Focusing On The Next Step For Queer Women: Accepting Bisexuality
I am not a bisexual woman. However, when my peers and family discovered I was in a relationship with a girl when I was 14, I had made a huge mistake.
Out of fear, I allowed them to believe I was bisexual to give them the “hope” that I would one day be with a man. Although I had quickly retracted this label I had bestown upon myself a few months after, I can’t help but look back at this and be angry at myself. Now, my family and peers from high school believed that bisexuality was my stepping stone into becoming a lesbian. Being the first to fully come out in my hometown at the time, I missed the opportunity to educate those who have never seen out members of the queer community.
Going into the social journalism program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, I had one objective: give the queer community a voice. This was too broad and it could have worked, maybe, if I had years to develop a thesis. I had one year. I wanted to hone down my focus to one part of the community that was underserved.
As you’ll soon come to learn, during my first semester my fiery passion was ignited by a group discussion with 20 people who identified as bisexual at the LGBT Center in Manhattan. From that point on, I focused on the notion that bisexuals underwent double discrimination. Meaning, not only did they receive doubtful questions about their sexuality from the straight community but also within the queer community.
Get Creative
When I chose my community, one of the first steps I took to get to know them was to just start reaching out. In order to do this, I needed to figure out the best outlet and communication to reach my community. Who else would know that besides well… my community of queer women? From Staten Island LGBT Health educator, Erica Santiago to bisexual networks I discovered Facebook was the best place to start. I created The Triangle Times to aggregate news daily on queer women from mainstream media outlets to niche blogs or personal stories. While I don’t quite have hundreds of people clicking like on the Triangle Times, it helped me sift through information on the community every day.
I Mean, REALLY Creative
For a product development class I created a website, LGBTQLexicon. As I’ll mention later, I thought of this product as I listened in on a cultural competency training. A woman who stated she was a nurse kept speaking out during the training misunderstanding words and using them out of context. At one point she used the word “abnormal” to identify a patient of hers that identified as transgender. I felt there was a miscommunication between the queer terms we all know and why it’s important that it’s known in a general sense and not only within the community.
LGBTQLexicon gives you the ability to search through an interactive dictionary for queer terms. If someone wanted to understand more about the word transgender they could simply search the word. Not only will they find the definition but also articles that surround the topic of transgender that cover it correctly.
Seriously, Your Readers Have An Attention Span Of Practically Nothing, Your Creativity Is What Makes You Stand Out
I held an event on July 30th. I titled the event #BiSelfie and had the intentions of starting a movement. With the help of Paul Nocera, BiRequest creator, I brought together 12 bisexuals that were proud of their identity. Some were married, some were poly, others were just plain old single and bisexual. A week later I posted #BiSelfie: Proving Bisexuality Actually Does Exist which brought the event to the online community and opened up the floor for others to send in their own photos of their pride for their bisexual identity. The story was republished to a Medium publication called The Absurdist and received over 540 views.
Get Involved
While I do consider myself a part of the queer community and my personal story was to show you the fire behind my passion, this project had nothing to do with me. I needed to get involved with reliable sources and start building relationships with people as if I’ve never heard of the queer community before.
At first, I had tried to bring my own perspectives with me into the bisexual community and I was met with a quick reality check. After sitting in on a BiRequest meeting held by Paul at the LGBT Center in Manhattan, I changed my focus to solely bisexual women and the double discrimination they face from both the queer community and heterosexuals as well. I came to understand bisexuality had this struggle and it was exclusive to them that no lesbian, gay man or someone who identified as transgender could understand.
After this experience, I started attending LGBT competency cultural trainings, asking sources for their sources, getting on the phone with people simply for their opinion. I sat in LGBT spaces — observing, listening.
Listen To Your Community
I can’t stress enough how I couldn’t have produced the results, wrote the content, filmed the experiences or even educated myself further without the encouraging and inspiring voices I found within my community. They spoke through my content. They were the main focus in my videos and also the voice of feedback.
Don’t Drop Off The Map, No Matter How Busy You Become
I found my sources, mentor(s) and sounding boards in the beginning of the social journalism program. Something I came to terms with very quickly was the interest I started to generate around the topics I was discussing. All of the people I tapped into wanted open communication and complete transparency about my project within my masters program. When I had published an article, I’d send it to them to notify them their voices are online. Despite the fact that I was putting together stories, making charts in data journalism and trying to put together a website for the first time I made sure to stay in touch with my sources even if it was just a simple email asking how their week was going.
Don’t Forget Where You Came From
In sum, without the social journalism program I wouldn’t be able to say I have the expertise to coach others on sexual identity. While my content improved over time with thanks to my professors and mentors (that I found both within my chosen community as well as all 14 of my classmates) along the way, so did my ability to remain open minded. During my time spent at the CUNY Graduate School Of Journalism, there was not a second wasted.
Some feedback from community members as well as people who watched me grow throughout the program:
