degrees of bi inclusion

[memevector]

At some point, not necessarily soon, I'm thinking of writing something about degrees of bi inclusion in organisations that are called lesbian & gay, LGB or LGBT.

One of the areas I'm particularly interested in is the situation where an organisation moves towards including bi people (e.g. changing the name), but hasn't really arrived at equality yet. So that it's awareness that's missing more than goodwill.

I'm thinking of indicators like...

• The new official name is LGB, but it hasn't percolated through to all the paperwork yet, so that the mission statement, or even maybe just the odd leaflet, still refer to L&G.
  
• All the paperwork uses the terms LGB, but leaders or spokespeople for the group often miss out the B in spoken announcements.
  
• The only people who ever point out the missing "B" are bi people.
  
• People joining the group are assumed to be gay or lesbian unless they say otherwise.
  
• People are passing as gay or lesbian within the group because they're scared to come out as bi.
  
• Non-same-sex partners are not really welcome at social events.
  
• Anti-bi jokes are acceptable, where racist or sexist or homophobic jokes would not be.
  
• Invited guests (e.g. speakers or workshop leaders) are rarely or never bi.
  
• The group has never done any bisexuality awareness raising.
  
• The group did some bisexuality awareness, and that was the week that none of the group leaders or committee turned up for the meeting.

I'm particularly interested in the subtler ones, because part of what I want to accomplish with this writing is something useful for L&G people to go and do a sort of audit on their group. Like "How bi-inclusive is your group really?".

At the bi awareness training day that K and I did last autumn to a group of lesbians, there was an interesting discussion about this, and someone came out with the term "bi-tolerant". A lot of people then described their group or workplace as "bi-tolerant" rather than "bi-friendly". It was interesting. And it was clear that most or all of those people had a lot of willingness to put in what was missing, now that they saw it. So I think there are probably a lot of groups out there who think that because they've got B in the name, they're doing pretty well, but haven't really thought through the implications.

Stories? ideas? comments?

Comments

[36.livejournal.com]

The previous students union LGB executive officer at UKC constantly said things like "When it comes down to it we're all here because we're politically gay". Which obviously we continuously questioned, "how are trans people politically gay?" and so on.

[snagglepat.livejournal.com]

Yes, lots. My last job was full of examples that I am happy to share with you. They *really* thought they'd cracked it when not only was the word 'bi' in their tag but they had a bi staff member. Surely that was more than enough...

I've been planning to e-mail you/phone you since you left me that message last weekend, and I will do as soon as the move is finished and I'm all unpacked. Talk to you soon.

Can of worms :)

[ninadelenne.livejournal.com]

The LGF in Manchester do have the subtitle : improving the quality of life for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people.

The reality quite frankly from my perspective as a staff member is that they do very, very little for Bisexual people and nothing at all for the Trans communities. The chief executive is a straight acting gay man who seems to have a great deal of personal hostility towards non-gay people. This personal attitude percolates down through the entire staff structure. I feel greater predudice against me in the organisation than anywhere else, because they should and claim to know better, but act worse.

I feel a bout of whistle blowing coming on (and I am already in trouble for writing an article in BCN about their lack of helpline training)

The LGF do allow Biphoria to meet but they pay for the room. There is a group called Options for married gay men or for gay men who feel they have feelings for women (note the gay perspective). There is also a group for women who are lesbian or bisexual. I've never been part of it, but I get the feeling you are only welcome if you are currently in a relationship with a woman and don't talk about men too much (if at all).
I could go on and say all the Senior Management apart from one lesbian woman who works from home in Liverpool, are straight acting gay men. The middle tier consists of straight women, one bisexual man, and a couple of camp gay guys. The lowest paid jobs are filled by flamboyant 'out and proud' gay men, one lesbian and two trans bi people. The only other two women staff members are lesbian, but are funded from outside funding or self funded.I'd give them in summary no more than a C : must try harder.

[cryx]

i had a horrid coming out attempt. Joined my uni's LG*B* and was told by one person that i was either straight aand trying to be trendy or gay and couldn't admit it. I was also told by the gay president that he understood straight people more than me, because they at least had 'made thier minds up'.
I fled back to the closet for a few years

Seeing this a long time after the fact

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

In fairness, BiPhoria pays for the room on account of being an Outside Organisation. When the LGF was formed we were invited to merge and chose not to... given the experience TVTS line and the T support group have had since this was perhaps a Wise Move.

LGF has casually dropped T from its mission statement recently.