List of bisexuality-related organizations and conferences

Transcription

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. What's up? So my name is Dr. Van Bailey, and I'm the Director of BGLTQ Student Life at Harvard College. My pronouns are he, him, and his and they, them, and theirs, and I'm excited to welcome you here to the 2015 Nicholas Papadopoulos Lecture. This annual endowed lecture is named for Nicholas Papadopoulos who received his MA and PhD degrees in engineering from Harvard University. After Nick's death from complications of AIDS in 1994, his mother created a fund in his name to support lectures about BGLTQ studies and/or of the interest of BGLTQ communities at Harvard. We want to thank the Papadopoulos family for their generous contributions in our honor to continue this lecture in Nick's name. So let's give Nick an applause. [applause] We want to thank our many co-sponsors for this event. The Harvard College Deans Office, the Carr Center for Humanity, Human Rights Policy, the Office of Student Life, the Harvard College Women's Center, the Committees on the Degrees of Women, Gender, and Sexuality study, the Office of the Assistant to the President for Institutional Diversity and Equity, and the many leaders and community members and student organizations, including Between the Lines, Harvard BAGELS, the Trans Task Force, the Harvard College Professor Jewish Alliance, and the Harvard College Disabilities Alliance who are all present here today. I also want to thank Josh and Sujith and the entire staff of the office of BGLTQ Student Life for their hard work. Definitely this lecture would not be possible without all of you. [applause] So in the spirit of the Papadopoulos lecture, let me reaffirm that the stories and the lived experiences of LGBTQ people have and always will be a part of our history. Our stories are sewn into the tapestry of this world, and our stories are diverse and multi-faceted. It is critical that we hear the voices of LGBTQ people outside of our American context and to listen to the lived realities of LGBTQ people who are often silenced in the margins. It is in the margins that LGBTQ people have risen, and to assert that all genders and sexualities should be represented and celebrated. Our work is never finished, but let us take a moment to critically reflect. Part of the Office's mission is to create opportunities for fellowship, thoughtful dialogue, and the pursuit of knowledge. So today we are honored to host Shiri Eisner who was selected voted on by the students at the college. I hope that this lecture and space provides an opportunity for intellectual inquiry, community, and dialogue. We ask that you listen, reflect, and remain engaged throughout the lecture. And one way to do so is by using our hashtag, #harvardbitalk for live tweeting. I'm also very pleased to introduce Emelyn de la Pena who is Assistant Dean for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at Harvard College, to come up and share a few words. Thank you so much for coming. [applause] Thanks, Van. My name's Emelyn. My pronouns are she, her, and hers. And on behalf of Harvard College, I just want to welcome you all this afternoon and thank you for being here. I think that programs such as the Nicholas Papadopoulos Lecture is just one example of our institutional commitment to community and belonging, and to also, I think, queer our traditional notions of diversity in the most radical sense. So I think that in the spirit of the Papadopoulos Lecture that the office has been able to bring folks who really challenge what our notions of diversity mean, and so I'm really happy to be a part of this today and for the work of the office of BGLTQ Student Life. So thank you Van and all of the staff of the office for making this possible. I think also that we recognize that within the work of highlighting LGBT studies, BGLTQ studies, that often it's the B and the T that are most often left out. And so-- thank you. And so I think I'm especially thankful for the choice this year of our speaker, and that bringing someone who was talking about the bisexual revolution and from an international context is kind of a big deal. So thank you very much Van, again, and the work of the students for bringing this together. At this time I want to introduce someone who is going to introduce our speaker, one of our students, Josh Blecher-Cohen who is a junior in Adams House, a bi-activist, an intern in the Office of BGLTQ student life, and a joint concentrator in philosophy and classics. So Josh, here you go. [applause] Thank you, Emelyn. I'm Josh Blecher-Cohen, a junior at the college, and I've worked at the office of BGLTQ Student Life for two years now. And it's my pleasure to introduce the 2015 Nicholas Papadopoulos lecturer, Shiri Eisner. So it's not an overstatement to say that Shiri literally wrote the book on bisexuality, as many of you know, right? Published in 2013, Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution, it's a long overdue examination of bisexual communities, histories, and activism. Rather than tacking bisexuality on as an addendum to a longer list of queer identities, Shiri's account takes bisexuality as a subject worth studying on its own in depth and as a distinct and powerful identity. When I first read Shiri's book about a year and a half ago, I was reminded just how seldom bisexuality is acknowledged on its own merits, both in the broader world and within LGBT communities as well. Reading a book that locates bisexuality at the heart of queerness rather than at the periphery is a remarkable and a validating experience. So as many of you know, this talk is sponsored by the Office of BGLTQ Student Life. Yesterday Shiri and I talked about the ordering of the letters in that name. As many as you know, it's rare to see the B at the front of the group of lettering. And now I wish I could say that that was an intentional move to validate and affirm bisexual folks in a world that too often erases and marginalizes them. Unfortunately, or as it were, as you might have guessed, it has more to do with alphabetical order. [laughter] But regardless, today I want to reclaim that and to take that particular ordering as a commitment from this office and the broader Harvard community to bisexual students at Harvard and to the diversities within our queer communities. So one of the most impressive features of Shiri's book and her online output, in both English and Hebrew, is her ability to seamlessly meld the activist and the academic. Her writing never loses sight of lived experience and is unfailingly accessible to readers of a whole range of backgrounds. Her talk today is titled Concocting Bisexual Revolution, and I expect that she'll once again draw together the strands of academia and activism into a symbiotic whole. Shiri Eisner is an activist, a writer, and researcher currently living in Tel Aviv. Her identities include bisexual, gender queer, feminist, Mizrahi, disabled, chronically ill, vegan, and anarchist. Today she'll be discussing the radical and subversive potential of bisexuality from the liberation of bi people, to the subversion of sexual and gender hierarchies, to the destruction of broader oppressive frameworks. Without further ado, it's my pleasure to welcome the 2015 Nicholas Papadopoulos lecturer Shiri Eisner. [applause and cheering] Thank you. Is this working? Can you hear me? OK. