For the past three days, 90% of my Google Alerts (for “bisexual” and “bisexuality”) have been about Pink. And you know what? I don’t care.

I really shouldn’t complain about it here, though. I’m probably just doing it to someone else.

Update: OK, actually I do care a little. It just occurred to me that, even if the story was totally fabricated…in three days of articles quoting Pink saying she’s bisexual (or saying she never said any such thing), not one of them was headlined “Pink is a lesbian!!” And that’s progress, of a sort.

Hm. It says “Yes, definitely.” Let’s try again. “You may rely on it.” There, I think that means “No…”

A couple of days ago, bi email lists were buzzing about the two op-eds about bi men on Gay.com. The first was Ari Bendersky wondering “Can guys actually be bisexual?” — and of course concluding that they can’t, they can only be gay men who haven’t yet realized that they’re not actually into women.

Is it really possible for a guy to be bisexual? There are a lot of opinions about this, but when you ask gay men, the answer is often “No.”

Because, of course, gay men are the experts on male bisexuality. It wouldn’t make far more sense to ask self-identified male bisexuals. Their opinions are pretty dismissable, since we already know they’re almost certainly gay, straight, or lying. It’s far more sensible to ask a group which in many ways has privilege over the people in question.

The crux of Bendersky’s argument seems to be this:

In our culture, if a guy has oral or anal intercourse with another guy, most would say that he’s gay, because, for many of us, “being gay” describes a man who has sex with other men.

Sure, we can say that many other things go into being gay, but sexual activity is what many of us believe what makes up the person who is gay. A man could be into leather and Levi’s; he could really like theater; he could really be into fashion. These interests don’t necessarily make a man gay, though. But when this man has sex with other men, there’s really no denying what camp he falls into.

So what do we make of these guys who define themselves as “bi”? Are they really fooling themselves as they screw their way down the path to gayhood, or do they really enjoy having sex with women? I realize that some people are just sexually charged and will take it wherever they can get it. But I say that if you’re a guy having sex with another guy, chances are there’s a part of you that’s in denial, and only time will tell when you finally come around to the realization that, yup, you’re gay.

Allow me to translate: “Let’s examine whether male bisexuality seems like a possibility. Well, our culture says that having sex with another man automatically makes a man gay. If we stipulate that, it becomes clear the bisexual men, being men who have sex with other men, are really one epiphany short of identifying as gay.”  That’s a very rigorous, logical approach, and not at all circular. It’s terribly useful to define “gay” as “all men who have sexual contact with men” and then declare that all men who have sexual contact with men are gay. Consider me completely won over. Not to mention the nod to the typical just-looking-for-the-next-warm-wet-hole stereotype that seems to be the only type of bisexuality some people will concede the possibility of. And I do like the way he asks whether bisexual men genuinely enjoy having sex with women, and then ignores the question as if it were totally irrelevant — which it is, to him. After all, even if they enjoy it, it must be only because they haven’t realized yet that they don’t. That makes sense, right?

As well as being less than persuasive, this argument strikes me as buying into a lot of our culture’s oppressive heterosexism. Sex with another man taints you, and once you’ve had it the only possibility is that you’re a big gay homo forever? None of your other behavior or opinions on your own desires and identity matters because you’ve touched teh cock? Um. I know I’ve heard that before, and it wasn’t from our friends.  (Well, actually, I heard it from my first boyfriend, too. “I didn’t know you had a foot fetish,” I said to him one day. “All gay men have foot fetishes!” he declared. Because, um, he was from Texas, and apparently in Texas all men who’ve hooked up with another man are gay. Even if they’re currently lying in bed with me, naked, still catching their breath from the sex we were just having. He identified as bisexual most of the time, but it was a weird moment…Oh, and speaking of my first boyfriend. And my last boyfriend, come to think of it. Yes, guys can be bisexual. I promise. I was there, I should know.)

Now, this sort of faulty and vapid reason is pretty common. And Gay.com is a personals site, it’s not really where I’d expect to find a political analysis of bisexuality. So, while sucky, this is a pretty expected level of fail. But of course, in a space that’s centered around dating it’s especially important to acknowledge and support the existence of bisexuals and treat us like legitimate dating partners. And with a large audience comes a large responsibility to set an example and treat everyone respectfully. Do they really want to serve only gay men, rather than any men seeking to date men? That’s what it seems like right now, and that would be pretty unfortunate.

Also disappointing was the follow-up by Robert Lawrence, which was about as rambling, petty, and illogical as the original post:

Let me pull my mouth away from my boyfriend’s crotch long enough to respond to this question.

…

The best studies of identity panic show that denialists are the ones you meet later at the glory holes, so maybe there’s a woman in your future. If you ask the scientists, the answer is “Yes, Vagina, there is such a thing as bisexuality.”

Huh? There are a couple of promising leads (“Now you tell me why you refuse to believe in the existence of my female and trans lovers. Do you have the right to define what I am?” “When I came out, our very lives were illegal. We fought for everyone’s freedom to choose partners without straight lines holding us back.”), but they kinda go nowhere. And while I understand Lawrence’s anger and think it’s completely justified, I question Gay.com’s choice of this piece to represent the bisexual community/standpoint.

I’m already irritated by the Point/Counterpoint approach to whether a group of people actually exists. But if Gay.com is going to do such an offensive thing, they could choose an articulate, persuasive counterpoint. They had a chance to showcase an intelligent, reasonable opinion on male bisexuality, and passed it up. I can’t help but think that their choice of this bloggger/article says more about their stance on male bisexuality than even the fact that they ran these two pieces at all.

As the more astute among you have probably noticed, it’s been all Aviva all the time around here for a while now. Sarah’s been eaten by grad school, which has been demanding all of her energy and filling all of her analytical needs. So, despite my pouty face, she’s going to be stepping down as my co-blogger. She’ll still guest post whenever she feels moved to, and I for one am hoping that will happen a lot — particularly since it’s almost summer, and perhaps school will relinquish its grip a bit for a few months. And I’m still hoping to convince her to come to New York for queer film and theater festivals and check out all of the bi-themed offerings with me.  I’m eternally grateful to her for deciding we should start a blog and getting it started with me.

I hope there will be other co-bloggers in my future, when I meet people who are invested in bisexuality as a political identity who are willing to put in the time to write about it regularly here. But for now you’re stuck with me. I’ll try to live up to the burden.

