In this post I want to share some thoughts about the learnings that I believe are important, in both directions, between mental health activism and sexuality/gender activism. I also want to explore the separation that we make between these two areas and whether that might be part of the problem.

Separating out mental health and gender/sexuality

The first thing we were asked to do on the panel was to introduce ourselves, including our own gender and sexuality – given the focus of the panel – and our lived experience of mental health struggles.

The answer I would usually give to this question nowadays – for example in the interview that I did for mental health podcast So Many Wings – would be something like this: 

‘My gender is trans, my sexuality is queer, and my mental health situation is that I’m a survivor of developmental and relational trauma who experiences themselves as plural.’

So I could be diagnosed with post traumatic stress and dissociative identity disorders if using those psychiatric categories. If you wanted to add a question in there about my spiritual/therapeutic stance then something like somatic- and social justice-informed Buddhist mindfulness might get close to that.

As I considered this answer though, I realised that a deeper truth is that it really doesn’t make much sense to me, any more, to distinguish my gender, my sexuality, my mental health status, and my spirituality in this way. The answer to all of these questions – gender, sexuality, mental health, and spirituality – could be trans, they could all be queer, they could all be plural, traumatised, and mindful. They are all of them.

So the main point I want to make in this piece is that I think we should question the very separation between mental health activism and LGBTQIA+ activism. The reasons for this is not just because – as Black feminists have rightly pointed out – we have to fight all forms of injustice – whether or not they impact us directly – in order to be truly free. It’s also not just because so many queers are also survivors due to the traumatising nature of marginalisation and stigmatisation. It’s because the very separation of these aspects of our experience may well be part of the problem which leads to both the oppression of queer people and to the distress of survivors. 

I’ll return to this theme in more depth shortly. First, let’s consider what each form of activism might learn from the other, if we did regard them as separable. For each I’ll make a couple of key suggestions although there are many more we could consider.

What can mental health activism learn from LGBTQIA+ activism?

My answers to this question are both things which more radical mental health activism has already learnt from queer activism, but which could definitely do with filtering through more fully to mainstream mental health activism.

First, LGBTQIA+ activism – whether the more mainstream or radical version – has generally located the problem of queer experience out there in the heteronormative, homophobic, biphobic, transphobic, acephobic, etc. culture, rather than in queer people themselves. This is a shift that began a long time ago, in the moves towards decriminalisation and depathologisation of homosexuality. It has continued as each new addition to the LGBTQIA+ acronym has eventually argued that their experience should not be understood as a problem within the individual, but an issue with wider normative society. 

Within more mainstream mental health activism there is still often a sense of mental health struggles as something which are located within the individual, which require fixing, rather than as signs of a toxic culture, unjust social structures, or systemic problems within a family or workplace, for example. 

Some mental health struggles simply wouldn’t be struggles within a culture which accepted diverse experience rather than insisting that people follow certain rigid norms of behaviour and experience, and pathologised and stigmatised those who don’t. Many other struggles are the result of forms of traumatic experiences such as marginalisation and non-consensual treatment, which are individualised in the person who is struggling, rather than recognised as being structural and systemic problems. 

Survivor-led and mad pride movements have moved towards a more similar understanding to queer activism: that the problem is out there rather than in here, and that one important form of resistance is that of visibly taking pride in our difference, rather than accepting the shame and stigma of the wider world. For example we might question those who can can manage to fit into the category of ‘sane’ in such an ‘insane’ world. We might celebrate the ‘creatively maladjusted misfits and changemakers’ that we are, as So Many Wings does.

What can LGBTQIA+ activism learn from mental health activism?

My answers to this question are about what LGBTQIA+ activism could learn from the more radical and critical versions of mental health activism. I wrote more about this in this paper on why bi communities, in particular, could do with a more critical understanding of mental health.

