

Today (24 May) is Pan Visibility Day, when we celebrate one of the labels under the big bi umbrella: pansexuality and panromanticism. 

That's attraction - sexual or romantic - to people of all genders, and with gender not being a factor in the attraction. See the facebook event here.

TV Memories

On Tuesday night we held a special session at People's History Museum, with Manchester Pride.

We talked about bi representation on television, and below are the names of all the shows people shared for our timeline of TV memories.  Where people included notes about the character portrayal I've added those.

As you'd expect - SPOILERS AHEAD! 

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Willow (dates Oz and Tara, B word isn't said specifically)
Powerpuff Girls - HIM is a villain who is camp, fun, cartoon fake and cool.
VMA Awards 2003 - the kiss with Madonna Britney and Christina.  Fetishising of sexual contact between women?
Brooklyn 99 - Rosa Diaz is a really positive and 'real' feeling; coming out episodes really well done and relateable
She-Ra (netflix remake not the 80s version) - Sea-Hawk is canon bi
Euphoria - Jules' bisexuality is addressed later in the show when she starts dating a woman
The 100 - Clarke is but it's unaddressed same as other LGBTQ characters in the series
Glee - Brittney - her (lesbian) girlfriend and other gay characters were discussed, however her sexuality was not addressed
Shadowhunter - Magnus is actually described as a "freewheeling bisexual"
Schitt's Creek - David is described as pansexual but very welcoming portrayal and the wine analogy is everything
 and I use it to explain bi/pan all the time
The Bi Show (side note: I think the writer means "The Bi Life") & RuPaul's Drag Race. In particular Courtney Act - bisexuality was not brought up in RuPaul Drag Race but later CA hosted a show on bisexuality.
The Bold Type - Kat Edison. Addresses the invalidation of the bi experience even within LGBT spaces and being called "fence sitter" or "piut stop before coming out as gay".
The Good Place - Tahani and Elanor. No labels placed but it is implied and no one bats an eyelid
Killing Eve
Gentleman Jack - hard to tell motivations due to being a period drama with social expectations of the time
And coming soon: Heartstopper starts 22 April 2022. Nick Nelson, it's based on a comic which explores Nick realising he is bi and his journey coming out.

When you've watched all of them (it might take a little while) there're even more suggestions on https://bicommunitynews.co.uk/bimediawatch

(And if you ever want to write up some bi rep on TV for that column it'd be very welcome!)

The Bisexual Agenda for December

It's December and the year is nearly over (we won't miss this one much!) but there are still bi dates coming up as well as World AIDS Day tomorrow.

Check out the Bisexual Agenda for December.