And really, I’ve been pretty absentee myself lately. I’m working on that. In the meantime, there have been some interesting posts about bisexuality up on Bilerico in the past couple of months. Half of these are by a guest contributor and the other half by people who aren’t bisexual-identified, and I still maintain that they could use a bi-identified contributor who covers that angle (or, if they have one or more, they could use more active ones).  and it says something that I consider four articles in two months to be a lot of bi content on an LGBTQ blog, let alone such an active one. But take a look at what’s been going on over there while apartment drama (leaking! associated ceiling problems! bedbugs in the building! — though, so far, not in my unit…cross your fingers for me), broken computer (I fixed it! All by myself! I bought a new screen, and I installed it!!!!), and relationship processing have kept me away from you:

Ellyn Ruthstrom, President of the Bisexual Resource Center, has a list of tips on how to be a good ally to a bisexual person. I could suggest some additions — really move through the world as though you believe bisexuals exist and don’t assume anyone’s sexual orientation based on (what you perceive as) the gender of the partner you see them with, just off the top of my head — but it’s a good start.

Cathy Renna also writes about being an ally to bi folks, from the ally side. It’s good to know we have allies out there who are taking on the crazy things people say when we’re not around.

Ellyn Ruthstrom posts again, on how gay men and lesbians often use bi space as a place to come out and adjust to the idea that they’re not straight. It’s an interesting take. Many people argue that bisexuality is always just a phase on the way to feeling comfortable in a gay identity — often because it was for them, or someone they know.  This article looks at it from the other direction and suggests that one of the wonderful things about bi space is that it allows people that sometimes-necessary phase, without judging them or telling them who they should be or how they should identify. Presumably while also serving the needs of people who are bisexual as a stable and long-term identity, which seems to me to be a more important goal. Particularly when many of those same people, having arrived at a gay or lesbian identity, turn around and argue that we don’t exist and must just be taking our sweet time on the same journey. Still, I take her point that the bi community and the gay and lesbian community, to the extent that they’re separate, should try to be welcoming and good to one another, and worry less about who’s using whom and more about easing our common struggles.

And finally, Jess Hoffmann reposted an earlier article on why she doesn’t identify as bisexual. I agree with much of her reasoning, even though she avoids “bisexual” because of its binary connotations and I use it in order to change those connotations. In practice there are bisexuals who buy into the gender binary and are only attracted to people within it and bisexuals who don’t and are attracted to a wide range of genders, just as there are gay and straight people who believe in two genders and are only attracted to one and gay and straight people who see a range of genders but are only attracted to one or a few. I think it’s important to distinguish between a problem with the word’s roots with the behavior of the people using it; the bi and trans communities have a history of being allies to each other, and I personally find that more important than the Latin origins of the word. I certainly agree with her reasons for choosing “queer;” I’m also a big fan of the word’s political connotations, and almost always pair it with bisexual. But I still think that, despite the word being less than perfect (not only for the “bi”‘ but also for the “sexual,” which puts the focus on sex rather than identity in a way that “gay” and”lesbian” are clearly trying to avoid), it’s the best one I have to talk about who I am. Queer is descriptive of my politics but could mean just about anything as far as my attractions, and I appreciate the specificity of bi. The comments on both this and the 2007 post are also interesting and worth reading, and probably informed what I had to say on the subject.

I did say in the wake of Prop 8 that if Dan Savage kept it up with the racism I’d have to stop liking him altogether. And while I haven’t seen that kind of overt racism from him since, a) I’m sure it’s still there, b) he’s been terribly offensive about bisexuals more times than I can count, as well as not having a good record with fat folks and people living with domestic violence, and c) this week we have some equally shocking transphobia. There will be no more “He’s a good sex advice columnist, but…” from me anymore. I’m flat out of patience and excuses. If anything, it took me too long.

In response to a reader who doesn’t know how to tell his girlfriend that he paid a trans woman for sex, Dan writes [heads up: offensive words for and thoughts about trans women below the cut]:

Paradoxically, RAGE, going down on a shemale escort shores up your heterosexual bona fides. Gay guys don’t frequent and/or fellate shemale escorts (on purpose or by accident); getting with shemales is an entirely straight-male pursuit. So you can go right on identifying as straight, RAGE. Of course you aren’t totally straight—try thinking of yourself as something more than straight, not less—but you’re close enough that you can round yourself down to straight with a clear conscience. (Offer void the day you start blowing hemale escorts.)

Shemale? Shemale? For real? And after the person who wrote in used the much less problematic “transsexual”/”TS”? Was that really necessary? (Hint: no.) It would have been so easy to stick with the terminology already in use, but no, let’s see if we can find the word that’s most likely to offend the highest number of people. All of the objectification of the porn industry, and even more successful than “male-to-female” at rooting people in their assigned gender rather than putting the focus on their authentic gender. Everybody wins.

And, um, newsflash: Straight men are not the only people who are attracted to trans women. While there are certainly ‘chasers out there who fetishize trans folks and are creepy and exploitive about it (and possibly most of those people are straight men, although surely not entirely), trans women are not some weird sexual subcategory who appeal only to certain straight (or straight-plus — ick) men. Generally they appeal to people who are attracted to women. A group which is far larger and more varied than just straight men. Seriously, dude. Straight men and gay men are not the only two possibilities, there’s a whole world out there. (For which I am profoundly grateful.)

Hooking up with trans women isn’t even something gay men never do. I seriously doubt that no gay-identified man ever in the history of the world has ever dallied with a trans woman who’s an escort, but I have no evidence on that one. Not a few trans women came up in the drag scene, though, especially straight trans women/trans women who are attracted to men. And again, the world is so big that pretty much everything has happened, and there has to be some gay guy out there who kept sleeping with his lover as she transitioned from identifying as a drag queen to identifying as a woman. Probably more than one. Not to mention all of the gay-identified men out there who just enjoy sleeping with women.

And then we have this charming reminder:

Finally, RAGE, good on you and your escort for using condoms. But there are a whole host of sexually transmitted infections you could’ve picked up from her, condom or no condom. Make whatever excuse you need to in order to get out of having sex with the girlfriend, go get a full STI screening, and refrain from having sex until you get the all-clear from your doctor.

Granted, he’s the safe sex dude. But I’ve never heard him get quite so hysterical about the risks involved in protected sex. There must be something about trans women who are also sex workers that makes him all kinds of paranoid…maybe they remind him that he’s an asshole.