One thing that’s always surprised me in queer communities is the way people who are very critical about normative ways of understanding gender and sexuality, often seem to accept mainstream medical models of mental health. Folks who think carefully and queerly about the labels and categories that are imposed on our genders and sexualities, where those come from and who benefits from them, often seem comfortable labelling their mental health struggles with psychiatric categories, and accepting that those make them a certain kind of – disordered – person. 

Also, many in the queer world challenge the binaries and hierarchies that are imposed on gender and sexuality, without applying this to mental health. So the main thing I’d like to see from a dialogue between queer and mental health activism, would be a more critical perspective on mental health among queers which questions binary divisions between normal and abnormal, mad and sane, functional and dysfunctional, healthy and unhealthy, rational and emotional, and so on. Just as with the binaries of man/woman, gay/straight, cis/trans, etc. we can ask who is served by such divisions, and whether they stand up to scrutiny. Alex Iantaffi and I explore these questions more in our book Life Isn’t Binary.

Secondly, mental health activism is – it seems to me – increasingly informed by somatic understandings of trauma and the way it operates in the body. Queer activism could certainly do with learning from such trauma-informed perspectives. My experience of LGBTQIA+ and sex positive spaces is that they are often unaware of this. For example, there’s often little awareness in party and con spaces of the potential triggers of trauma, how these show up in the body, how to know that you – or somebody else – is in a trauma response, and the implications of this in for our sexual practices and relationships. 

In more conscious sexuality and kink spaces, there can often be a sense that people should be pushed to their edges, or confronted with challenging activities as a form of catharsis, without an awareness of the potentially retraumatising impact of putting somebody through a similar situation to one which was traumatising in early life. Online call-out and cancel culture, which is prevalent in some queer communities, similarly lacks an awarenes of the potentially retraumatising impact of public shaming, and the traumatised places in ourselves that such impulses can come from.

Mental health activism is LGBTQIA+ activism and vice versa

When I worked as a therapist, one thing that struck me was that gender and sexuality were almost always deeply relevant to clients’ mental health struggles. This was true whether they were somebody whose gender and/or sexuality was marginalised, or somebody who was more normative in their presentation of their gender and/or sexuality. 

LGBTQIA+ people’s mental health struggles are clearly related to their experiences of marginalisation, stigma, invisibility, discrimination, bullying, and so on. For more normative folks, it is often the attempt to adhere to rigid ideals of masculinity, femininity, and heteronormativity that is the problem. 

For example, in relation to gender, we know that high rates of suicide and addiction in men is highly linked to toxic masculinity and rules against expressing vulnerability or emotion, and seeking help or support from others. We also know that high rates of depression, anxiety, and body shame in women is highly linked to the way femininity is defined in relation to others, and women’s worth is wrapped up in their relationships and desirability. 

In relation to sexuality, many people experience distress because the very limited ideas about the kind of sex that they should have, and the relationship contexts they should be having it in, bear little relation to their internal erotic landscapes. This mismatch plays out regularly in a vulnerable and embodied way during sex, which takes a great toll on mental health. It could be seen as a form of everyday non-consent enacted against the bodies of ourselves and/or of others.

So, whether we are marginalised in relation to our gender and sexuality or not, normative understandings of gender and sexuality traumatise us. For this reason, our mental health struggles, genders, and sexualities cannot easily be disentangled, in fact should be explored together.

Bringing mental health and gender/sexuality back together

It strikes me that many cultures around the world do not separate out gender, sexuality, spirituality, and mental health at all. In many places the most spiritual people have also been those who were gender creative and erotically expansive. Language has developed in such contexts which captures that whole state rather than separating out gender, sexuality, and spirituality. In many faiths and communities, experiences which we might label mental health struggles are seen as sacred experiences, or paths to enlightenment, and people going through them are honoured and supported.

The separation of gender, sexuality, mental health, and spirituality could be seen as a toxic aspect of racial capitalism, required to ensure docile subjects who are too busy policing themselves, and each other, around their ‘normality’ or otherwise to critically consider what is being done to them, or its impact. 

