I believe you wrote that very, very well. As a person not in the USA, I can only watch and see what happens from the outside looking in. I hope that it will stir some of your country-folk to action.

I was directed here via a post by nyabn in bisxual_world. In an effort not to be too redundant, below please find a link to my response :)

http://community.livejournal.com/bisexual_world/1345235.html?thread=8043475#t8043475

I agree with much of what bi dilemma wrote in her other comment. I am in my mid 20's and while I feel bisexuality is accepted in ways it never was 10 or 15 years ago I still think there is a long way to go. Unfortunately it seems a lot of activist groups are having trouble with getting new members right now. I don't have a solution but I say don't give up.

Are you or binet involved with Robyn Ochs' talk at Fenway Community Health in March? I am in Boston and would be interested in learning more about the community here. I know about the bisexual women's network in back bay and the women's center in cambridge, i just haven't been able to get involved in much of anything yet (grad school sucks away all my time).

good luck and keep working, it does make a difference

I have been wondering this myself. I recently was drafted to take over as president for Seattle BiNet, and I almost turned in down because I did not want to take the risk of being the one to shut it down. We had at least 8 people at every meeting when I first started going to meetings 6 or 7 years ago. Then the weekly meetings went to biweekly, as we were not getting enough attendance. I hosted our monthly coffee social last Saturday, and had one new person show up, and none of the old-timers. That has been the case for the past year. I often make dates for the social just to have company when no one else shows up.

Yet, our annual picnic is well attended every year, and we have a large following on LiveJournal. Still, most of the people in the LJ community have never been to a meeting, and a good chunk of the people who go to the picnic stopped attending other events years ago.

Before you raised the question, I had just assumed it was a Seattle problem. Now I see our problem as part of a larger trend. What to do about; I haven't a clue.

I would personally love to be more involved in the bisexual community in Seattle, and nationally. However, my attempts to attend both of the bi groups in seattle and become involved have been incredibly disappointing for the most part. Most of the members are at least 10 years older than me, which seems to be a big enough gap that we have very different ideas of what a group should look like and how it should be run. I have definitely enjoyed hearing perspectives of older members who were around when bisexuality really was completely unaccepted. However, I didn't feel as if the group was similarly open to my own experiences or willing to work with different ideas or topics. Also, I am definitely a minority in my age range- most of my friend identify only with the word 'queer'. I feel as if the bi community and the people who use the word queer as an identity label could be really powerful and radical together, but I don't see a willingness to come together.
I think there should be an adjustment of perspective before BiNet disappears.

meanwhile all heck has broken loose (especially on postqueer and bipolypagangeek) because some feel bisexuality is oppressive by it's very name + nature because it "promotes the binary" + leads 2 gender opression and not recognizing that gender as well as sexuality can be fluid

well, that's all I need! Let's do this! where are you located?

This intrigues me a little in that over in the UK we're just getting on to the "let's have a national organisation" stage, despite on paper being in a better position legally and such. Up til now the closest we come is Bi Community News magazine, which has been described to me as "the members newsletter of the UK bis membership organisation we don't have".

I think it's more to do with the credibility of a national voice to the pink and non-pink media, and that there are some things where a national body would help: economies of scale in producing general bi info for Prides and other outreach spaces for example.

It might be that BiNet is suffering that natural ebb and flow that we all know from group running; or perhaps it's reached the end of its cycle enough and you need some time without a national body until fresh energy is there to make it happen. But I guess 501c3 status takes some achieving (I have no idea) and you have to think about whether maintaining a body with that status saves the next wave of activist energy from needing to do the paperwork, or holds it back on a "we can't start a national body, someone's already doing that" basis.

Or maybe US-wide organising is just too geographically large a scale, in the same way we don't have an EU-wide body?

On the latter point, I'm already there - just a little quiet as it's got a bit too navel-gazing for me and not enough of the Running Groups Successfully stuff.

Pointed here by nyabn in postqueer. My comment here brings up a fair bit of my issues with many single-issue organizations I'm seeing complain about lack of membership.

I think it's important to step back and question: who are you trying to serve? What do those people actually feel they are needing?

Activism exists to counter oppression. Biphobia isn't gone; it's changed and isn't the same as it was. But the people most aided by single-issue activism eventually find themvselves less and less dealing with that single oppression, and can more fully take advantage of other privileges afforded them. Which means joining the mainstream. Which means no longer needing to do activism. While those dealing with multiple oppressions don't see the same benefit, and often have such a long history of rejection from this single-issue activism (see women of color who reject Western feminism that has been primarily for white women and on the backs of women of color) that we form our own groups, deal with these issues in our own communities.