I suspect the defense we’ll hear, if any, is that Mr. Savage makes his living by snark. No one reads him for the sweetness and light. And that’s true, as far as it goes. But “snarky” and “offensive” are not actually synonymous — there’s a lot of overlap on the Venn diagram, but also a lot of area covered by things that are one and not the other. (This is where Girlfriend, Esq. thought I should have a graphic. I don’t do graphics.) It’s the difference between me writing about what an asshat Dan Savage is as an individual, and him writing insulting things about entire groups of people. Believe it or not, it is possible to be sarcastic, amusing, and the ever-dreaded PC. (Maybe I should be a sex advice columnist…someday….)

I’ve written to Dan Savage before when he was being an idiot, and gotten no response. So it’s probably fruitless, but maybe tomorrow I’ll write him a note anyway. And I have to decide now whether to take his column off my feed, or keep reading it so I can keep taking shit like this apart. I already spend too much of my time reading nonsense on the internet, though; maybe I’ll just let Google alerts tell me when he’s prattling about bisexuality.

PS Is the Bilerico website down for anyone else? I was going to link to several things that have been going on there lately, but I can’t get any of them to load.

All of my time and energy for writing right now is going toward processing in my relationships. (It’s always something, isn’t it? I will never not be busy, and there will never not be something of that moment that I point to and say “It’s this, soon I will be less crazy.) It may be a few more days before I can sit down and write something thoughtful about anything else. Also, I dropped my Eee PC and cracked the screen today (apparently the world was trying to see how much hard stuff it had to throw at me to kill my high from an amazing Saturday night — okay, world, you win!), so blogging on the train and bus will be out until I come up with money to get it fixed or replace it. So in the meantime, a look at the things I might be blogging about if I were doing so at all…

Girlfriend, Esq. pointed me to Greta Christina’s response to Dan Savage’s latest insensitive comment about bisexuals. I’d missed it somehow, but as always, Greta Christina does a thorough and brilliant job of responding. I don’t think I have anything to add. Other than that Dan Savage may make his reputation on his snark, but the occasional columns where a dozen questions get brief answers really help no one. They just let him showcase his wit without giving actual advice. Even he could probably have done a better job of answering that one if he’d fleshed it out more; at least we’d know which fucked up thing exactly he was getting at.

Alex at Bilerico is doing a week-long series on abstinence-only education, looking at a new report on how abstinence-only education is actually implemented in Texas (the state that receives the most federal funding for it). Two days ago he wrote about homophobia in abstinence-only, yesterday about religion as part of the curriculum; today it’s sexism. Keep an eye on that one; it promises to be interesting and important.

Meanwhile, Bil at Bilerico posts about the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders filing a challenge to DOMA that they seem to hope to bring to the Supreme Court. He has a lot of really persuasive things to say about how the push for marriage actually harms the push for more basic rights in places other than the two coasts. I’m a coastal dweller myself, so I can’t say anything other than that it sounds about right, and lines up with/complements a lot of my reasoning on why pushing for marriage is not where our energy should be going. He also left a heart-wrenching comment on a different post by someone who supports the move. And Nancy Polikoff points out that it will only benefit couples with income inequalities, and talks about how the queers shouldn’t be shoring up heteronormativity — and you know how I love that.

HRC has announced some long-overdue changes to its Corporate Equality Index. I’m not best pleased with how long these changes will take to kick in and how long employers can continue to skate by while treating trans employees in really fucked up ways, but I have no way of assessing HRC’s claim that companies need that long to bring themselves into compliance. Of course I’m less concerned than HRC is about employers who don’t treat trans employees well getting to keep their perfect scores for a couple of years while they fix that, but they may have a point that companies are more likely to comply if they’re not ticked off. Since after all we’re not hoping they’ll do this out of the goodness of their hearts; we know they have to be shamed into it/get something out of it. And it is a positive change. Also, because he wins all of the links today, Bil talks about his disappointment that HRC will still not be assessing companies on their behavior internationally and factoring that in.

Have a lovely week!

I am so woefully behind since last weekend’s conference. Especially since Girlfriend, Esq. got into town last night, so I spent the three days since I got home getting ready for her visit. If I owe you a personal email or haven’t responded to your comment yet (thanks for all the birthday wishes!), I swear I haven’t forgotten you and it is on my list of things to do. If you could give me until Monday before you give up on me, I’d be eternally grateful.

I’m still catching up on Google Alerts and Bilerico emails, too. In one of them I came across a link to this reaction to Rea Carey’s speech at Creating Change, from Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that it’s a vile piece. They play up the Leather Leadership Award as evidence that the Task Force isn’t qualified to speak on right and morality, and clearly only have to say the words “transsexuality,” “prostitution,” “polyamory/nonmonogamy,” and “sexual freedom” to get their readers all grossed out and riled up. I also giggled at “If you are reading this website, you are seriously concerned about the homosexual activist agenda.” Yeah, actually, I am. Mostly I’m concerned with advancing it.

What I find fascinating about the article, though, is how similarly it reads to many things I see from the queer-positive radical left. The way they set the Left up as a monolithic, powerful Goliath against their poor, disorganized, minority David is awfully familiar. Check this out:

Nobody lies like the Left, yet the liberal media rarely challenge groups like the Task Force on their many falsehoods and slanders.
…
The sheer organization of the anti-Christian Left: [emphasis theirs] thousands of left-wing, grassroots activists attend these annual “Creating Change” conferences; there is no parallel on the social Right for this scale of people and groups working closely together toward common goals.
…
the pro-family movement must take a sober look at where we are in the battle over homosexuality, and it’s not pretty. While it is tempting to point to pro-marriage victories in November (California, Florida, Arizona) as evidence that our movement is healthy, underneath the surface we are losing the critical public-policy and cultural argument over the legitimacy of and government endorsement of same-sex relationships.
…
Many of the “gay” gains came in states targeted by homosexual moneymen like Tim Gill, who has successfully knocked out pro-family state legislators in Iowa, Colorado and other states. This begs the question: why do such hardball efforts seem to succeed only on the Left and not the Right? When will the pro-family Christian “Tim Gill” step forward to help our side?
…
Why does the Task Force – which receives lots of corporate support — give an award to a purveyor of hard-core homosexual porn?