Certainly we can see the roots of the current form of the binary gender model and heteronormativity in forms of capitalism which required women to work unpaid in the home supporting and reproducing the workforce. In many ways this has ramped up under neoliberal capitalism with its pressure to present a successful, productive singular self who is performing gender, sex, and mental well-being perfectly, while paying little attention to spirituality beyond the individualised kind of care required to keep them functional and productive.

Perhaps one of the reasons we see such high rates of distress in neoliberal capitalist cultures is this very severing of gender, sexuality, mental health, and spirituality, within such an unjust race and class system. This could, itself, be seen as a form of historical and intergenerational trauma, as authors such as Alex Iantaffi have suggested. 

The work of Audre Lorde – and many Black feminists who’ve followed her – calls into question such separation. They suggest instead that we could understand ‘the erotic’ as a powerful resource relating to how we feel when we’re most alive and mentally well which incorporates and transcends the sexual and the spiritual. If liberated such a resource would reveal and challenge all of the destructive forces we’re operating under, and require something very different.

My trans, queer, plural, traumatised, mindful self

You might find it useful – like me – to play with whether the labels you use to describe one aspect of your experience or identity are actually helpful to apply to other aspects. Perhaps this can be helpful in breaking down the divisions between gender, sexuality, mental health status, and spirituality.

I find trans a useful word to apply to all of these areas because my experience of all of them is different to what they were assumed to be when I was born, not just my gender. Also we can understand trans as signalling transition, or change over time, and I consider all these aspects of me as in a state of becoming, rather than being fixed.

The word queer can signal being outside of normativity of all kinds, and that certainly applies to gender, sexuality, mental health, and spirituality for me. Queer also involves questioning binaries, and the power structures they serve, which is something I’m keen to do, whether those binaries be man/woman or cis/trans, gay/straight or sexual/non-sexual, mad/sane or normal/abnormal, spiritual/non-spiritual or Buddhist/secular.

In addition to transition, plurality is a word which captures my experience of selfhood better than most. Again this applies across all these aspects of being. My plural parts have different genders, they have different sexualities and erotic desires, they express trauma in different ways and fall into different survival strategies, and they certainly come down in different places on a spectrum from secular to spiritual, or ‘rational’ to ‘woo’.

Finally trauma and mindful are both words which are useful across all aspects of myself. I have certainly been traumatised by normative understandings of gender, sexuality, mental health, and spirituality which have been passed down through the generations to me. These are also all sites of trauma for me as I’ve experienced gender-related bullying and discrimination; sexual assault and harrassment; gaslighting and stigma around my mental health struggles; and traumatic experiences in spiritual and conscious sexuality communities – both personally and in relation to the wider #MeToo moments that such communities have gone through.

Somatic and social justice forms of Buddhist mindfulness have been important for me, in addressing all these forms of trauma, and in coming to understand my self (or selves, or no self) better in relation to gender, sexuality, mental health, spirituality, and the ways these are all woven together.

Further resources

• You can read a dialogue between me and Helen Spandler on what queer studies and mad studies can learn from each other here.
• This resource that I wrote for the BACP explains in more detail why gender and sexuality are themes that need to be explored with all clients in relation to their mental health struggles, along with race, class, disability and other key intersections.
• This article I wrote about mental health as depression and oppression in relation to bi communities also deals with these themes.

• You can find more of my resources about trauma on my trauma work page.
• Patreon link: If you found this useful, please feel free to support my Patreon.

The post Queer Activism and Mental Health Activism: The Need For Dialogue appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Is it common for people to question their sexuality?

It’s actually really common. Although many people assume that we’re born with a fixed sexual orientation, actually recent research has found that most people’s sexuality is fluid, meaning that it changes over the course of their lives. For example, we might have been attracted to one gender for our whole lives but experience an attraction to somebody of another gender. This might start us questioning how we identify our sexuality going forward.