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm really excited to be here. Right. Oh, I have a disclaimer to make. I make it every time I speak in public. I'm really, really shy. So if I seem kind of nervous to you, then just bear with me. OK. So I'd like to dedicate this lecture to every bad bisexual who ever existed out there, every bi person who ever fit a stereotype, every bi person who's been shamed, doubted, or ridiculed for not being bi enough or for being too bisexual, every bisexual woman who's ever survived sexual violence, every bi person who's considered suicide, every bisexual person of color, every disabled bi person, every asexual or aromantic bi person, every bi trans person, every bi person who's ever experienced multiple intersections of marginalization and oppression. You're magnificent. [applause] This lecture's going to be about the radical potential of bisexuality, about how we can use bisexuality in order to deconstruct not just biphobia and monosexism, but also heterosexism and cisexism, and then proceed from there to resisting all oppressive structures including patriarchy, racism, colonialism, ableism, and more. And I know I just said a bunch of words that not everyone hear is necessarily familiar with, and I'll explain as I go. When I talk about radical politics, I mean the type of politics that are about addressing the roots of oppression in society, radix meaning root in Latin. As opposed to liberal politics, whose goal is to gain access to social power structures. Radical politics prefers to challenge and subvert those same structures, and identifies them as the ones perpetuating social oppression. If liberal politics prioritizes hegemonic view points and top to bottom social change, radical politics centers marginalized points of view and bottom to top solutions. If liberal politics presumes that the system, whether social, political, economic, and so on is basically OK and simply needs a few corrections, radical politics recognizes it as the very source of oppression. Within a radical political framework, liberation can't be gained by contributing to these systems or by requesting them to extend their control. Instead, in order to resist oppression and fight for liberation, what needs to be done is minimize their control and finally tear them down. Radical politics is not about receiving rights, protection, or privilege. It is not about inserting small changes in the system so that it works better. It is not about changing legislation and waiting for the effects to trickle down. Instead, radical politics is about the revolution. This is why radical politics for me is deeply intersectional. Intersectionality, a term coined by black scholar Kimberly Crenshaw, is about the understanding that oppression is not an isolated single issue, but rather a net of intersections where various types of oppression and privilege work together. Intersectionality as a political practice focuses on examining how various types of oppression intersect with one another, how they parallel one another, and especially how they meet and combine with each other. For me, radical politics is incomplete without intersectionality and vice versa. Adding another level of depth to intersectionality, radical politics gives us the understanding that no one struggle is complete without connection to others. Oppression of any one group doesn't happen in isolation, but parallels, draws from, and intersects with that of others. Further, these types of oppression don't only exist in the outside world, separate from various communities and movements, but also affect them from within. For this reason, ignoring other types of oppression in favor of single issue politics means reinforcing them. In the words of black feminist Audre Lorde, "There is no such thing as a single issue struggle because we do not live single issue lives." In concocting a bisexual revolution, what I'd like to do is mix bisexuality together with intersectionality and radical politics. I imagine it as a bubbling potion which, after being added those other components creates an explosion of fire and light and gas, burning and bursting in all directions. It is this explosion that I want to concoct, this burst of creativity, power, and something of the unknown, to make bisexuality into an agent of chaos so that we can use it to destroy oppression and create something new. This lecture is about putting part of this explosion into words. Bisexuality works in two ways with intersectionality and radical politics, bi-directionally, if you will. The first is in creating a radical and intersectional bisexual politic, meaning examining and opposing bi people's oppression as it pertains to the roots rather than the surface. Where mainstream bisexual movements have often been concerned with becoming accepted by society or with normalizing bisexuality, radical bisexual politics seeks to challenge society and subvert normalcy. Where mainstream bisexual politics have often been centering white cisgender, middle class enabled experiences and lives, intersectional bisexual politics centers marginalized experiences and lives, including those of people of color, transgender people, economically marginalized people, disabled people, and others. A radical and intersectional bisexual politic also identifies hegemonic power structures as the basis for the oppression of bisexual people. Rather than being based in people's personal negative attitudes or behaviors towards bi people, this oppression is the result of monosexism, institutional privileging of monosexual identities and behaviors, that is - desire towards no more than one gender, and punishment of divergent identities and behaviors. As a power structure, monosexism is intimately tied to and intersects with other structures such as heterosexism, misogyny, cissexism, racism, and so on. In this way, radical and intersectional bisexual politics allows us to examine bi people's oppression in a concise way, to locate it and then to oppose it. The second direction in which bisexuality works with radical and intersectional politics is by making a contribution to radical and intersectional understandings and struggles. From this perspective we might ask, what subversive potential does bisexuality have over oppressive structures? What threats to heteronormative society does bisexuality engender? What common stakes in resisting oppressive structures do bi people share with other groups that might allow us to work together? What does bisexuality have to offer to the overall project for the subversion of oppressive structures and the liberation of other marginalized groups? How can we use bisexuality as a tool against hegemony? All this can be done by looking at the added meanings that bisexuality carries with it, in social and cultural imagination. Bisexuality is much more than simply an identity. As with every concept in society, bisexuality carries independent and unique associations and connotations inside it, not only about itself but also about the world in general. By asking how bisexuality works or how it's made meaningful instead of how bi people are perceived or represented, we might uncover these meanings. By observing the way that bisexuality is imagined in society and culture, we can trace the rules that it threatens to break, the structures that it might subvert. In academic language, this way of looking at things is called epistemology. Using bisexual epistemology can allow us to ask the right questions and then to receive the right answers. Before I go into all this however, I'd like to take a step aside and answer one question that I frequently get asked. Why bisexuality? A lot of people don't seem to understand why I insist on a bisexual identity and politic in particular, especially when nicer and shinier terms exist such as queerness, pansexuality or multisexuality, and especially when bisexuality has so many negative connotations associated with it from gender binarism through sexual promiscuity to plain dullness. There is something about the amount of backlash that bisexuality receives that I think is worth looking into. In my experience as an activist, as a writer, and as an academic, bisexuality has a unique ability to make people feel aversion or discomfort. Is seems that regardless of context or content, bisexuality is always considered somewhat of a taboo, something that needs to be silenced, invalidated, or foreclosed as soon as possible after being brought up. It inspires people to espouse unique arguments and special standards that would not have been used in discussions of other identities. For example, it inspires people to wish identities away altogether. It prompts them to research etymology and use the dictionary's linguistic authority to invalidate the term. Or it causes them to uncritically accept the judgments of the medical industrial complex regarding bisexuality's very existence. All those unique responses to bisexuality by people