This is just fascinating to me. Everywhere I go I read people’s concern that the Right has a strong, organized movement without the kind of infighting and conflict that keeps the Left from being nearly as effective as we could be. We’re always questioning ourselves and each other, the trope goes, while the Right throws itself behind what it as a whole can agree on and acts. They play hardball and it works for them, and we just can’t get it together. I see the Religious Right telling blatant falsehoods about the consequences of legislation or effects of medication, and the mainstream media totally failing to call them on it or correct their misinformation. I watched the Mormon church and its money step in and pass Prop 8, which is once among the many times the Right and their greater financial resources have turned the tide of political battles – without losing all of the tax breaks and other government-given advantages religious organizations are only supposed to get when they stay out of politics. The feeling is that we’re steadily losing ground and the Right is stealthily gaining it. Now I’m seeing the same concerns from the other side. I’m sure it’s just how things work in something like the “Culture Wars” — in order to get your side energized to really throw themselves into the fight you have to convince them that a) the other side is winning, and b) they’re doing it by being more organized, more devoted, more willing to open their wallets, more in control of the means of communication, etc. And really, what we and Americans for Truth have in common is that we’re far enough from the center in our beliefs that it really does seem like the rest of the world is arrayed against us — people down with AFT’s agenda are woefully outnumbered against the entire Left, as are radical anti-oppression anti-capitalist liberationist queers against the entire Right. We’re both far enough from the middle that the mainstream does not represent our views. From our respective vantage points, the mainstream seems firmly on the other side. Still, I got a kick out of reading things I’m used to seeing on Bilerico from this source of extreme Right Wing nutjobbery. If they feel as disorganized, out-numbered, and out-funded as we do, maybe there’s cause for hope.

Or, you know, maybe they’re lying again. That’s always a possibility.

It’s a short week this week, since last week spilled over into the weekend. I can’t say that much has gotten done in Aviva land. It’s been mostly work and errands, and those frustrating days where lots of little things go wrong and make you crazy, but nothing big enough that you feel like you get to really whine about it. But here’s what the corner of the world I’ve been observing has to offer us.

I had trouble finding a more reputable-seeming source for this one, but it seemed worth sharing anyway. Not least because I’m confused by it. It seems a woman in Singapore sued for custody of her child as part of divorce proceedings, arguing that because her ex-husband is bisexual, he would be an immoral influence on their child. District judge Khoo Oon Soo disagreed: “’I was also of the view there was no evidence to suggest that (Jim) with his lifestyle could not be a good father. I was, therefore, of the view that the child should not be deprived of the father’s inputs on these areas as he grows up.” He then goes on to allow the father only supervised access to his son, in deference to the mother’s fears. I’m a little confused by the way this decision wants to have it both ways — if he’s not unfit to be a father because of his bisexual “lifestyle,” then why restrict his access to the child? I do wonder, though, whether he didn’t dispute his ex-wife’s claims that he wasn’t equipped to deal with their child’s disabilities and his bisexuality would expose the child to “immoral influences” because he did not, in fact, want custody. I can think of half a dozen reasons he wouldn’t dispute those claims, and that’s without knowing how Singapore is for queers in general, but that could be one of them.

Someone gave George W. Bush two weeks’ notice! That’s brilliant! I thought it was never going to end…Of course, it’s a little bit inaccurate; his employment is being terminated as a routine matter, not as a result of gross incompetence. Still funny, though.

The House has gone gender-neutral. Look, the way we use language does actually matter! And they actually did a pretty good job of it, too. Their new language isn’t all “he/she.” And it actually sounds natural, it doesn’t sound like someone talking in circles to avoid using pronouns. Check it out here; it’s a long .pdf, but the gender-neutrality rules start on page 9.

There’s a great post up on Bilerico about the religious right’s attempt to frame gay rights as incursions on their freedom of religion. Guest blogger Travis Ballie is right that we need more organized arguments against it — and not ones that hinge on the idea that, if treating queers like human beings violates your religious beliefs, then your religion is bad. I do believe that, and sometimes find myself arguing that way, but telling people that their religion sucks is not a very effective way to get them to listen to you. Maybe we should try arguing that treating queers equally doesn’t violate their religious freedom, and that it most likely doesn’t violate their religion’s rules, either.

For those of you in the New York area — Bi-Furious favorite Jessica Hoffmann will be in Brooklyn this Saturday promoting make/shift, the feminist magazine she coedits and copublishes. I desperately wish I could be there, and likely would have found a way if I’d found out about it more than a day and a half in advance, but you should still go. You can tell me all about it. I just subscribed to make/shift and haven’t received my first issue yet, but everything I’ve heard has been high praise from people I respect, and their list of contributors is awesome. I’m expecting great things.

I’m trying to figure out what to make of this casting call for bisexuals. It sounds like it’s probably for a talk show wherein people get to defend the validity of their sexual orienatation, yay! I can’t help but dread that. We all know how respectfully such shows tend to treat their guests, and how seriously they’re likely to take bisexuality. I’ll keep an eye out for it, though. I’d consider responding, just to make sure they had someone halfway capable on, but a) they’re probably dismissing halfway capable people out of hand, if I’m right about what kind of show it is, and b) I’m awfully camera-shy. Maybe in a few years my activism will be stronger than my camera-shyness, and I will be able to consider going on national television, but that time is not yet.

And speaking of casting calls, the Lesbian and Gay Foundation in the UK is looking for “diverse” models to “represent the community” in their magazine, website, and health resources. I know nothing about LGF, but points to them that they’re looking for lesbian and bisexual models. That’s one form of diversity, at least.

Whew! This should be it on everything that happened in the past month. We should now be back to our regularly scheduled weekly round-up.

It’s been a fun couple of weeks for me. My sister is in town between a semester in Russia and her last semester in Wisconsin (she should have something to say for us about that soon!), and I’ve been spending tons of time with her. We hosted a dinner party last weekend, spent this week getting my apartment from mostly-moved-in to fully set up and looking like a home, and two nights ago broke it in with a housewarming party. It’s been lots of fun, but blogging and spending time with my other friends have been falling by the wayside a bit as I try to stock up on time with her enough to last me the next three months. They say that how you spend the New Year is how you spend the next year, and I would be so okay with spending this year in people’s living rooms with a few close friends. Eating homemade soup, tearing apart neocon craziness, and laughing til it hurts. Bring it on.

