“Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out”, edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu

Pg. 306

Why is the possibility of “passing” so insistently viewed as a great privilege… and not understood as a terrible degradation and denial?

– Evelyn Torton Beck, Nice Jewish Girls

…

pg. 320

When I share
my racial and cultural roots
people scoff
“you can’t be!”
“you’re kidding!”
“no you’re not!”
then proceed to tell me
then proceed to define me
then proceed to invalidate
what is really real for me.

What gives anyone
the right
to tell me who and what I am?

I never want to hear
that I don’t look Hawaiian
that I don’t look Japanese
that I’m lucky I don’t look my age
that I can’t be, that I couldn’t be
Why make such a big deal about it?
Why is it so important?

I never want to hear
that I am not a bisexual
that there is no such thing
that if I haven’t been with a man for a while,
I should call myself a lesbian
that I am hurting lesbians
that I am confusing
an already confusing situation for heterosexual society

Why make such a fuss?
Why don’t I just keep it quiet?
Why is it so important?

Don’t tell me who I am
Don’t tell me what my experience is or has been
Don’t tell me my personal is not political
Don’t ask me why it is important or what’s the big deal

I won’t be silenced
I will make a fuss
and I will tell you why it is so important…

I claim it all and have no shame for it is the truth.

“Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics”, by Jennifer Baumgardner

Pg. 225

For me, this fight for inclusion is linked to feminism. Inclusion is one of the reasons I am a feminist and one of the ways I define equality. Women have the right and responsibility to go where men go, be it to strip clubs, to war, to work, or to the bank. Men have those same rights and responsibilities with regard to women’s spaces. When I apply this desire to trump exclusion to sexuality, it means that gay people deserve to get married and have kids and receive social approbation for their relationships, just like straight people. Moreover, straight people deserve what gay people tend to have: the privilege of equality in their relationships and freedom from rigid gender roles.