who can otherwise be considered critical thinkers. In short, bisexuality seems to make everyone feel uncomfortable. And it is precisely this discomfort that makes me want to embrace bisexuality in particular, because this level of discomfort, this bitter taste that lingers for so long is precisely the indication for bisexuality's subversive potential. To make people feel so uncomfortable so consistently ultimately indicates a feeling of being unsafe or under threat. People's knee jerk reaction to bisexuality might be viewed as an attempt to remove the threat that they're feeling as quickly and as cleanly as possible so as not to be burdened with it. And it is this threat that I want to harness. By asking why bisexuality has this effect, and how this interacts with dominant power structures, we might identify and extract its subversive power. That notwithstanding, I do want to briefly address one frequent concern, that of the perceived gender binarism of bisexuality. The reason I want to address this is this argument's ubiquity, there have been very few times where I've spoken or written about bisexuality without encountering this claim. Being a central part of contemporary meanings associated with bisexuality, I think it's worth looking into more in depth. Gender binarism is the dominant view that only two genders exists, men and women, a view that erases the existence of non-binary genders. That is, genders other than men and women. Gender binarism is also transphobic on another level since people who hold this view are also often cisexist. Cisexism is the dominant view that biology equals gender, meaning that the sex one has been assigned at birth determines the gender one is. Those assigned male at birth are men, those assigned female at birth are women. According to this view, everyone is or should be cisgender, identifying as the gender they were assigned at birth. Gender binarism is therefore a harmful concept to trans people, both because it erases the existence of many genders, and because it carries a notion of cisexism. To return to the argument, bisexuality is often accused of reinforcing the gender binary. Because bi means two in Latin, bisexuality is presumed to refer to attraction towards only two genders, and those two genders presumed to be cisgender women and men. That is, women who were assigned female at birth and men assigned male at birth. Because of this, bisexuality is ruled to be binarist, transphobic, and oppressive towards trans people. However, this argument oversimplifies the meaning, etymology, and history of the term. The term bisexuality has originated in medical and scientific theories of the 19th century, meaning that it was invented by the medical and scientific institution and only later reclaimed by bisexual people and movements. In addition, the two in bisexual doesn't specifically refer to any gender, or even gender at all, but simply to two unnamed categories. Also language changes and evolves. Queer literally means strange and unusual. Lesbian literally means someone from the Isle of Lesbos. Gay literally means happy, and transgender literally means someone who's crossed to the other side of gender, which is no less quote unquote, binary than bisexual. Historically, the bisexual movement in the US started gaining popularity in the 90s around the same time as the transgender movement. So while language wasn't always available, bisexuality was consistently described in terms of attraction to women, men, and other genders, using such terms as androgynous people, third gender, or in between. Also, bisexual trans people exist. According to recent studies, 25% of trans people identify as bisexual. Today, most bisexual organizations in the world define bisexuality as attraction to more than one gender or to genders similar to and different from our own. And yet, a special standard is applied to bisexuality in particular. Why? Because the issue isn't really about transphobia. If it was, then we might have expected to hear similar arguments made against other groups and other terms. For example, the definitions of heterosexuality and homosexuality also assume gender binary, as does the term transgender itself. In addition, the bisexual community has historically and currently been more welcoming of trans people than either straight or gay communities, and among all three is the one with the least resources from which to exclude trans people. All this means that transphobia's not the center of this debate, but in fact serves as a vehicle for something else. That something in my opinion is biphobia, and particularly the notion that bisexuality is an inherently oppressive identity. This is what I call the bisexuality oppressiveness equation. I define this is the dominant view that bisexuality is an oppressive identity, or that bi people as a group occupy oppressor status in relation to nearly every other group. The "bi is binary" argument relies on this presumption because it imagines bisexuality as an identity that inherently oppresses trans people, and insinuates that all bi people as a coherent group oppress trans people. Another such notion that predated this argument is that bi people are a privileged group oppressing gay and lesbian people. Indeed, it was only a small leap from there to deciding that bi people are a privileged and oppressive group in relation to trans people. However, trans people themselves have been accused of the very same thing. Transsexual people, people who undergo a physical transition, are often accused of reinforcing gender binaries by wanting to transition. Trans women are accused of reinforcing binary and oppressive gender roles by choosing to be feminine. When similar arguments are used against several marginalized groups this raises suspicion. Again, it indicates that the real issue is not with the groups, but that it serves another purpose. At the end of the day, the issue truly at heart here is power and hierarchies. As transfeminist writer Julia Serano points out in her article titled "Bisexuality Does Not Reinforce the Gender Binary," accusations of oppressiveness in LGBT communities are often used as rhetorical weapons against marginalized groups to further marginalize them and bar their access to power. Ultimately, the argument that bisexuality is binary works to keep bisexual people in communities clear of LGBT or GGGG power centers and to keep the bisexual-- thank you-- and transgender movements strategically separated. This practice is inherited by the gay and lesbian movement from heterosexual society's use of the divide and conquer mechanism. By doing this, those in privilege secure their own status by having all our movements compete with each other rather than fighting our shared oppressors together. OK. So now we've covered what bisexuality isn't, we can start talking about what bisexuality is. As I already mentioned, bisexuality is most often defined as attraction to more than one gender or as attraction to genders both similar to and different from our own. More than being simply about attraction, I find that the first definition is wide and enabling and that it gives us tools to think of bisexuality as a continuum. The second definition recognizes differences and enables us to address hierarchies and power relations in our intimate relationships and our communities. The first definition is one that was popularized by sexual activist Robyn Ochs. Robin says, "I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted romantically and/or sexually to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree." This definition has several meanings and implications that counter hegemonic definitions of bisexuality. While hegemonic definitions rely on the gender binary, men and women, this one acknowledges attraction to multiple genders. While hegemonic definitions narrow the type of attraction to either romantic, sexual, or both, this definition acknowledges various types of attraction, including asexual or aromantic ones. While hegemonic definitions require equal amounts of attraction to all or usually both genders, this one allows for different levels of attraction. While hegemonic definitions require bisexual