Bi-diversity

Bisexual people comprise approximately 52% of the LGBT community. In a recent study by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), people of color are more likely than white people to identify as bisexual. In fact, statistics tell us that bisexual women of color comprise 36% of women who identify as bisexual.

Numbers vary somewhat depending upon which research survey you read about but approximately 32% of transgender folks identify as bisexual. Although, 21% identify as queer and that could include a fair number of bisexuals who just do not use the term. The number of younger trans people who identify as bi/pan is even higher at 36%.

The takeaway from all of these percentages is that the bisexual community is beautifully diverse. Our bi-diversity just adds to our beauty and our strength.

Just to add a bit of history/herstory to the Bi-diversity here are a few folks who were/are #OneOfUs  These folks, and many more, should be common knowledge for all of us. While we are often erased we are here, we are queer and we are the majority of the LGBT community.  Info below from Bi.org and other various internet sources:

• Marielle Franco

  ( 27 July 1979 – 14 March 2018) was a Brazilian politician, feminist, and human rights activist. She served as a city councillor of the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro for the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) from January 2017 until her death.
  On 14 March 2018, while in a car after delivering a speech, Franco and her driver were shot multiple times and killed by assailants in another vehicle.
  Franco was openly bi and had been with her partner, Mônica Benício, for over 12 years.

• Dolores del Río

  (August 3, 1905 – April 11, 1983) born María de los Dolores Asúnsolo López-Negrete, she was a film star in Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s, and was one of the most important female figures of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema in the 1940s and 1950s. She was the first Latin American actress to achieve international stardom. Like many actresses of her era, she was part of the phenomenon of “sewing circles,” a phrase describing the underground lives of closeted lesbian and bisexual film actresses and their relationships.

• Nina Simone

  (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and activist in the Civil Rights Movement. Simone employed a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop. She recorded over 40 albums over her lifetime.
  Starting in the 1960s her songs and performances became more overtly political and she performed and spoke at many civil rights marches and gatherings.
  Throughout her life she had relationships with both men and women, including dancer and model Marie-Christine Dunham Pratt.

• Malcolm X

  (May 19, 1925 – Feb 21, 1965) was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.
  Malcolm X was presumed to be straight until Bruce Perry’s biography “Malcolm – The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America” was published. In numerous interviews with associates, friends, and family it was revealed that Malcolm X had had multiple same sex partners before his marriage to Betty Shabazz.

  was a Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. In his late 30s, after his Hajj, he denounced the Nation of Islam and many of the controversial, militant views with which he is still associated in popular culture. Before he married, Malcolm X had relationships with men as well as women. His self-identity was not bisexual, however his sexual orientation and behavior were.

• Frida Kahlo

  (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954) Kahlo is arguably Mexico’s most famous artist. She was a socialist, lived with chronic pain, and openly bi at a time when sexuality (especially women’s sexuality) was considered taboo. Her art continues to be a reminder of how beautifully horrifying life can be and a constant source of inspiration for all queer Latinos who follow in her footsteps.

• Roxane Gay

  (born October 28, 1974) is an American writer, professor, editor, and commentator. She is the author of The New York Times best-selling essay collection “Bad Feminist” (2014) and the memoir “Hunger” (2017).
  In July 2016, Gay and poet Yona Harvey were announced as writers for Marvel Comics’ World of Wakanda, a spin-off from the company’s Black Panther title, making them the first black women to be lead writers for Marvel. The title was cancelled in 2017.
  Roxane Gay is openly bi.

• JoCasta Zamarripa

  (born March 8, 1976) is an educator, politician and Wisconsin state Representative. She is a Democrat who in 2010 became the first Latina elected to Wisconsin’s legislature. In a July 2012 interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Zamarripa announced that she is bisexual. “It has always been my goal in office to be transparent and honest with my constituents,” she said. “But before the primary in 2010, I didn’t have the valor and courage to come out…I feel remiss that I didn’t come out then.” Zamarripa went on to win reelection in 2012 and 2014, each time capturing 83% or more of the general vote.