Meanwhile, in the world:

I still have reservations about Rick Warren. But this Huffington Post piece my friend Rachel pointed me to makes some very good points. Warren looks far less bad when marriage is not the lense you look through. While I’ll never be a fan, even if he weren’t invested in retaining his right to speak out against homosexuality from the pulpit, we all know marriage is not the lense I look through. And if we’re going to have a country full of evangelicals I’d rather have them be the type that spend most of their energy toward fighting poverty than the ones who spend it talking about the evil gays. And his won’t be the only religious voice present that day. I take back my reservations about going to the inauguration – I’ll be there. Even if I do make faces while Warren’s talking.

Tamora Pierce points out that, in all of the fuss about Warren, almost no one is talking about Reverend Joseph E. Lowery. Who is not only a giant of the Black civil rights movement but also strongly, publicly, consistently pro-LGBT rights. It’s a remarkable oversight, shame on us.

My friend Stacey has a brilliant and optimistic conspiracy theory concerning Warren. She allows that it’s entirely possible that Obama has made a stupid and/or thoughtless mistake in selecting Warren to give the invocation. Neither of us are such rabid Obama fans that we think that’s impossible. But while we don’t know whether he’s devious, we do know he’s very smart. So what if this was a calculated move intended to piss off his base, so that he would have to pass LGBT rights legislation to placate them? He does have more people up in arms about it than I would have predicted, and he’s had to make some strong pro-LGBT rights statements as a result;  maybe he did it intentionally, so he’d be “cornered” into supporting us. I don’t know that I buy it, but I like it as a theory.
Of course, I’d like it a lot more if he’d just openly support us.

The Canadian government is trying to decide whether to send Jane Okojie back to Nigeria, where her bisexuality is apparently punishable by up to 14 years in prison. I always find the equivocation in these cases puzzling and frustrating. The question at hand is, ostensibly, whether she would be safe there. Given that her sexual orientation is against the law and punishable by prison time, and given that it’s now an internationally known case and it’s unlikely that she could go back and be successfully closeted (not, of course, that such a thing should ever be required for safety…) — how is there a question as to whether she’ll be safe? Surely there’s a lot I don’t know about immigration law — American, let alone Canadian — but it’s hard not to suspect institutional homophobia in what seem like such clear-cut cases.

Did you know modern liberalism is directly descended from ancient religious practices that most likely never existed to begin with? Whoa. Couldn’t resist sharing that snippet of crazy…

I have mixed feelings about this pledge some straight couples are making to get divorced if Prop 8 stands. On the one hand, it doesn’t actually help queers for straight people to not be married, and it’s less effective to try to give up your privilege than to fight for everyone to have it. On the other, solidarity and making a statement is important, and it would send a powerful message if this caught on with any meaningful numbers. I do think it’s a useful stance for an ally to take. But on the third and funniest hand, I love the way this turns on its head the religious right’s argument that same sex marriage will somehow destroy the institution of heterosexual marriage/damage individual heterosexual marriages. Apparently, it’s the outlawing of same sex marriage that will destroy heterosexual marriages.

In one of its many efforts to hand the Obama administration a messy disaster and force Obama to anger the religious right by rolling back discriminatory laws and policy, a couple of weeks ago the Bush administration increased doctors’ rights to refuse treatment based on religious or moral objections. This is really a disastrous policy, on any number of levels. It allows doctors to refuse not only abortions, contraception, and fertility treatment for lesbian couples, but to refuse to treat LGBT folks at all because they have religious or moral objections to us. Pharmacists could refuse to fill trans folks’ hormone prescriptions. Doctors could refuse to administer HIV tests, and would no longer be required to inform patients where else they could get the test. Whatever happened to the Hippocratic oath? If you are the sort of person who is going to refuse to care about the health of people you consider objectionable, you should not become a doctor. Leave it for those who have a calling to heal greater than their calling to punish. It is impossible to overstate how damaging this policy is, to LGBT folks and to everyone. At least we can be somewhat confident Obama will not allow this to stand — but it will serve to mightily piss off the religious right when he overturns it, Rick Warren or no Rick Warren. As Alex Blaze writes on The Bilerico Project, “That’s Bush: playing politics with less important people’s bodies for 14 years. Why should he stop now?“

Britain’s Court of Appeal has ruled that a straight man can be the victim of homophobic harassment at work — even though he is not gay, his coworkers do not believe him to be gay, and he knows that they don’t believe him to be gay. While I admit to an initial reaction of “oh, boo hoo, it’s hard to be straight,” I actually think this is a really valuable ruling. On the face of it, it’s unacceptable for this man’s colleagues to call him a faggot, mock him in the employee magazine, and otherwise make his work environment unbearable for him. Of course he should have recourse even though he’s straight. And on a deeper level, it’s important for people to see that heterosexism and rigid gender norms hurt everyone. Unfortunately, I doubt that most people outside the queer world will go this deep with their analysis, but I can dream. Because that’s very clearly what’s happening here; this man fails in some ways to live up to a strict cultural idea of what a cisgendered straight man should be, and he’s being punished for it. The system as it currently exists does oppress all of us — although, of course, not equally.

This didn’t happen in the past month, but on Bilerico’s list of their top 70 most-read posts of the last year I found this look at transgender characters in science fiction. There are even more interesting-looking books mentioned in the comments. And there’s a list of the top 10 books every bisexual should read here. I’ve only read one of the books on it so far, so I can’t speak to the quality of their choices, but several of them have been on my to-read list for some time.

HRC is pressuring Obama to make certain concessions in exchange for picking Warren (there you go, Miss Stacey!) But their call for Obama to prioritize Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, more severe punishment for hate crimes, and unequal tax treatment of domestic partnerships seems to me to again illustrate how HRC, with its lack of an intersectional analysis, often misses the point. I agree that it’s important for Obama to endorse a gender expression-inclusive ENDA, but I don’t know that I would call for anything other than an endorsement even on that in the first 100 days. This man is taking office at an extremely difficult and critical time. I would prioritize things like sorting out the economy, getting started on rescuing the environment, and changing the previously discussed guidelines that allow doctors to refuse people medical care over an LGBT-specific agenda. Being able to afford to keep our homes and feed ourselves and our families is critical — especially to queers, who are more likely to be un- or under-employed. So is being able to count on getting medical care when we need it, and having the earth remain habitable for humankind. I absolutely agree that Obama needs to practice what he preached on LGBT equality, and that he needs to keep the promises he made to secure our votes and not just forget about us once he’s in office. But he can’t do everything he needs to achieve in his presidency in the first 100 days, and maybe we should make sure we will all be alive to struggle for the things on the gay agenda.