attraction to be constant and unwavering, this one makes room for change over time. And finally, while hegemonic definitions require a proven history of sexual and/or romantic relationships normally with both men and women, this one recognizes that potential is sufficient for an identity. So while hegemonic definitions of bisexuality are very narrowly defined so as to foreclose bisexuality in all but a few cases, this definition enables anyone who wants to identify as bisexual to do so. In other words, it reassures people. This is significant since narrow definitions of bisexuality often comprise a part of internalized biphobia, negative messages about bisexuality that bi people internalize, and contribute to minority stress. Many bi people, including asexual and aromantic bis feel that they may not be bisexual enough, and internalize the social demand to constantly comply with impossible standards to prove their bisexuality. Many others who experience bisexual desire and want to identify as bi feel afraid to start identifying as such, as the feel like they don't qualify. This definition is therefore invaluable since it's able to reassure people and counter these feelings of internalized biphobia. Because this definition is so wide and encompasses such a broad spectrum of attraction, I feel it also enables a definition of bisexuality as a spectrum. By this I don't mean something like the famous Kinsey scale, a binary continuum spanning between homosexuality and heterosexuality and relying on sexual attraction only. Instead we can imagine bisexual desire more like lesbian feminist Adrienne Rich's lesbian continuum. In her seminal essay, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," Rich defines lesbian existence as "Not simply the fact that a woman has had or consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman, but rather as a range through each woman's life and throughout history of woman identified experience." She continues, "If we expanded to embrace many more forms of primary intensity between and among women, including the sharing of a rich inner life, the bonding against male tyranny, the giving and receiving of practical and political support, we can begin to grasp breadths of female history and psychology that have lain out of reach as a consequence of limited, mostly clinical definitions of lesbianism." Similarly, Ochs' definition enables us to think about bisexuality not only as the conscious desire for genital contact with people of more than one gender, but as a range through each person's life and throughout history of mixed gender experience. Similar to Rich's proposal that we expand lesbian existence to other forms of primary intensity between and among women, bisexuality can also be seen as an expanse of primary intensity with people of more than one gender. Note that I am particularly interested in this definition, not because it is inclusive of men as binarist thinking might lead us to think. Instead I'm interested in it because it encompasses women, transgender, and non-binary people, and note that these categories are not mutually exclusive. As opposed to political lesbianism, which more often than not is exclusive of anyone but cisgender women, this definition allows us to claim a political identification not only with cis women but also trans and non-binary people. And so in addition to politicizing bisexuality, this definition gives a way to political bisexual identification by anyone who wishes to align themselves with both women and trans people. The same and different definition is a reclaiming of the usually biphobic definition of bisexuality as a combination of homosexuality and heterosexuality. If homosexuality is understood to mean attraction to people of genders similar to one's own, and heterosexuality is understood to mean attraction to people's genders different from one's own, then bisexuality might be understood as attraction to people of genders similar to and different from one's own. This definition invokes the concept of gender, but without limiting its options, pertaining to two categories but leaving their contents open. As an inherent effect, this definition gently questions people about their own gender identities and how their own gender is related to their desires towards others. In other words, it manifests difference. This definition opens up significant questions about things that many people regard as obvious non issues. How do I define gender? What is my gender identity? What genders are different from mine? How would I define similarity in terms of gender? How would I define difference? Which differences do I eroticize or find attractive, and how? Which similarities? How does my gender influence my desire and my relationships? How do they interact? And how do my desire and relationships influence my gender identity? Far from being trivial, these questions enable us to examine the social context for our personal interactions, and to avoid taking gender identities, gender binaries, and gender-based interactions for granted. This definition also highlights hierarchies. In a society that is patriarchal and cisexist, gender differences always carry the baggage of hierarchy with them. Male or masculine spectrum people occupy a higher place in the social order than female and feminine spectrum people. Cisgender people occupy a higher place than transgender people. Even cisgender femininities and masculinities are different from culture to culture, and white gender expression is considered superior to any other. These hierarchies don't just apply outside in the public sphere. They exist in our homes, in our relationships, and in every aspect of our personal lives, creating power imbalances within our intimate relations. Recognizing difference in gender and all its multiplicity and complexity might also inform us about the hierarchies that work in our intimate interactions and encourage us to work at deconstructing them. Recognizing gender hierarchies in turn might also help us identify other kinds of hierarchies that might be present in our relationships and influence them. Race, class, ability, age, education, sexual identity, and many more. Indeed, these factors might also function as components of sexual or romantic desire of the kind questioned about. Recognizing each of these things and attempting to deconstruct the power relations that go along with them might also serve as a tool for revolutionary bisexual relationships, changing and reconstructing what it means to be in intimate interactions with each other. Far from being just about sexuality or romance, however, bisexual identity can represent many other things. In addition to the definitions relating to desire, bisexuality can also be defined by community and politics. An affiliation to the history of bisexual people and communities, of bisexual activism and struggle, as well as to all people attracted to more than one gender, including pansexual omnisexual, polysexual, and other multisexual or multiromantic queer people. The strongest political bisexual identification, however, is the one arising from bisexual epistemology. As I mentioned earlier, this refers to the added meanings that bisexuality carries with it in society and culture, and the way that it's imagined. These added meanings I've found are the most strongly present within biphobic stereotypes. These comprise a body of imagined knowledge about bisexual people, about the meaning of bisexuality, and of the way it works. Therefore, reading them can deepen our understandings of the social and cultural meanings given to bisexuality and of the anxieties it raises in society. Ultimately, they give answers to the question, why is society so afraid of bisexuality? The answers to this question in turn can help us find out how we can use bisexuality to subvert oppressive social structures. So in my book I collected a basic list of such stereotypes. Bisexuality doesn't exist. This is perhaps the most popular belief about bisexuality. According to the stereotype there is no such thing as bisexuality, and people who claim to be bisexual are simply wrong or misguided. Under this framework, bisexuality and bisexual