A campaign to tackle prejudice against bi- and pansexual students was this week launched by LGBTQSoc and OUSU’s LGBTQ campaign. OUSU’s “Bye Bi Prejudice” campaign aims to “provide a platform for students of non-monosexual identities to dispel stereotypes about them.”
Alice Nutting, Bi/Pan rep at LGBTQSoc, explained, “Bye Bi Prejudice is about breaking down common myths and stigma surrounding bi/pan people and talking about what our identities mean to us. Many non monosexual folks have experienced biphobia both in queer communities and in wider society. We want the campaign to be a creative, visually striking and empowering way of standing up to that.”
OUSU LGBTQ rep Adam Ward added, “Given the stereotyping which non-monosexual people face, it’s so important that we work together to say Bye Bi Prejudice.”
The campaign’s project asks bi- and pansexual students to share their experiences through messages and creative art about the prejudice they face and what they value about their identity. The testimonies and art received will be shared on their Facebook page and distributed throughout Oxford next week.
One student told Cherwell, “It can be difficult being bisexual— people make inaccurate assumptions from your current behaviour about your sexuality. If you’re seen kissing a person of a different gender in a queer space you can automatically be seen as straight, people often don’t consider that you might be bisexual.
“If you introduce someone of the same gender to your friends or family, they might think you’ve finally ‘decided’. There’s an urge to put people into the gay/straight binary that means non-monosexual people are often ascribed the wrong identity, which can be very uncomfortable. It would be great if people could learn to be more open-minded.”
Balliol’s Daisy Porter agreed, telling Cherwell, “Bi/pan people’s identities are often dismissed as a ‘phase’ or as a stepping stone to coming out as gay, which is incredibly frustrating. Bisexual and pansexual erasure is a very real issue and I hope that the campaign can go some way to challenging this within the university by giving non-monosexual people a platform to speak about their identities.”
OUSU VP for Women Anna Bradshaw hailed the campaign as a step forward, commenting, “I am supporting Bye Bi Prejudice because bi/pan-invisibility and bi/pan-phobia are particularly acutely felt by bi and pan women within Oxford University and across society. The campaign states clearly that this is unacceptable, and it particularly chimes with work that I am doing to combat sexual violence — estimates put the proportion of bisexual women who experience serious sexual violence above 75 per cent.
“I’m also supporting the campaign in a personal capacity, and look forward to ex- pressing what my bi identity means to me as a part of the campaign.”
Last month, the LGBTQ Campaign helped secure a new University policy ensuring that students and staff can choose the gender-neutral pronoun ‘Mx’ on university documents.