It’s also important to remember that sexuality isn’t just about what gender or genders we’re attracted to. It’s also about the amount of sexual attraction we experience (from none to high), the kinds of sex we enjoy, the types of people we find attractive, the roles we like to take sexually (more active or passive, submissive or dominant), and many other things. All of these aspects of our sexuality can change over time meaning that we might start to question what our sexuality is, or how we identify it.

Can this happen at any time in your life?

Absolutely. Most people experience some changes in their sexuality over the course of their lives, for example in the age of the people they’re attracted to, the amount of sex they want to have, or the types of things that turn them on. Our sexuality can be impacted by our physical and mental health, the amount of energy we have, the people we hang out with, who we’re in relationships with, and the messages about sex that are around us in our communities and cultures. All of those things change over time as well.

Why might someone question their sexuality?

Some common reasons for questioning our sexuality include:

• Finding that we’re attracted to someone who is quite different to our usual attractions (e.g. a different gender, physical appearance, or background)
• A friend, colleague or family member coming out as a different sexuality which can make us realise that it might apply to us too
• Learning about a sexuality we were previously unfamiliar with in the media or from a friend. This can give us a sudden sense of realisation: ‘oh maybe I could be that,’ ‘that label might apply to me.’
• Watching porn, reading erotica, or having a fantasy and realising we’re turned on by something that we didn’t used to be turned on by, or which we just hadn’t thought about before.

What should you do if you think you might be gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer etc?

First of all it’s really important to remember that whatever your sexuality is – and however you decide to label it – is absolutely fine. Sadly we live in a culture which gives us the idea that it’s more ‘normal’ or ‘better’ to be straight than it is to be gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer, etc. Actually, recent research suggests that at least as many young people are on the spectrum from ‘exclusively heterosexual’ to ‘exclusively homosexual’ than are at the ‘exclusive heterosexual’ end of that spectrum. Also more people have some kind of kinky sexual desires than don’t. And many people are on the asexual spectrum. Even if your sexuality is very rare or unusual, it’s still completely legitimate, so long as you only act on it consensually (that’s also true for common sexualities too of course!)

If you think you might be a different sexuality than the one you thought you were then it’s a great idea to do some self-exploration. Give yourself time to reflect on your sexuality and how you might like to label it, if at all. Journalling, engaging with ethical porn (and paying for it!), reading erotica, and fantasising are all great ways to do self-exploration.

It can also be really helpful to get support from other people who are in these sexual communities. There are online groups, meet-up groups, and community resources for all of these sexualities, as well as books and videos online. Check this stuff out but do remember that nobody should be pressurising you to label yourself in any way, or to come out unless that feels good to you. Go gently and take your time.

Is there a way to know?

Sexuality is a complex, constantly changing and evolving, thing so there’s no way to be sure whether you are ‘really’ straight, gay, bi, pansexual, asexual, demisexual, submissive, etc. It’s much more about whether those words – or others – feel like a good fit for you. It’s fine to just call yourself ‘questioning’ for as long as that feels right, or simply not to label yourself. It’s also fine to use one label for a while, and then change it if it stops feeling like such a good fit.

The main thing to remember is that it is perfectly legitimate to have whatever attractions and desires you have sexually, so long as you only act upon them consensually. If that feels like a struggle for you – or if these questions are causing you distress – then it’s worth getting some professional help from a therapist or counsellor. The Pink Therapy list in the UK is a good one for therapists who specialise in this area. The Kink Aware Professionals and Poly Friendly Professionals lists online are also useful international resources.

What would you recommend for people who think they might be but aren’t sure – any resources, books, practical tips?

I’m writing a book called How To Understand Your Sexuality next year which will hopefully be helpful! Meanwhile BishUK and Scarleteen are excellent resources for younger people questioning their sexuality, and contain useful material for people of all ages too. 

You might also find these zines helpful to work through:

Mapping Your Sexuality

Make Your Own Sex Manual

Justin Hancock and I talk about these themes often on our podcast at megjohnandjustin.com.