people are symbolically eradicated as they are denied existence. Read epistemologically, we might identify this notion as strong sign of anxiety. Society routinely tries to deny subversive ideas out of existence. The attempt to eliminate bisexuality's existence is an attempt to eliminate the subversive potential that it holds. Bi people are confused, indecisive, or going through a phase. A natural extension of the first one, this stereotype explains how it happens that some people actually do identify as bisexual. They simply have it all wrong. This stereotype invokes the notion of instability, inconsistency, and constant doubt, imagining bi people through a notion of alternating partners, genders, and identities. Read critically, this can be identified as an attempt to stabilize sexual identity, marking bisexuality is a vantage point for subverting the homosexual/heterosexual binary. As such, bisexuality can be thought of as a destabilizing agent of social change, promoting doubt in anything starting from sexual identities and going through the structures of sex, gender, and sexuality, continuing with heteropatriarchy, racism, or ableism, and ending with such grand structures as the state, law, order, colonialism, and capitalism. Bi people are slutty, promiscuous, or inherently unfaithful. Within hegemonic thought, any sexual or romantic choice exceeding the number one is automatically perceived as excess. The idea-- thank you. The idea of excessive sexuality then naturally leads to a notion of promiscuity and hypersexualization. According to this stereotype, by virtue of having more than one gender preference, bi people are indiscriminate about their choice of partners and are either slutty or promiscuous. Read epistemologically, this marks a social anxiety of sexuality. Bisexuality is hypersexualized under the presumption that sex is bad, that wanting too much of it is bad, that wanting people of more than one gender is bad, and that wanting more than one person is bad. Being linked here to sexual control, the concept of unfaithfulness also points to monogamy as one of patriarchy's core structures, having been used historically and currently as a tool for controlling women. Since the stereotype is more often than not used against bisexual women in particular, it can also tell us a lot about the kind of anxiety that independent female sexuality invokes. Within the framework of rape culture, a culture that normalizes rape and sexual violence, sexuality can be turned into a weapon against women who break the rules. Being that the stereotype is often used to perpetuate sexual violence against bi women, focusing on how it can allow us to resist rape culture as well as other ways in which-- wait, what? Yes, focusing on it can allow us to resist rape culture as well as other ways in which sexuality is imposed on all of us. On the other side of the same coin, the sexualization of bisexuality can open a window to a different kind of sexual culture, encouraging sexual independence, exploration, and enjoyment of our bodies, our sexualities, our various genders, and our sexual or nonsexual physical interactions. It can subvert and transgress boundaries of identity, body, sexuality, and gender. It can give us a vantage point of opposing compulsory heterosexuality and to creating a sexually and asexually radical culture. The idea that bisexuals are indiscriminate about their choice of partners also echoes society's anxiety about subversion of cisexist norms. It is often said that a bisexual is the kind of person who can reach down someone's pants and be happy with whatever they find. This emphasizes the fact that we can never actually know what's down anyone's pants, as it were. This imagines bi people as accomplices to transgender people, and connects between bisexuality and transness as two intertwining ideas, both of which deviate society's rules about normative gender and its enforcement. The idea of unfaithfulness brings into light the metaphor of the bisexual traitor, one of my personal favorites. Merriam Webster dictionary defines treason as a "betrayal of trust," or as "an attempt to overthrow the government of the state or to kill the sovereign." A definition that betrays, if you will, bisexuality's function as an agitator. We can think about bisexuality as betrayal of the trust imposed on us by oppressive structures, as well as embodying an attempt to overthrow or kill hegemonic order. We can be traitors to anything that confines us and anything that stands in our way. All power structures, all oppression. Bi people are carriers or vectors of HIV and other STIs. Relying on the previous stereotype, this one imagines bi people, and in particular bisexual men of color as people who engage in indiscriminate sex with multiple partners, collecting various STIs as they go along and spreading them on as they go. Read critically, the stereotype reveals anxiety both of queer sexualities and of death and disease expressed through ableism, negative perception of disability and disabled people. Taken metaphorically, AIDS is imagined as the queer disease, being both a punishment for being queer and an embodiment of heterosexual fear of being infected by queerness. Bisexual men are often imagined as contagious vectors of disease, having unprotected bisex only to return home and infect their innocent, straight, and often white wives and children. From this we can envision bisexuality as the carrier of queerness into straight populations, having the potential to infect, that is, disrupt and queer up heteronormative structures. The racialization of the stereotype also reveals anxiety about the disruption of whiteness and racial purity, giving way for us to imagine bi men of color as a disruption to racism. In addition, this stereotype ties queerness together with disability and illness, representing the threat of death and mortality. This means that in this stereotype, bisexuality also destabilizes the border between life and death, sickness and health, calling society's ableism into question and marking disabled and chronically ill bodies as yet another site of transgression and resistance. Bi people are actually straight or actually gay. This stereotype draws on the second cluster of stereotypes that I mentioned above, according to which bisexuality doesn't exist, and bi people are anything other than bisexual. This can be read as yet another attempt to redraw and stabilize the boundary between gay and straight. Also interestingly, the presumption for bi women is that we're all really straight, while bisexual men are often presumed to be really gay. This suggests a presumption that everyone is really into men. [laughter] [applause] Meaning that adoration of masculinity is the one true thing uniting all bisexual people. [laughter] This notion projects society's phallocentrism, the privileging of masculinity represented by the phallus, on bisexual people. This allows us to critically reflect it back into society, exposing the underlying system of misogyny and cissexism as we do so. It might also help us reconstruct or find alternative ways of relating to bodies defined male at birth, to subvert connotations of the phallus or penis as an all powerful, all forceful, all domineering, hypersexualized and hypermasculined, and replace them with a more constructive feminist and transfeminist range of meanings. Bi people can choose to be gay or straight. This stereotype envisions bisexuals as people who can choose between gay or straight identities and lifestyles, and it is rooted in the idea that choice is negative or illegitimate. This in turn relies on the binary hierarchy of nature versus culture where a nature is considered authentic and therefore legitimate, while culture is inauthentic and illegitimate. Bisexuality's location here as an unnatural choice, allows it to challenge notions of authenticity, legitimacy, and normalcy. Bisexuality can offer an alternative politic of inauthenticity, the unnatural, the illegitimate, and the chosen, the rejection of so-called natural categories, human exploitation of nature, and the politics of the natural, promoting a politic of the inventable, the unimaginable, the