I’m not even sure what’s going on with this piece about Ashlee Simpson , whose husband apparently announced on the Howard Stern show that they have anal sex. Is the suggestion here that men who want to have anal sex with women must be bisexual? ‘Cause, um, there’s nothing true about that. Lots of straight men fantasize about anal sex, often having more to do with it being forbidden than with a woman’s ass being the next best substitute for a man’s. Nor is anal sex the only way for men to have sex with other men, though people always seem to assume it is. Any idea what’s going on here?

Mona Charen writes in the National Review Online about same sex marriage being a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad thing. Mostly not on its own merits, but because of the awful things it would lead to (married twins! Seriously, folks, there’s no difference! In which case why do we even bother to have the word “incest”when we could just use the word “gay,” and life would stay nice and simple?) But the really charming part is where she writes, “But what about bisexuals? I ask this not to poke fun or to hurt anyone’s feelings, but in all seriousness. How does gay marriage help a bisexual? I assume that if you are bisexual, you believe that you need to have sexual relationships with both men and women. If you are a bisexual man married to a woman, don’t you need to break the marriage bond to express your bisexuality? If you choose to express just the homosexual side of your bisexuality, then aren’t you gay? Likewise, if you choose to express only the heterosexual side, how are you a bisexual? Why is bisexuality not a recipe for infidelity?’ In all seriousness, indeed. Could she be more disingenuous? Going on to talk about the definition of the word “transgender” she cites the Wikipedia article, so clearly she’s capable of doing at least a minimum of research before making counter-arguments against her “assumptions” without bothering to find out how things actually are (although she then dismisses the many things “transgender” can encompass as “a multitude of sexual deviances,” so no points for her there.) The same five minutes of research that must have required would have told her that there’s a difference between bisexuality and polyamory, and that bisexuality is not synonymous with infidelity. Maybe that’s too much effort to put in for the bisexuals. Someone should tell her that bisexuality is about being attracted to both men and women, not necessarily on whether you act one both or either. The same way she doesn’t cease to be straight when she’s single or not actually at that moment engaged in the act of having sex with a man, we remain bisexual even when we commit to monogamous relationships. And of course we’re attracted to other people while in them, but so are monosexuals — and they probably act on it at about the same rate that we do. Also, thanks for dismissing queers’ objections when bigots compare gay sex to incest, bestiality, and pedophilia as “hurt feelings.” That implies that the statement is true but unnecessarily harsh, rather than a deliberately inflammatory inaccurate analogy designed to get right-thinking Americans offended and disgusted at the thought that they might be condoning such sex. (Oh, wait, I should be the someone who tells her. That’s the great thing about having a blog; it prompts me to do all kinds of things I used to think of but not bother with. Consider it done.) I saw this on Art at the Auction, which takes it apart quite nicely. The Confabulum also has a counter-argument , but it’s more focused on marriage, which I find boring. And the author makes a point of dismissing the slippery slope argument by claiming that there are other good reasons to disallow group marriage, without ever bothering to explain what they are. It’s my favorite when people argue for their rights by agreeing with the majority that some other group still doesn’t deserve similar rights. Give us same sex marriage, we’re just like you, not like those nasty people who want to have more than one partner at once. Those debaucherous perverts.

This is a remarkable piece of wackjobbery. The evils of Santa, gay reindeer, a gratuitous mention of how women should stay home, and wouldn’t it be great if all the queers died. Go ahead, read it for the laughs. (Ok, the last part is more plausible and therefore much much less funny. Did you know that all queers are rapists? Maybe he’s confused because the sin that led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah wasn’t gay sex at all – it was raping all the travelers that came through town. Which I have to agree is pretty wicked. Also, check out the first comment — with friends like that, who needs enemies?) And speaking of the laughs and wackjobbery, I recently spent two hours with friends tearing apart Dennis Prager’s theory that women should never deny sex to their husbands, giggling the whole time. Thanks to Pandagon for pointing it out to me, and doing a hilarious job of refuting it.

I really enjoyed this piece on the newly developing acceptance for transfolks in Reform and even Conservative Judaism. I’ll have to look up the new rabbinic arguments arguments in support of accepting people as their authentic gender. And check out Transtorah, a new resource on transgender issues for the Jewish community. The piece respectfully referred to trans men (never using that phrase, but saying “transgender rabbi” or “transgender student” in a way that makes the word “man” superfluous rather than pointedly leaving it out). They lost me, though, when they then referred to a trans woman as “a transgender male-to-female literature professor…formerly a man known as [previous name].” They didn’t feel the need to tie the trans men they discussed to their assigned genders with the phrase “female-to-male” or their previous (assumedly) female names, and I don’t know why they did it with this woman.

I want to read this biography of Dusty Springfield now. I don’t pay much attention when people label celebrities of the past as bisexual, as many bi activists tend to seize on their cover relationships, one kiss with a person of the same gender, or misinterpreted cultural context and assign them an identity they very well might not have claimed. I’m fascinated, though, by what the article says about Springfield’s disregard for her culture’s rules and suggestion to “ask the people who go to bed with me” if one wants to know her sexuality. That sounds much more like the kind of approach and identity that’s interesting to me.

And finally, I give you this discussion of the possible benefits female bisexuality can have for men. It classifies female celebrities who’ve fooled around with girls (some identifying as bisexual, some not) as “bisexual straight women,” and posits that they talk about being attracted to other women more than they act on it, and may indeed want to have sex with women but certainly don’t see them as relationship material or potential life partners. Which is especially puzzling since the list includes Lindsay Lohan, who seems to see one particular woman as exactly that. “This sexual trend is spreading like wild fire all over the world and many people are already benefiting from it!” author Janet Sheridan writes.  She explains that female bisexual behavior is not more common now, only more accepted, and my favorite part is her explanation of the aforementioned benefit. You see, women will be more comfortable experimenting with another w0man when a man is present (because the dick reassures her of her core heterosexuality? because really women only ever do anything to turn boys on anyway? It’s unclear).  This will make them feel safe to “enjoy the soft and creamy touch of another female“…no, I am not making this up. So, “this is why it’s ESSENTIAL that you learn how to help women transform their secret sexual desires and fantasies into reality… If you learn to do this, having threesomes regularly will be easier than you ever possibly imagined….If you want to attract threesomes into your life you’ll need to understand the little known psychological secrets that will literally push any woman over the edge to having a threesome with you.” Go on, push women over the edge and out of their comfort zone for your own sexual gratification. Everybody wins!
(For the record: I am not claiming that some women don’t do it for the attention. But the way people dismiss all bi women as doing it for the attention is still offensive. And I don’t even have space here to talk about how the women who do probably do so because they live in a world where pleasing men is the only way to power.)