• June Millicent Jordan

  (July 9, 1936 – June 14, 2002) was a bi Caribbean-American writer, college professor, and activist. Prolific and passionate, she was an influential voice who lived and wrote on the frontlines of American poetry exploring issues of race, gender, class, and American society. The author of many award-winning books, she traveled widely to read her poems and to proclaim a vision of liberation for all people. Dynamic, rebellious, and courageous, June Jordan was, and still is, a lyrical catalyst for change.

• Sook-Yin Lee

  (born 1966) is a Canadian broadcaster, musician, filmmaker, and actress. She is known for her lead role in John Cameron Mitchell’s film “Shortbus”. Her feature film directorial debut Year of the Carnivore premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009.
  She is openly bi.

• Frank Ocean

  (Born October 28, 1987) is an American singer-songwriter from New Orleans, Louisiana. Ocean’s early career was as a ghostwriter for artists such as Brandy, Justin Bieber, and John Legend. His 2012 debut album, Channel Orange, earned Grammy acclaim. In 2012 he famously came out via a tumblr post describing a man that he had fallen in love with as a teenager. His 2017 song Chanel has been embraced as a bi anthem.

• Alice Walker

  (born February 9, 1944) is an American author, poet, and activist. She has written both fiction and essays about race and gender. She is best known for the critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple (1982) for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Walker is bisexual, and her partners have included Tracy Chapman. She is mother of another famous bisexual woman, Rebecca Walker.

• Joan Baez

  (born January 9, 1941) is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice. In a 1972 interview with a Berkeley paper, Baez called herself bi, making her one of the first celebrities to “come out.”

• Marsha P. Johnson/Sylvia Rivera
•  These two important gay liberation figures and transgender activists were major figures in the Stonewall Riots which were reponsible for creating the LGBT rights movement. They were best friends and co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens and trans women of color. Both of these major players in the LGBT rights movement should be remembered for their activism and their bisexuality.

• Sara Ramirez

  (born August 31, 1975) is a Mexican American actress, singer, and songwriter. Born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, she graduated with a fine arts degree from the Juilliard School. She is best known for her roll on “Grey’s Anatomy” and is now playing Kat Sandoval on “Madam Secretary”.
  In 2016 Ramirez came out as bi and has been an activist for LGBT rights and promoting bi visibility.

• Freddie Mercury

  (5 Sep 1946 – 24 Nov 1991) is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the rock band Queen. Mercury was openly bi. His relationships included Mary Austin to whom he willed his home and the royalties from his music, and about whom he wrote the song ‘Love Of My Life.” Later, Mercury was involved with Barbara Valentin, who is featured in the video for “It’s a Hard Life.” In 1985, he began a relationship with hairdresser Jim Hutton that lasted until Mercury’s death.

• Sal Mineo

  (January 10, 1939 – February 12, 1976) was an actor, musician, and director. When he heard that Rebel Without a Cause, a drama about juvenile delinquency aimed toward the new, lucrative movie audience of teenagers, he was desperate for the roll of Plato, adoring friend of the lead character Jim Stark. Although a same sex kiss never made it pass the censors, director Nick Ray still encouraged Sal to play up his desire for Dean while they acted. His relationships with both men and women were considered one of the worst kept secrets in Hollywood and have been extensively documented in his biography by Michael Gregg Michaud.

• Charles M. Blow

  (born August 11, 1970) is a New York Times columnist and frequent commentator on CNN and MSMBC. Previously, he was graphics director of The New York Times and art director of National Geographic magazine. The father of three discusses his sexuality in “Fire Shut Up in My Bones: A Memoir,” released in 2014. As Blow describes it, he long chafed at the word bisexual because he too held common misconceptions about the term and because, in general, he resisted his own sexuality in a futile attempt to become straight. “In addition to being attracted to women, I could also be attracted to men. There it was, all of it. That possibility of male attraction was such a simple little harmless idea, the fight against which I had allowed to consume and almost ruin my life. The attraction and my futile attempts to ‘fix it’ had cost me my dreams.”