possible and the impossible, everything we can be and everything we can't. When I think about a bisexual revolution and everything it might entail, I think about three spheres or levels on which such a movement can work simultaneously. Note that when I talk about levels, I don't mean a hierarchical order, but rather different fields of meaning. The first level is resistance to biphobia and monosexism and the struggle for the liberation of bisexual and other multisexual people. When I talk about the liberation of bi people, I am not referring to social awareness or acceptance, terms that insinuate deferral to existing power structures rather than a challenge. Instead I mean attacking all structures that help maintain the oppression of bi people, starting from monosexism and working through every one of its intersections that impact us. The second level is resistance to all hierarchical binaries of sex, gender, and sexuality, and a struggle for the liberation of all bi, trans, and queer people. These binaries: male/female, man/woman, and heterosexual/homosexual-- are the building blocks of cissexism, heterosexism, and misogyny. As such, the hierarchies that they construct are responsible for gender and sexuality-based oppression. Note that when I talk about deconstructing hierarchical binaries, I don't mean erasing all binary identities as many people would have it. Instead I mean opposing the hierarchy where male is superior to female, man to woman, heterosexual to homosexual; opposing oppressive identity constructs; dominant masculinity, cisgenderism, and heterosexuality; and opposing the oppression of people and identities imagined as inferior or eradicated within those binaries; women, intersex people, bi, trans, queer, asexual, and aromantic people and more. The third level or sphere is resistance to all oppressive hierarchies including race, class, age, ability, and any other oppressive axis that constructs and influences people's lives. In particular, I'm interested in the way that each of these axes interacts with bisexuality or shares common characteristics with it, and in how we might use bisexuality in order to offer a unique point of view, challenge, or deconstruction of them. Of course these levels or spheres are far from isolated, and they both interact and intersect with one another. Creating a separation between them in this lecture is done for convenience purposes only. As already mentioned, no one oppression exists in isolation, but parallels, draws from, and intersects with others. For each of these levels, I think bisexuality has a unique contribution to make. They are all related to bisexuality because for me, bisexual politics is about subverting and destroying oppressive hierarchies. This means that bisexuality can be used as a revolutionary tool for opposing oppression and for creating a world that is truly ours rather than trying to fit in an existing mold. So in order to define the first level, first we have to define what we are up against. Monosexism is a social structure operating through a presumption that everyone is or should be monosexual, that is, attracted to no more than one gender. This system includes institutional and social rewards for monosexual people and oppression against bisexual another multisexual people. The term monosexism is used in order to address and define oppression of bisexual people as institutional and systemic rather than as personalized and individual, and to define broad trends rather than specific attitudes. As a structure, monosexism creates multiple and varied effects over bisexuality and bisexual people, including bisexual erasure and multiple disparities between bisexual and monosexual people. These disparities include the following, and do feel free to take a deep breath, because these are all quite horrifying. In the US, over 40% of bisexual people have considered suicide compared with 8 1/2% of straight people and 27% of gay people. Nearly 50% of bisexual people are survivors of rape compared with 17% of straight women and 13% of lesbians. 75% of bisexual women have survived sexual assault, compared with 43% of straight women and 46% of lesbians. More than one in three youth engaged in survival sex including sex work are bisexual. Nearly 45% of bisexual youth has been bullied on the internet compared with 19% of straight youth and 30% of gay youth. One in four bisexual people-- that is, 27%-- are in poverty, compared with 18% of straight people and 21% of gay people. One in four bisexual people-- that is, 25%-- receive food stamps, compared with 15% of straight people and 14% of gay people. Nearly half of black bi people and almost 40% of multiracial bi people receive food stamps. One in five bisexual people-- that is, 22%-- suffer from poor health compared with 9.7% of straight people and 9.8% of gay people. In the UK, 55% of bisexual people are not out at work compared with 8% of gay men and 6% of lesbians. According to data from 2008 and 2009, out of over $200 million given by US foundations to LGBT organizations as grants, no money went towards bisexual specific organizations or projects. This data suggests that as opposed to common perceptions, bi people suffer severe material oppression on many levels. One of the most important intersections of monosexism in bi people's lives is that of sapphobia, the intersection of monosexism and misogyny. Coined by bisexual blogger mercurialvixen this concept is helpful in discussing and defining bi women's particular experience of monosexism and misogyny. One of the central ways in which sapphobia works is through the sexual objectification of bi women who are often perceived or represented as hypersexual, mainly as part of cisgender straight male fantasy. This widespread trend of objectification generates a great deal of sexual and intimate violence against bisexual women, as also evidenced in the sexual violence statistics cited above. Further, bisexual women are often blamed for the violence aimed against them using the same type of problematic discourse. Accusers suggest that bi women are more vulnerable to sexual violence because they are more sexually available to men. Bisexual women's unique circumstances join other statistical findings which place bisexual women in higher risk than both monosexual people and bisexual men. 45% of bisexual women have reported suicidality. Bisexual women are significantly more likely to experience depression and anxiety. Bisexual women are significantly more likely to be in poverty. One in three-- that is, 28% of bisexual women receive food stamps. In the UK, one in three-- that is, 31% of bisexual women suffer from poor health. Bisexual women also report the lowest levels of social support. So when I talk about the first level of the bisexual revolution, what I mean is resisting all these things and others, and working in order to eradicate these forms of oppression. It means trying to make bi people's lives better, to make sure that so many of us don't have to undergo so many forms of violence. Because bi people don't live single issue lives, the only way to do this is to combat both the broad structure and every intersection in which it occurs. The second level in which a bi revolution should work is based on deconstructing hierarchies of sex, gender, and sexuality. As a non-binary identity, bisexuality has a destabilizing effect on all three. On the level of sexuality, it destabilizes the homosexual/heterosexual binary because it shows that homosexual and heterosexual attraction are not mutually exclusive. On the level of gender, it destabilizes the woman/man binary both because it doesn't discriminate on the basis of gender and also because bisexual attraction, can include non binary genders. Also in a culture where attraction to men is considered feminine and attraction to women masculine, bisexual attraction makes it harder to pin down a bi person's gender because of their perceived inconsistency. When it comes to sexual categories, it's worth remembering that originally the word bisexual used to describe what is today better known as intersex, people whose bodies don't fit medical definitions of male and female. By acknowledging