and Now For The ‘B’ Bit
An Evening with the Voices of B & T in LGBT — Part II
The second part of (what would have otherwise been a long one-sitting read) my blog on the engaging and insightful event I attended this month on the B & T in LGBT; for those of you that don’t know, that is the Bisexual and Transgender in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, the two parts of that diversity team that are usually under represented and possibly less well understood. If you are interested the first part, including the intros can be found here
Bisexuality….. Why Should I Care?
So just before the start of this panel session made up of women (just women interestingly) from IBM, Barclays, Stonewall & St Albans City & District Council, I again find myself asking my should I care, just as I did about gay and lesbian colleagues at the start of my diversity champion journey. Why does it make any difference who someone chooses as their partner, especially people that I meet with in a work environment. A few moments in to the introduction I had a much better idea of why…….
Did you know bisexual individuals demonstrate higher levels of mental health issues than rest of LGBT, this leads me to believe that I need to give a voice to a group of people that have challenges but limited voice and focus, few role models to help identify with and understand. as one panelist commented ‘when are you going to make your mind up’ is not a joke when you hear it day in day out. It ceases to be banter and it is not because I am humourless. Imagine folks feeling it was OK to question your ability to make a life decision every week, when in fact you had made a decision, just not one that fell into the homosexual or heterosexual categorisation that most of the world is comfortable with.
A statistic from the evening that I just found breath takingly awful was that 60% of therapists who have had clients that are bisexual, who came to them for therapy and help on a completely different topic, try and get them to decide whether they are straight or gay/lesbian. Imagine having the courage to try and get help for a difficult problem you have, only to have the person who us meant to be helping you a) not accept who you are b) try and fix a problem you don’t believe you have….. and that is the professionals as a bisexual your mind must run riot on what the general untrained-in-the-human-condition person at the water cooler is going to think.
The Lack of Acceptance of Bisexuality and thus Bisexuals
One challenge that the bisexual community have in gaining acceptance and recognition is unfortunately that many people who are beginning to recognise gay feelings or come out as gay can use bisexuality almost as a staging post, a way of communicating the changes to the outside world of safely dipping their toe in the water with any ability to back track (an example of this recently would be Tom Daley the British Olympic Diver). Whether they do truly believe this as part of the journey they go through coming to terms with how they feel or whether they use it to ‘soften the blow’ to others I doubt any of them do it with any malicious intent. However is does have a negative reflection on the bisexual community with the inference that they are confused, that they don’t know what they want and the phrase “bi now, gay later” being a frequent taunt especially from the gay and lesbian community because that does sometimes look like the case as confused individuals go through the journey of coming out as gay or lesbian.
One panelist put is beautifully “Being gay is confusing, being straight is confusing, what to have for dinner can be confusing. Being confused is not the problem, being told that you are something you are not or being forced to ‘choose’ is a problem!”
Pressure & Assumptions From All Sides
Sadly bi-phobia insults come from not only straight community but also from the gay and lesbian community; one example a panel member gave was a manager that she had early in her career, this manager was herself a lesbian manager and so very supportive when this female employee joined the team with a girlfriend, however when they separated and the employee started dating a guy then the previously supportive manager started telling others that the girlfriend was just a phase, the employee was just confused, didn’t really know what she wanted and being generally being dismissive of the bisexual lady to her colleagues and others who would listen!
A bisexual person is someone attracted to people of more than one gender, that doesn’t mean fancies men and fancies women, but actually means is interested in people on the whole. Which brings me on to another point, bisexual also noes not mean fancies all the men and fancies all the women. People in general get very hung up with the view that bi-sexual means polyamorous (not monogamous), that is not the case there is no higher instance of polyamory in bi-sexual people than in gay or straight. Like everyone else the bisexual individual’s choice is the person and then whether to be monogamous, in the same way that being a heterosexual female doesn’t mean that you want to sleep with 2 men at any given point in your life. However this seems to have become such an acceptable position that many people who identify as bisexual (or can be identified by having partners of various gender over time) find assumptions being made about their values, their commitment, their ability to make decisions, by colleagues, family and maybe even friends. That made me appreciate why some bisexual people would choose not to be ‘out’ at work or in other communities, judgements placed on your abilities born of your partner choice would be hard to deal with…. however we know not bringing your whole self to work, comes with a cost to the individual as they have to use up finite sources of energy and brain power flipping pronouns or steering conversation away from any talk of family or social life to avoid ‘discovery’.
My takeaways
So in fact, as with the other members of the LGBT community, I finished this panel discussion understanding I should care about bisexuality, not because I should particularly care about the sexuality of an individual person or the gender of their chosen partner, but to understand that because of preconceptions some people have (conscious or unconscious) then a fully inclusive and accepting environment may not be the default one, that I need to ensure that I act to great and nurture inclusion.
So how do we do this? Well the suggestion from the panel was to be clear about your support of bisexual as well as gay or straight people to demonstrate acceptance and understanding. Bisexual people are still told all the time that they don’t exist, I need to ensure that I never ‘say’ that whether explicitly or by omission…. it is LGBT not just LG or LGT!
The panel also reminded the mixed audience at the event that as a manager and as a supporter of diversity & inclusion in the workplace, I have a responsibility to continue as a very overt and ‘out’ straight ally. The Straight ally program is important not just for LGBT individuals, but also for first line managers and colleagues of LGBT person, providing a safe place to talk about things, ask questions and better understand without fear that they may say the wrong thing and personally hurt someone.
Even Forbes has published on the business value of straight allies transforming the work place , so if you want to learn more about being a better straight ally Stonewall provide a guide to help here or contact me, I can’t claim to have this nailed, as with so many important things in life it is a journey, but it is one I have started on.