And a little giggle as a reward for those of you that got through all that:

In Philadelphia with Sarah a couple of weeks ago, I walked by the construction site for the soon-to-be National Museum of Jewish American History. Along the wall outside, blocking your view of the ugly construction site, they have billboards with pictures of prominent Jewish figures and little blurbs about what they accomplished. Next to a picture of Betty Friedan, it said “She invented the feminine mystique.” I’m sorry, what? No. She wrote The Feminine Mystique.  She critiqued the feminine mystique – or if that rhymes too much for you, or you want to play into the word mystique, she revealed the feminine mystique. But invented it? I bet she’s rolling in her grave.

Thanks for hanging in there with me all these months while I figure out how this blogging thing works. I hope to have it figured out and everything running smoothly by the time this blog is a year old, which gives me until next summer. In the meantime, a round-up of all of the news I haven’t had a chance to read, let alone write about, since the last round-up. (I was so right to ask for an Eee for Chanukah. Bus rides to DC are one of my major sources of blogging time, these days.)

Julia Serano has a call out for anecdotes from trans women about being objectified or hypersexualized in ways that relate to their being trans. She’s planning to use them in an upcoming article highlighting and speaking out against such misbehavior. Bi-Furious! would like to take this opportunity to remind you that Julia Serano is awesome and inspiring (as far as I’m concerned the saddest thing about me missing the Femme Conference was not getting to introduce myself), and you should read her book Whipping Girl.

We were asked ages ago to post this call for submissions to Chroma, and I am a flaky airhead. Sophie emails us to say, “Chroma is the UK’s premier queer literary magazine. We pay $50 per accepted piece and we can accept email submissions from overseas contributors — but please get in touch first and let us know what you’d like to send along! Issue 11 has the theme Utopia, and we are looking for great science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, horror writing, comics and art…The deadline is 15 June 2009, so there’s lots of time to imagine beautiful machines and fabulous planets…”
Submission guidelines here, more information here. And I think our very own Sarah is planning to submit a piece!

Yet another call for submissions, this time from QueeredFiction, a queer genre publisher, for an anthology on queer futures. The deadline for that one is February 28th.

The 6th International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers was on Wednesday. Check out the Sex Workers Outreach Project’s information packet, which includes their demands and an open letter to President-Elect Barack Obama.

Speaking of President-Elect Obama…he chose Rick Warren to give the Invocation at the inauguration? Rick “same sex mariage intrudes on my freedom of speech” Warren? Really? He defends the choice here. I’m not ready to join the hordes of LGBT activists declaring that this does not bode well for queer issues during Obama’s presidency, but I must say it makes me cautious. I realize that you can never please everyone, but who exactly did he hope to please with this move?
Actually, let’s take a closer look at Warren’s fascinating argument against same sex marriage. “And the reason I supported Proposition 8, is really a free speech issue. Because first the court overrode the will of the people, but second there were all kinds of threats that if that did not pass then any pastor could be considered doing hate speech if he shared his views that he didn’t think homosexuality was the most natural way for relationships, and that would be hate speech.” My eloquent counter-argument is: huh? Where are you even getting this? Legalizing civil marriages doesn’t mean that clergy have to perform them, let alone condone them. This conflation of two unrelated things (without any explanation of how the speaker got from A to B)  is a favorite tactic for bigots justifying their bigotry, but unless I’m sorely mistaken, there was nothing in the phrasing of Prop 8 that would have made religious disapproval of homosexual practice hate speech had it failed.

Ironically, a study in British Columbia suggests that pregnancy rates are higher among gay and bisexual teens than among straight teens. The suggestion is that queer teens engage in heterosexual sex as camouflage in an attempt to avoid harrassment and discrimination. I also want to take issue with the phrasing “7.3 per cent of lesbians and 10.6 per cent of girls who said they were bisexual” – what’s that distinction about? Maybe they trust lesbian teens to know their own minds, but suspect some girls identifying as bisexual might be confused?

I kinda want to see this documentary chronicling a long-term triad. Bisexual and polyamorous relationships get so little positive exposure, I’m intrigued at the thought that this might have been done well. Pity I don’t get HBO. (Who does and wants to invite me over to watch it?)

Health insurance company Aetna has formed an LGBT advisory council. Good for them! I have no idea how it’s working out in practice, but they seem pretty committed to recognizing and addressing LGBT-specific health needs, and in general to “eliminating inequalities in health care.” That’s definitely a goal I can get behind. And speaking of inequalities in health care…I think in my last post I glossed over the main point about the study showing that queers are less healthy than straight people. What I found most interesting about it is that, while there’s a health disparity between gays and lesbians and straight folks, there’s a markedly bigger disparity between straight folks and bisexuals. Why should this be? What does it say about the near-universal assumption that bisexuals are better off because we have access to straight pivilege? Is it possible that instead, it’s even more stressful and unhealthy to be caught between two worlds, neither of which really wants you? Gay men and lesbians at least have a subculture that fully embraces them, while it sometimes condemns and excludes bisexuals; bi culture and activism is much newer and smaller. I don’t have answers, but boy, I have questions.

Apparently, this month marks the two-year anniversary of the Conservative Jewish movement deciding that being gay or bisexual is not a violation of Jewish law. I enjoyed this piece by a gay Conservative Jew about the intersections of minority experience in being gay and Jewish. I don’t necessarily think it’s helpful to compare being gay to being Jewish, but do think it’s useful to explore how being both colors one’s experience.

“Not everyone is bisexual” pins! I doubt I’d wear one of these, but they amused me. And the arguments she makes in explaining why she made them sound awfully familiar. I also found an interesting piece on bi identity when I went poking around that site. It’s a good take on a lot of the stereotypes bi folks run into out in the world.