The post Figuring out your sexuality appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

How can straight, cis people be respectful in LGBTQ+ spaces?

This is a topic that comes up a lot around Pride season. Some of the bigger prides becomes so inundated with straight, cis people who want to enjoy the parade and festivities that it stops feeling like a proud – or safe enough – space for the LGBTQ+ people it was designed for. This also often elevates the prices making them increasingly inaccessible for more marginalised LGBTQ+ people.

Similarly LGBTQ+ friendly areas like Brighton, London Soho, or Canal Street in Manchester have become go-to places for stag-dos, hen-dos, and other straight, cis celebrations, perhaps seen as appropriate places for people to experience one final ‘walk on the wild side’ before tying the knot.

Why are queer events and spaces important?

It’s worth remembering the roots of queer venues and celebrations like Pride. Back in the late 1960s in the US gay, queer, and trans folks had to fight not to be ejected from venues like the Compton Cafeteria in San Francisco, or raided by the police in pubs like the Stonewall Inn in New York. The first Pride marches had their foundations in the riots that took place to protect these queer spaces, often led by those who were also working class, sex workers, and/or people of colour.

It’s easy to imagine that things are far better now than then, but rates of homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic hate crimes and discrimination have all gone up markedly since the Brexit vote, and we’re in the midst of a huge moral panic against trans people, as well as ongoing battles around how sex, gender and sexuality are taught in schools. Globally there’s still the need for a trans day of remembrance every year to mourn the frightening numbers of trans people – mostly trans women of colour – who are murdered annually. Related to all of this, mental health and suicide rates among – particularly young – LGBTQ+ people remains a big concern.

In many places LGBTQ+ people still don’t feel safe enough to express themselves – or their relationships – openly. Even where they do the backdrop is of heteronormativity: the assumption that people are straight and cis unless they ‘come out’ otherwise, and that being LGBTQ+ means being different from the norm in ways that we need to explain and justify in some way, with pressure to prove that we’re ‘normal’ in every other respect. Many LGBTQ+ people have strained or non-existent relationships with previous friends and family, so building their own friendships, support networks, and social spaces is important.

LGBTQ+ people often become used to having to come out repeatedly, to being asked intrusive questions about their bodies and sex lives, and to being treated as an object for people (the weird one in the office, or the gay best friend, for example). They have to be part of everyday workplace and family conversations which assume that everybody wants – for example – to find a partner, get married, and have (and gender) kids, and that those things require celebrating in ways that transitioning, finding a community, or coming out, do not. It’s understandable that they might want some spaces where they don’t have to worry about that stuff or self-monitor constantly: where they can assume that everyone will ‘get it’, relax, and breathe easy.

Think about your motivations

So if you are straight and cis and thinking of attending an LGBTQ+ space or event, think about your motivations. Generally speaking it’s probably a bad idea if you’re looking for the following:

• To share your opinions about LGBTQ+ people or get into arguments or debates
• To see something strange, exotic, or titillating
• To flirt or get off with somebody LGBTQ+ because you’re curious or want to have a story to tell – this involves treating people as objects for your pleasure, not full human beings
• To have a laugh by doing something a bit crazy and out-there
• To exploit or appropriate the coolness of LGBTQ+ culture in some way

These are better reasons:

• You want to support your LGBTQ+ friends who are keen for you to go along
• It’s an event or space that’s particularly looking for allies to support it – and the people going
• You’re genuinely questioning whether you might be LGBTQ+ yourself
• It’s an educative space and you want to learn something

What not to do

• Go with your straight, cis partner and get off together very publicly in the space – remember that everyday spaces are safe for you to do that in a way they aren’t for the rest of the people there
• Go with your straight, cis mates and take up a lot of room in the venue with your bodies or your noise – many people will feel less safe if you’re doing that
• Go to places with a maximum capacity which are already pretty full – better to let LGBTQ+ people be the people who get to use the space
• Ask intrusive questions of anybody there or touch anybody without consent 
• Get super drunk or high so others have to look after you