At BOP (the Bisexual Organizing Project) we struggled for a time about getting younger queers involved. Interestingly, after starting to work on the BECAUSE (Bisexual Empowerment Conference: An Uplifting and Supportive Environment) conference, we have had a number of student groups become active in bisexual organizing. The University of Minnesota Queer Student Union is one of the sponsors of the event, and we've been developing good relationships with MNGLBTA Campus Alliance.

I don't see the libraries of bi themed books, but perhaps I'm not looking in the erotica section :)

I also see lots of 'I want to get laid' online activity and not so much other discussion etc.

I also still see lots of LGB[T] organisations only mention the bi word on their funding applications and not in their services etc.

So I think there is a need, and in the UK we're still seeing people want to do something...

or in this case, the tv guide with the newspaper. unlike the tv guide, bisexuality is not a vestige of days gone by. i think part of the problem is that the ideal "bisexual agenda" is more radical than either the feminist or the gay agenda, and many people who identify as "bisexual" arrive at that label from heterosexuality. it seems to me that people who fall in the middle of the kinsey spectrum (i.e. most people) but arrive at that label from/through homosexuality are more likely to choose a label that emphasizes the fluidity of sexuality--i.e. striking down both the hetero and the homo of binary sexuality and normativity.

thus "bisexual" as a category, rather than an identity category, refers to a massive number of people; but as a self-chosen identity category, refers far fewer. in my mind, this reflects the problematic association of the word "bisexual" with a system of binary sexuality, which is exactly what is undermined by the existence of bisexuality.

it seems to me that, rather than rallying behind the bisexual flag, the need is for a greater movement to reconsider the construct of binary sexuality and think about sexuality in a new way. who is the "we" of bi-organizing? i think that if the bisexual community establishes itself with the exclusivity and normativity that has inevitably seeped into gay and lesbian politics, we (in a much broader sense) will all suffer. in other words, the problem with bi-organizing as i understand it is the construction of "bisexuality" as a third sexuality and an alternative to hetero or homo, a conservative effort that would do more harm than good to young people groping to find their categories.

the magnetic attraction of nonestablished labels (bicurious and heteroflexible among them) reflects people's tendencies and evident desire to opt out of a system of sexuality in which everything is defined by precedent or by practice. the diversity of identity labels that ensues makes it difficult to make a flag that promotes acceptance, tolerance, and fairness for a specific identity group. but this difficulty should not be interpreted, as curriedspam does, as a problem that requires greater advertising but as an ideological issue. the true cause behind bi-organizing should be the erasure of binary sexuality. instead of bringing another minority into nominal acceptance, why not turn to the greater cause? then instead of having a dwindling parade of bisexuals, we could all exercise to become a little more flexible. better yet, instead of calling the single hard-working volunteer, maybe we could continue to support the normatively unthinkable and unimaginable and imagine into reality a world in which there is no "default" or exclusivity in sexual politics; in which the rainbow spectrum would represent everyone who supports sexual freedom and free sexuality.

an addendum: of course people don't like labels when the label in question is bisexual. there are strong, supportive communities on both side of the too-tall fence. it is difficult to imagine that the bisexual community will ever be able to summon the people and resources to be its own institution when there are preferable "defaults." this problem of community organizing, which is where you're coming from, leads directly to the ideological conclusion i made...

Like the old saying goes, "Organizing bisexuals is a lot like herding cats." Sad, but true, but also not surprising in some ways. After all, telling people over and over and over again that you really do exist when you're standing right in front of them wears a kid out! It also goes to show that the more we learn to love ourselves, the more we'll advance.

Hey - it worked for other letters in the L - G - B - T.... =)

Seriously though, the one thing that should keep all of us going is that however few there are, the outspoken/organizing voices that exist are there. It's times like these that I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Margaret Mead:

"Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

And that means US. Not in numbers, but in voices. Maybe the better question to ask ourselves is this: "What have I done today?" I'm lucky enough that I get to do a lot of it by just going to work (OutQ in the Morning on Sirius Satellite Radio). But I also grab any opportunities I can for discussion in everyday life - even at the dentist's office (a charming tale I'll share another time)!

We can't "give up." No one will fight for our rights - and truly, if we don't - why should they?

Cyn
(www.MySpace.com/ladyredcyn)