Oklahoma State Senator Sally Kern’s husband calls on the courts to put homosexuals in mandatory treatment centers like those for drug abuse and anger management. Scary stuff. (Question: would this be spontaneous, or — like the examples he cites — only in response to a crime? ‘Cause it seems like he’s implying the former, and how exactly does he expect that to work? Oh, right, probably making gay sex a crime again. ) Sally Kern, remember, is the one who was recorded saying all kinds of hateful, homophobic things.

Applications are open for the Point Foundations 2009 scholarships for LGBT students. Apparently, they’re particularly looking for bisexual applicants. I know some of our lovely readers should be applying. (Come to think of it, when I get around to going back to school, I should be applying.)

And, um, I have lots more emails full of news to read, but no more time today. Maybe instead of spending the weekend trying to figure out what my next post should be about, I’ll wrap this up on the bus home on Monday.

The world is a much brighter place for me right now than it was even a week ago. All of the tension I’ve been holding about the uncertainty of the future might finally have a chance to dissipate. There are two reasons for this, one personal and one shared:

1) I’m moved! Moving really is possibly my least favorite thing to do in the entire world. I just hate it. But I managed to get the packing done in time, and my friends showed up and carried and smiled and laughed and made the day itself a pleasure, and since Sunday I’ve been giving myself a break and slowly settling into my new place. Now that I’ve had a chance to recover a bit from draining myself so dry, and don’t have to spend every spare moment packing, I’m determined to follow the news more closely and blog more often. Also to put more time and care into my close friendships

2) President-Elect Barack Obama!! I can’t express how surprised I am that the democratic process actually worked (I was convinced this election would be stolen), and how thrilled at the idea of a regime change. The state of the world has been wearing on us all, I think. And while I don’t expect it all to turn around in an instant — and don’t even get me started on how this election is not the death knell of racism – I admit that I’m inspired and full of hope. The majority of voting Americans voted for a black man. A man who is, while not perfect, maybe as liberal as could possibly elected. A man who might be able to inspire people to do the things that must be done. Now I’m hoping that it’s not too late — for the economy, for the environment, for foreign relations — but I know that at least we will not be sitting back and watching the world go to hell, doing nothing and patting ourselves on the back for it.

As far as queer issues go, this election was not nearly so awesome. Obama himself seems fairly positive on LGBT issues, but has basically not mentioned us, and spoke out against Prop. 8 but has also said that he’s not for legalizing gay marriage. And Prop. 8 has almost certainly passed, and similar measures in Arizona and Florida have certainly passed. Which is disheartening, particularly in California, where it’s a definite step backward rather than a failure to step forward. (More on why I don’t prioritize same-sex marriage in another post, but if it’s going to be on the ballot I’d at least like it to pass. People voting against it is still bigoted and infuriating even if I think it’s a poor use of our community’s energy and resources.) Arkansas’s ban on unmarried couples adopting passed, and is horrendous, and clearly aimed at keeping queers from raising poor, innocent, impressionable children. Because it would be so much better for those children to grow up in orphanages! Finding enough foster homes is enough of a hardship without going around disqualifying people for ridiculous, hateful reasons that have nothing to do with children’s actual wellbeing. Ballot propositions on abortion went well, but as far as queer issues go, not a banner election.

But Girlfriend, Esq. pointed me in the direction of Kate Brown, today’s official Bisexual Politician Of The Day. She was just elected Oregon’s secretary of state (the second highest-ranking elected official in the state of Oregon), which makes her the first LGBT secretary of state in the country. Even before Tuesday’s election, as the Senate majority leader in Oregon (a post she’s held since 2004) she was the highest-ranked out bisexual elected official in the United States, and Oregon’s first female Senate majority leader. And she’s used that position to do all sorts of great things: she was involved in passing a domestic partnership bill, and the Bay Area Reporter quotes the Oregonian as also crediting her with pushing through “civil rights legislation for gays and lesbians, stronger ethics laws, solid budgets for schools and universities, and health care reform, including insurance coverage for contraceptives.” That’s, um, pretty awesome.

Of course, while I was googling her I came across this nonsense from Just Out, which suggests that none of that is as important as the fact that Ms. Brown is partnered with a man and no longer has short, dykey hair. Because whether she looks and acts like their conception of a queer woman is so much more important than whether she openly identifies as one. And hey, she may do a lot of LGBT advocacy, but any gay-friendly straight person could do that! (Yes, they said that.)
I’m infuriated. It would be one thing if Just Out was criticizing Ms. Brown for hiding her identity, or not fighting on behalf of the community when she’s in a position to do so, or anything like that. But they’re suggesting that all of that isn’t good enough, and if she wants to represent the community she needs to (I am not making this up) “please just butch it up a bit.” What is she doing representing herself as the bisexual candidate and taking money from LGBT donors if she’s not going to dress and act like a big ol’ dyke? That would help queer people identify with her so they’d want to vote for her. ‘Cause no queer women can identify with someone who chooses to have long hair. Would one little drag show really hurt her?
I’m offended by this as a bisexual and as a femme. I’ve spent enough time thinking I’m not good enough or queer enough because I don’t have the right haircut, I’m over hearing other people given grief over it. Come to think of it, I’m outraged as a woman as well; I can’t imagine a gay man being told to be a bit more nelly to get community support, and I think that’s all about a demonization of femininity and failure to take it seriously. And as far as getting on her case for having a husband and kids, when will people would stop questioning bisexuals for our partners’ genders when choosing those partners is totally consistent with the identity we’ve claimed all along? From what I can tell, they’re also taking out of context her statement about hoping her sexuality won’t be an issue in the campaign — from a longer quote (in the same Bay Area Reporter article) it seems she was hoping her opposition wouldn’t stoop to smearing her for it, which strikes me as a totally reasonable hope. I was already going to email Kate Brown to congratulate her on her victory, and let her know how awesome I think she is. Maybe while I’m at it I’ll leave a comment or email the man who wrote the article (stephen@justout.com) and let him know how offensive I find it that they’re judging a bisexual politician on her haircut and the gender of her partner rather than her openness about her sexuality, the ways she’s used her power as a state Senator, and her advocacy for the community.
I, for one, am proud to have Kate Brown representing bisexuality. No matter how she dresses.