What to do

• Check beforehand whether you will be welcome there – with staff or others attending
• Be friendly and treat people as full human beings, not just their sexuality or gender
• Do your homework if it’s an unfamiliar community for you – there are plenty of vids out there about things LGBTQ+ people are sick of hearing, or what not to ask them, as well as easy 101 introductions to language
• Be kind, consensual and unobtrusive – it’s not your space and you’re privileged to be welcomed here

And LGBTQ+ people need to remember…

Not everybody who appears to be straight and cis in an LGBTQ+ space actually will be. There are plenty of people who, for whatever reason, are not safe to be out as LGBTQ+, or don’t identify with that terminology, but are still attracted to the same gender or more than one gender, or living in a different gender to the one they were assigned at birth. There are also lots of people who don’t look like the common image of an LGBTQ+ person (which is so often white, young, slim, non-disabled, and middle class). There are many who aren’t into the LGBTQ+ ‘scene’ but are still LGBTQ+. This is often an issue particularly for bi people. Remember that just because somebody is with a different gender partner, or hooking up in that way, doesn’t mean they are straight. And even if they are straight, they may not be cis. They may be there because they are trans. Also femme women can feel very invisible in LGBTQ+ spaces.

Many people may access LGBTQ+ spaces because they’re questioning their gender and/or sexuality and that’s a really good reason. Insisting that they make definite decisions, identify or express themselves in certain ways is not okay. Also remember the + on LGBTQ+. There are good reasons to consider including asexual, intersex, kinky, and/or non-monogamous people, as well as sex workers, under the broad umbrella of people who are excluded from heteronormativity and discriminated against by virtue of their gender and/or sexuality. There are legitimate conversations to be had about who should and shouldn’t be included, and in what contexts – for example, not all intersex folk want to be added to the LGBTQ+ acronym and it’s very important to respect that – but generally it’s worth being as careful when making assumptions about somebody who doesn’t appear LGBTQ+ as we’d want people to be when coming into contact with somebody who does.

The post Straight people going to gay events and venues appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Check it out if you’ve always thought your sexuality was a bit more complex than gay, straight, or bi. This zine takes you through multiple dimensions of sexuality and helps you to map where you are, where you’ve been, and where you might be going.

MappingYourSexuality

The post New Zine: Mapping Your Sexuality appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

This year the day is particularly poignant because it follows a month in which there has been a transphobic onslaught the like of which we’ve never seen before in the British media. Each day brings with it another attack against trans people and the rights which we’ve struggled so hard to achieve. Much of what is reported is misinformation, and the voices of trans experts – of whom there are many – are rarely included.

The media onslaught contributes to a cultural moral panic which fuels both the kinds of transphobic violence which mean we have to have a trans day of remembrance, and the poor levels of mental health among trans people who have to survive and go about their everyday lives against this background noise.

Throughout this period, like many, I’ve struggled to know what I can possibly say that might be helpful. I’ve felt scared to write into the current cultural situation for fear of fuelling the fire in some way. I’ve worried that any kind of response risks lending legitimacy to the notion that this is any kind of reasonable ‘debate’.

Fortunately many excellent activists have found a voice, and I’d strongly advise anybody who is struggling to make sense of the media onslaught to check out these articles by Ruth Hunt, Fox & Owl, Paris Lees, Shon Faye, Juno Roche, and Ruth Smith & Jane Fae, as well as reading these articles by Julia Serano which provide a clear explanation of the evidence around all of the areas which the moral panic focuses on, and this book by CN Lester which deals with trans panics in the media in detail in a very engaging and accessible way.

Thankfully today a resource which I wrote over the summer has been released which I hope will be a positive contribution in relation to trans people and mental health. The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) asked me to write a good practice resource for counsellors, therapists, and potentially other practitioners about working with clients across Gender, Sexual & Relationship Diversity (GSRD).

