By Ellyn Ruthstrom
Are you the kind of person who likes to attend and participate in community events, or are you the kind of person who also likes to organize them? Every active community needs both types of people to grow and succeed. I am, alas, one of the latter. It’s very hard for me NOT to volunteer to help when things need to get done. As a bi+ activist for over 35 years, community building is very important to me, and I’ve been involved with multiple bi+ advocacy, support, and social organizations in that time. I know how essential bi+ spaces are to providing safety and comfort, advocacy, friendship, camaraderie, and love. From a support group to a political advocacy group, from a book club to a monthly brunch, there are so many ways to provide connections for bi+ community members.
One of the things I hear repeatedly from bi+ folks around the country when I attend regional or national conferences is that they lack a sense of bi+ community where they live. The bi+ community faces unique barriers in forming organizations that other queer groups do not often experience. Lack of institutional support from groups that claim to be LGBTQ+, but who come up with excuses when asked about providing support for bi-focused groups is one of the hurdles that many nascent groups experience. Similarly, spaces such as LGBTQ+ centers, or gay/lesbian bars or bookstores or other gathering spaces are not always friendly towards bi+ organizers who want to use these spaces for their group. Getting the word out to bi+ folks who aren’t already tied into the queer community is another common problem and takes time to figure out.
Aware of the lack of bi+ community in many areas, I feel lucky to live in Boston, where there has been a vibrant bi+ community since the 1980s. Pre-COVID, during a typical month, I might have attended or hosted a bi+ book group, a bi+ women’s brunch, an all-genders brunch, and spent social time with bi+ community friends I’ve known for 20-30 years. Some of my closest friends to this day are ones I met at the Bi Women’s Rap group at the Cambridge Women’s Center in the 1990s. (I mention pre-COVID because one of the long-term effects of the pandemic has been on the social and community aspects of bi+ organizing in our area. COVID’s impact has lingered for a couple of years, but what is great to see is that some of the younger bi+ organizers are starting to take up the tasks of again creating these spaces for community members.)
The Bi Women’s Rap was a weekly support group where 10-20 women would gather to talk weekly, sometimes with a topic, sometimes not. It was an open forum for bi+ women to connect and speak their truths. After the official meeting, those in the group who wanted to would go out for drinks or food and keep the connections going. It was a fertile ground for friendship and to find girlfriends. Several of us took turns over those years keeping it going and lightly facilitating the meetings. The Rap existed for many years in that form, then changed to a monthly gathering, and eventually stopped in the early 2000s.
Who came to these meetings? Women who had identified as lesbian for many years and either found themselves attracted to or in a relationship with a man or felt stifled by not being able to express their bisexual identity when everyone assumed they were lesbians. Women who had been living as straight for many years and were newly realizing they were also attracted to women. Or maybe they had repressed it for a very long time, and they just couldn’t anymore. They were often afraid to jump into lesbian spaces, so they found bi+ spaces to begin their introduction into the community. There were also plenty of women who were comfortably bi+ and loved to connect with others about it. Plus, yeah, people wanting to meet someone to date. Those folks came to meetings until they hooked up and then disappeared. Until the next dry spell.
For many years after that, I led a monthly all-genders bi social and support group that met in downtown Boston (BLiSS: Bisexual Social & Support). People from all over the area (sometimes up to 100 miles away) would find their way to this meeting. It was often their first-ever time to admit to someone else their bi+ identity or to enter a queer space of any kind. Some people would ultimately confess they got as far as parking their car nearby once or several times before finally—months later—working up the courage to walk into the building and find the meeting. And the best part was that when that person came back the next month, and the month after, they found what they needed to start their journey. Sometimes that is all a person is seeking, and all they need. That person may never come to a Pride march or a Celebrate Bisexuality Day event, but they experienced validation and understanding and they found out they are not alone.
How to Foster Bi+ Community
When you are trying to foster bi+ community, there are several things that are important to consider. Our community is complex and it’s good to think about who you are trying to reach, what kind of space you want to create, and what level of safety and confidentiality will be in place. Here are a few things to think about:
All genders space: Having a space that is open to all members of the community is a necessary linchpin to establishing an active presence in your city or region. Confidentiality is of utmost importance to establish safe space, and harassment of other members of the group cannot be tolerated. Parameters around the purpose of the group should be clear; some group members (often, but not always, cis men) may use all-gender spaces primarily to meet partners and can be more aggressive about it than is comfortable for those who are looking for identity exploration, support, or advocacy opportunities.
Women’s space: (Now often described as spaces for women and other marginalized genders, and always trans-inclusive.) From my long experience in the community, it is essential for any bi+ community to thrive to provide an inclusive space for women to gather apart from men. I say this because approximately two thirds of our community identify as female or with gender identities that align with femininity in some form, and in order to shed some of the baggage that our culture projects onto us, women need a space free of the male gaze and male social habits. (Think mansplaining, interrupting, devaluing of female experience, etc.)
Generational differences: Boston and a few other wellestablished bi+ communities around the country have tenured bi+ folks who’ve been involved with the community for decades. Some of the social and support networks had been run by folks who are now in their sixties and seventies. It’s important for groups to have people of diverse ages involved so that younger people can become leaders and affect the trajectory of the group. Sometimes it’s okay for groups to segment to attract certain age groups. The BLiSS group that I mentioned earlier was open to all ages, but we found it important to also create a Young BLiSS group that catered to folks who were under 30 or so (it wasn’t absolutist). The community was large enough to support both groups and some people participated in both.
All bi+ experiences are not the same: Sometimes a space that nurtures the needs of subgroups of people is needed and may organically grow out of another group. In the Boston area, there have been groups for bi+ women of color, bi+ people of color, bi+ men, and for bi+ women partnered with men, providing more focused support for people with particular experiences. It may seem obvious, but I’m going to say it: initiators and organizers of a subgroup need to be members of that targeted audience. As a white woman, I want to help provide resources and support for a BIPOC group, but I would not organize or influence the group.
This is not a comprehensive guide, by any means, of how to build bi+ community in your own area, but I hope it gives you a few ideas of things to think about as you attempt to do so. Community building takes time and takes patience. Be on the lookout for other people who gravitate towards organizing; it’s much better to do this as a team, not as a soloist. It can be so worth it though, when you know you’ve been a part of other people’s journeys and helped to build safe spaces in which to come out and to thrive.
Ellyn Ruthstrom lives near Boston, Massachusetts in the U.S. She is working her DEI job and protesting against the fascist dictator whenever she can.