this definition of bisexuality, it's possible to call biological sex categories into question from a bisexual standpoint in solidarity with intersex people as well as the oppressive hierarchies the they construct, namely cissexism and misogyny. These links, however, do not only exist in theory. Bi people have a stake in deconstructing these hierarchies because they directly influence them. Bi women, bi intersex, and bi trans people are some of the main groups influenced by these structures, each located at the intersection of these forms of marginalization. In addition to this, bi men, binary-sexed bi people, and cisgender bi people also have an interest in opposing these structures. This is because within these structures, those groups are positioned in the role of oppressors while constricting and limiting their options and potential. In addition to those intersections, oppression of the groups mentioned above often works in similar ways, ways that might give basis for solidarity and coalition work between bi people and other sex, gender, and sexuality groups. For example, many similarities exist between bi and trans women. Both find trans women are hypersexualized by a dominant culture, and both suffer disproportionately from sexual and intimate violence. Both groups are perceived as performing their identity for the sake of cisgender straight man, or as a way to get men's attention. Both groups are accused of pursuing straight privilege and reinforcing patriarchy, bi women by being potentially open to dating men, and trans women by choosing or not choosing to transition. And both identities are accused of reinforcing gender binaries. These are only a few examples of one intersection, and of course many more exist. So when I talk about the second level, what I mean is for bisexual movements to use bisexuality as a tool or a standpoint from which to subvert these and other forms of oppression, working both for bi people located on these intersections and in solidarity with monosexual women, queer, trans, asexual, aromantic, and intersex people. The third level in which a bi revolution can work is related to bisexuality's epistemological location as a non-binary identity. Bisexuality's potential to subvert binaries of sex, gender, and sexuality can be expanded and used as a standpoint from which to resist all hierarchical and oppressive binaries. Since most forms of oppression work according to binary constructions, this can apply to a broad array of social and political issues including race, class, disability, and more. Like the issues mentioned on the second level, it's important to remember that many bi people have a stake in resisting those structures. Bi people exist at every one of those intersections and are directly affected by them. Likewise, even bi people who are not people of color, disabled, economically marginalized, et cetera, still have a stake in undermining these structures. This is because, as mentioned above, ultimately these structures harm everyone, including those located on the privileged side of the binary. Also likewise, connections and similarities might be found between the ways that oppression works against each group and every intersection. This in turn can be used to create a shared basis for working against oppressive structures in solidarity. For example, such similarities can be located between bisexuality and disability, and in particular invisible disability. Both bisexuality and disability are affected by the medical industrial complex and undergo various forms of pathologization, including the conflation of bisexuality and disability or illness. Both bisexual and invisibly disabled people are often told that it's all in their heads, that they can choose otherwise or that it's just s phase that they need to get over. Bi people and invisibly disabled people often share similar experiences of passing, facing erasure of who they are, being accused of fraudulence, and/or of seeking privilege. One specific similarity that I've found between bisexuality and my own chronic illness, fibromyalgia, is the gendering of social treatment of people belonging to these groups. Because women comprise the majority of both bi people and people with fibromyalgia, treatment of both these groups is informed by misogyny. Both groups and topics are characterized in concurrence with misogynist stereotypes and are treated less seriously and are denied valuable resources, as an extent of these issues identification with women and femininity. Again, these are only a few examples of one intersection, and many more exist. So when I talk about this third level, I mean bisexuality can be used as a standpoint from which to resist multiple forms of oppression that may at first appear unrelated. Bisexuality can be used as a point from which to remember and acknowledge intersectionality and the basic interconnectedness of all forms of oppression, recognizing again that no one form of oppression works in isolation but rather parallels, draws from, and intersects with others. In turn, these understandings can be translated into coalition and solidarity work for everyone's liberation. So what does a radical intersectional bisexual movement look like? It looks as big and expansive as one might imagine, and it can make our dreams come true. Such a movement would be devoted not only to bisexual liberation but also to the liberation of all other groups. In fighting for its goals, it would not forget how all forms of oppression are interlinked. It would not seek to assimilate, but rather to multiply and expand. Such a movement could be critical, aware, accountable, and passionate. It could acknowledge difference in the hierarchies within bisexual communities as well as without. It could struggle against monosexism, misogyny, cisexism, heterosexism, racism, ableism, and any other form of oppression both within and outside the movement. In fighting its own battles it would tear apart power structures, including every intersection in which bi people can be found. By using the power that bisexuality has in threatening and destroying hegemony, such a movement could create a revolution indeed. This vision of a movement is not a fantasy or a dream. It's not Utopian, nor is it naive. Such a movement can be real and tangible. It can be strong, loud, and powerful. What it requires is energy, work, and passion. It requires a change and new beginnings. This work will not be easy, but it would be worth it. It can create a community of learning, sharing, destroying, creating, of difficulty, complexity, joy, pride, friendship, accountability, solidarity, and passion. By doing this work we can create something new, and in creating it, we can create a revolution. Thank you. [applause] Thank you. So we have about 10 minutes or so for Q&A. We'll have [? nami ?] and Matt on the mics. Just simply raise your hand, and we'll make sure one of them gets to you. But like I said, about 10 minutes or so for Q&A. Thank you. I left you speechless apparently. [laughter] Talk to me. Hi. First of all, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I was wondering if you could speak to where you live in Tel Aviv, and what the bisexual revolution looks like there, or what you want it to look like, or specific challenges that come with being there, or specific rewards and positive things. Yeah. So this is a complicated question because there isn't really much bisexual activism going on in Tel Aviv right now. For many years I was the main person doing the work and providing the drive behind all the activities. And since I took a break about a year ago, not so much has been going on. But it seems like things are beginning to come to the surface again. What does it look like in Tel Aviv in general? It's very intersectional, basically queer politics in general in Tel Aviv and generally in Israel have a very strong streak of both intersectionality and radical politics. So in a very significant way, the way that I think about bisexual politics is very informed by the way activism and queer activism works in Israel. So mainly because Israel is such a militarist country and there's the whole topic of the occupation and everything, it's