Given the distressing high levels of mental health struggles and suicide attempts among trans people, and the shocking accounts trans clients often give of previous experiences of seeking support from practitioners who were not trans-aware, I sincerely hope that this resource will be helpful. I hope it will be useful both for practitioners who want to learn more about GSRD in general, and working with marginalised groups in particular, and also for clients to feel empowered about the kind of practice they should expect when seeking therapeutic support.

The publication of this resource comes shortly after the publication of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy 2 (MOU2): A document signed by all the major UK therapeutic and psychological organisations against the practice of ‘conversion therapy’. Conversion therapy is any approach which assumes ‘that any sexual orientation or gender identity is inherently preferable to any other, and which attempts to bring about a change of sexual orientation or gender identity, or seeks to suppress an individual’s expression of sexual orientation or gender identity on that basis.’ This brings the treatment of trans people in mental healthcare in line with that of lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

I sincerely hope that the GSRD resource will work alongside the MOU2 to ensure better practice across GSRD in future, as well as a more thorough and intersectional understanding of GSRD by all practitioners. I also hope that practitioners will join activists in speaking against this current media onslaught which puts their trans and gender-diverse clients at so much greater risk.

For myself I’ll be following up my self-help book – with Alex Iantaffi – on understanding gender from this year with a further couple of books on the topic of gender in the coming years, in the hope of reaching different audiences with resources that can help them to to develop a better understanding of gender, and give them more tools for navigating media onslaughts like this one.

Find out more:

• BACP GSRD resource
• MOU2
• How to Understand Your Gender

The post New Resource on Gender, Sexual & Relationship Diversity (GSRD) and Mental Health appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

There’s also a podcast and blog post all about bi visibility over on megjohnandjustin.com.

Gay Invisibility

Imagine a world where bi people were treated like gay & lesbian people, and vice versa…

You wake up in the morning and smile, remembering it’s Pride day. You’re going to get to march with all your lesbian and gay mates. Then your heart sinks a little remembering previous Prides. You’ll probably be relegated to the back of the march again after all the hundreds of bi charities and groups and organisations. Sure some of them have finally added LG to their names these days, but BTLG is mostly about the B and everyone knows it. It’s crazy-making when we know that LG people make up around half of all LGB people. Where are they all?

You know you’ll also be lucky this afternoon if there’s even one gay or lesbian identified person up on the stage at the end of Pride. Last year one gay activist got about a minute up there before the next bi band came on. It’s like the Purple List of influential BTLG people: Published in a major national newspaper every year and almost everyone on it is bi. A small gay magazine published a ‘rainbow list’, to make the point that there are lots of influential LG people too, but people didn’t pay much attention to that. It’s so frustrating because you know for a fact that many of the famous bi actors, sportspeople, and pop stars only ever have same-sex relationships, but they still call themselves ‘bi’ because being gay is so stigmatised. When that swimmer came out a couple of years back the bi press immediately called him bi even though he deliberately only said that he was attracted to people of the same-sex. There’s so few gay role-models or gay storylines on TV programmes. It only makes lesbian and gay people more invisible.

You sigh. It’s hard being gay in a world where everyone’s divided into heterosexual or bisexual. They’ve even done research now to try to prove that same-sex-only attraction doesn’t exist: that you’re either ‘straight, bi, or lying’. People can wrap their head around attraction to the opposite gender, or to people of any gender, but not to only being attracted to the same gender only. When you try to point out that Kinsey found that sexuality was a spectrum: there were people at the far end who were just attracted to the same gender, they just dismiss you saying that research is outdated.

Over breakfast you flick through the latest report from a major BTLG mental health charity. It’s great work they’re doing and you try to support them, but the gay invisibility really gets on your nerves. Several places in the document talk about ‘biphobia and transphobia’ and don’t mention homophobia at all. You’ve brought that up with them in the past and they just claim that homophobia is a subset of biphobia. It’s the same kind of argument as people who use ‘bi’ as an umbrella term for everyone with same-sex attraction whether they’re also attracted to the opposite sex or not. You’ve tried to point out that the word ‘bisexual’ doesn’t accurately capture your sexual orientation but they just look at you like you’re making a big deal over nothing. It’s all ‘bi people’, ‘bi relationships’, ‘bi parents’, ‘the bi community’ etc. etc. etc.

The report talks about the fact that BLG people have worse mental health than straight people, but it just lumps all BLG people together. You find that annoying because you know that it’s the lesbian and gay people who actually have the highest rates of depression, self-harm and suicide. Research like this means that the money and resources go to BLG people as a whole rather than to LG people in particular. And that mostly means the big commercial ‘bi scene’ which very few LG people actually access. So the help isn’t going to the people who need it most, and the bis are the ones who get all the funding.

Again you’ve tried to point this out, but the bi activists you’ve spoken to argue that it’s important to get everyone accepting bisexuality fully as the first step to BTLG rights. Once that’s happened they can work on the more ‘complicated’ identities like gay and lesbian. That’s why so many people’s energy went into the multiple marriage campaign. Now polyamorous bisexual and straight people can marry more than one partner, or one opposite-sex partner. But there’s still no allowance for gay people – and monogamous bisexuals – who want to marry one same-sex partner only. Even during the campaign loads of people were saying that there was a danger that multiple marriage would open the floodgates to same-sex-only marriage, comparing it to incest and bestiality. They call multiple marriage ‘equal marriage’ now, but it’s not truly equal. When you point that out people just accuse you of sour grapes.

Last BTLG history month you tried to get your organisation’s BTLG group to do an exhibition of famous LG people through history, but the other people on the committee (all bi of course) said that most of the people you suggested were ‘probably bi really’. And they’re always going on about Stonewall as this big event in BT history, dismissing all the gay people who were also involved at the forefront of what happened back then. The committee ended up putting a bunch of the Stonewall posters up round the organisation: ‘Some people are bi, get over it’ and ‘One is bi. If that bothers people, our work continues.’ You pointed out that there were actually ‘gay’ posters available as well but they just gave you a look and said ‘the campaign’s about eradicating biphobia in the workplace, alright.’ You hear that Stonewall have consulted with lesbian and gay people to try to improve inclusion, but you feel so jaded after all this time that you’ll believe that when you see it.

You check your phone. Looks like a bunch of your mates are going out to a bi bar after the Pride event. You’re not tempted. Last time you did that everyone assumed you’d be attracted to multiple genders and it was really uncomfortable when you came out as gay. Like at work and with your family they also kept forgetting and assuming you were bi, so you had to come out again and again. And you’re so sick of the stereotypes. Some bi people won’t date you for fear that you’ll leave them for another gay person. Others treat you with suspicion: ‘are you sure you’re really gay?’

The double discrimination is probably the worst thing. You kind of expect homophobia from the straight world, but getting it from bi people as well is really hard. Like when you finally left the football team you were on because of the homophobic discrimination there, and joined a BTLG football team only to find that they called you ‘gold star’ like it was a big joke, and kept going on about your sexuality and how you must be ‘picky’ or ‘confused’.

You remember back to last year’s Pride. Double discrimination there too. Your group marching past a bunch of bi people and they all started singing some old Eurovision song ‘loosen you mind up’ which you know was a homophobic joke. Mostly though the crowd just went quiet when your group walked past and then started cheering for the next bi group.

When you told your bi friends about it in the pub afterwards they said you were probably just exaggerating or being over-sensitive. They think you’re crazy to be so bothered by it, but you think the world is crazy for not being able to see gay invisibility when it’s right in their face.

Maybe you’ll just stay at home.

This story is based on all based on research on bisexuality reviewed in The Bisexuality Report (with the sexualities reversed of course!)
With many thanks to Catherine Butler and colleagues for their inspiration with the Homoworld story and short film, as well as this US version.

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