really impossible to ignore. Everyone has to have a stance on that. And since queer activism is really connected to left wing, I guess, and Palestine solidarity activism, there's a lot about that. It's actually interesting because there's been a process of radical queer activism going from Palestine solidarity queer activism more to identity-based intersectional activism. So a lot of what we do is informed by broad understandings of politics and power structures around us. So basically that, I guess. There's so much more. I guess what you just said, though, is kind of the question is going to ask, was I know you're also an anti-apartheid activist. I was going to ask about how do you respond to people who try to like pinkwash things? For people who don't know what that is, it's-- I can explain. I'm not articulating myself very well. I'll give it to you. So pinkwashing is a practice gaining popularity in Israel and around the world, currently of presenting Israel as a sort of gay haven in the Middle East, kind of describing Israel as a paradise for gay people. And I'm saying gays specifically because it only talks about gays, and particularly gay men in Israel. And obviously there are so many problems with this sort of discourse. For starters, it completely erases Palestinian LGBT people and the oppression that they have to go through under the occupation, and especially in places like Gaza where they don't even have basic human rights. I'm talking things like food and medicine and freedom of movement. Oh, God. There are so many levels, and I just talk about it all the time. It's hard to focus. It's hard to make it short. How do I make it short? It also erases the fact that gay rights in Israel may be a little bit more, I don't know, advanced than a lot of other places. But it's really no gay haven. I mean, there is a lot of violence and a lot of, you know, homophobia and biphobia and transphobia and lesbophobia everywhere, and supported by even the government, institutions. So for example, I think it was just yesterday that a minister in the new government came out with an announcement to the press that the new government was not going to support gay rights and gay marriage. So that really erases the kind of homophobia that's going on inside Israel even towards Israeli Jewish queer people. And of course it erases the way that government and municipal entities are contributing to this oppression. So for example, there are so many more resources invested into pinkwashing Israel internationally than actually supporting queer people within Israel. In Tel Aviv, for example, there's-- oh, God. What do you call it? There's a project, a tourist project for gay tourism specifically marketing Tel Aviv as a tourist destination for American and European gay man, especially around Pride Week in June. And the municipality of Tel Aviv puts in about 90%-- no, wait. What am I saying? Tel Aviv municipality is putting, like, hundreds of more percents of money into that than actual LGBT organizations supported by it. Yeah. There are just so many levels to this thing. I can talk to you about it later if you want. If you want to read more about it, I actually wrote quite a bit about it in an article that I published in the Journal of Bisexuality a couple of years ago. It's called "Love, Rage, and Pride, Bisexual Politics in Israel/Palestine." You can search for it on Google Scholar. So you published your book, Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution about a year and a half ago, which if anyone here hasn't read, you should because it's fabulous. Thank you. And what has been the reception critically and sort of personally to publishing a book on this topic? How has that changed your life for you in the last year and a half, and what has that been like? Overwhelming, really. I didn't expect it to be so big. I've been receiving a lot of positive responses from a lot of people. Like, I don't know. In the past year and a half at least, like once a week I get an email or a message saying, thank you for your book. It really helped me. It's really-- oh. I forget the word. I'm sorry. I told you I was shy. I forget words when I do these things. It's humbling, that's the word I was looking for. Yeah, basically that. I mean, I guess I hope not just that I've influenced bi communities and bi people in positive ways. I hope it would reach out to others and kind of create waves in other areas and create more awareness. I don't know. Visibility, raise the issue of bisexuality with broader areas of the public. Again, I want to thank you for your work. It's definitely had a major influence on my life. I deeply appreciate it. Thank you. I have a question related to, just wondering about any future work that you are doing. Curious to hear about that. And then also I was wondering if you've done any work related to bisexual migrants or rather bisexual asylees. Just wondering if you happened to have looked at issues related to that in terms of testimony and getting legal status. So as to future work, I have so much. So I'm currently starting to work on my MA thesis which is going to be about bisexuality on TV. And I hope to publish it as a book when I finish writing. Then I also have a few more books in queue. Like, I want to write a book about bisexual activism. I want it to be an activist guide. I wanted to write a bisexual vampire novel. [laughter] Yes. [applause] And I already know what I want my PhD to be about, which is bifeminism. So I've got all of that lined up. As to asylum seekers, I'm afraid I don't know much about it. I know only basic information. That is, usually bisexual asylum seekers are denied sanctuary because they are presumed to be able to choose to live a heterosexual life and avoid persecution. So I know this is a problem, but I haven't really researched it very deeply honestly because it would destroy me. It is just terrible. Hi. Given that in the US only 28% of bi people are out to the closest people in their lives, and we know that that's from a lot of stigma that's going on and a lot of things that can happen to people when they come out, and as a bi activists myself, trying to get more bi people to come out, more bi people to get organized, more bi people to get political, it's a real issue to get our community more motivated. And I'm just wondering, how do you get a revolution from people who are too afraid to come out? Well, you start at the grassroots. So one of the things that I've been doing for the past three and a half years is facilitate a bisexual support or bi empowerment group. A lot of people started being closeted. A lot of them still are. But being in a bisexual political space, and personal and political space I think can do a lot both for politicizing people and for motivating them. What else? I mean, I really think you need to, in order to get people out there, you need to start at the basics. But also it's important to realize that there are a lot of people already out there wanting to do the work, at least in my experience. So if something is happening, for example, I really saw it a couple of years ago when we organized a bi conference that was the first one in Israel. And suddenly there were so many people wanting to volunteer and do things, and there were more people wanting to volunteer than there was work to do. I think because there's such a dearth of bisexual communities and activism, people are just starved for it and just waiting for something to happen, just to do it. All right, everyone. That pretty much wraps up our time for Q&A. I invite you all to join us in Ticknor Lounge for a reception. And let's just give Shiri one more quick round of applause. [applause and cheering] Thank you. We also want to present you with this sweatshirt and welcome you to our Harvard family, and thank you so much for coming and sharing your words. We really appreciate you being here. So the reception is just out there. We'll do a book signing. For those who got tickets, those are your tickets to get books. And those who would like to purchase one, they're $17. And we'll have a light reception right next door at Ticknor Lounge. Thank you so much. Thank you. [applause]