By Amber D. Dodd
I’m a Black bisexual writer. While compiling research for a Bisexual Health Awareness Month feature story, I found some pretty grim shit.
Bisexuals are the largest population within the LGBTQ+ community. Less than 1% of actual funding for queer organizations is bisexual-centered. Depression, domestic violence, and social exile via biphobia are common experiences. We are 58% of America’s queer population, yet the least taken care of.
Personal testimony is data too.
In 2009, my father saw MySpace list my interest in both men and women. He immediately made me change it to just men. In the seventh grade, a classmate announced my bisexuality after overhearing my “what’d you do over the summer” answer to two friends. It created a crowd reaction of disgust. Removing the public display of my affections didn’t mean they didn’t exist. I played house with a girl named Aaliyah in pre-kindergarten. My very first crush’s name was a walnut-brown boy named Niko.
The Western world’s dichotomized ideas on gender and sex interrupt queerness because of its instinct to make us choose heteronormativity, but bisexuality’s added layer of fluidity creates a particular confusion. We were grouped into a collective queer quilt, which made us question what stitched us together if we were never recognized as individual threads?
Living in Washington, D.C. is Black queer paradise. Kickball for the sporty gays. Sweaty dancefloor nights at Thurst, currently the only Black gay bar. A Les Linq festival full of vendors, live performances, and tarot readers. I caught the final D.C. Black Queer Women mixer this summer too. Whatever you want, we got it. But there isn’t an outright bisexual space, let alone a Black bi space.
During Black Pride Weekend, I could not make it through the door without speculation. I had been without any partner for seven years, frolicking in my singleness without wonder of who, or their gender, would be best for me. I am currently with a man. In social spaces, I soon realized bisexuality wasn’t “valid.” And, if you were a bisexual person, you were automatically considered polyamorous. I have fielded more questions about if I’m a sharable asset than how my partner and I got together. With every sexual assumption came less room for personhood, less dancing, more talking over the beat to inquire.
Where were these questionnaires during my seven years of singlehood, when I was dating women? Where was the need to probe my sexual spectrum then? When I was being intimate with women who wouldn’t return favors or go down on me? Did anyone check on me when I lost friends for recognizing their attractions to me and their inevitable ghosting to avoid facing their fluidity?
Instead of sipping on the brewing interrogative jealousy, I knew I had all the tools to pull off a bisexual-focused party during Pride Month. Dance floors have always been a place of refuge, return, and reconnection for our community. I have my own relationship to rhythm, becoming a DJ in 2022 to fortify an internal love for music, its spiritual sauce, and anthropology.
Social survey ensued. Ashlei and I were pre-gay friends; a bond made from sports and native Marylandness. Think of the most motivational, mean rich auntie to your kids. Once we found out we were both bisexuals, shared experiences of misunderstanding tightened our sisterhood.
“Bitch, if you don’t do it yourself,” she bluntly asked, as I shared my desire to create agency and party bisexually, “who the fuck are you waiting on?! You got all the fuckin’ tools. You know how to DJ.”
***
On May 8, 57 minutes after my introductory pitch email, Alaina, owner of the lesbian Black bar Mixxed, got back to me.
“How many people do you think will come?” she asked.
“I’m sure with Pride, and the help of our previous event partners, we will bring in more than 60 folks. I also did a survey of those interested in a Bisexual Pride Party. About 50 people responded yes.” “Great, we would love to build with you and make this a regular thing, possibly once a month.” We set the date for Saturday, June 13.
Alaina’s beige heart-hands emoji instilled a deep sense of gratitude, responsibility, and reality that I’m doing the thing—building the world I craved through a bisexual basement bash.
Mixxed’s Adams Morgan location was pristine for the community. Sinners & Saints, a queer safe haven, primarily for trans folks, foot traffic, and any curious partiers willing to pay at the door, were reliable attractions.
Branding the bisexuals meant using our Pride flag’s colorways. Everywhere. I sketched up animated ambassadors via Canva, picking racially ambiguous, genderedly androgynous, undeniably cunt partiers to sport blaQplight (my own media outlet’s) logo on their shirts. Their hair, lipstick, and shirt colors were flipped in sundried lavender, bright cobalt blue, and hot pink three ways. Perfect given the DJs performing.
I chose three allies; one cis gay man, a trans woman, and a nonbinary Jamaican. All Black. It was important that others in our queer diaspora served bisexuals that night. Much of solidarity is service. Promotional materials included a daily Instagram sharing and TikTok posting. It worked.
I amassed nearly 700 likes on Instagram in 10 days. Bisexuals really did want a place for us, by us. And the momentum toward the event took me by surprise. Even my roommate commented on the TikTok flyer, not knowing it was me. “You coulda just sent me this!!!! I’ll see u there after rehearsal!” Many asked if they could really come because their other friends were lesbians or trans, even white. “Sure,” I answered one DM. “But if you do some anti-Black shit, you will be asked to leave.” Asking did show consideration and respect, but, as some bisexuals have been ostracized in queer spaces, hesitation was an understood trauma response. (I had already been used to Black folks bringing their non-Black partners into strictly Black spaces anyway.)
By June 12, we were at 180 tickets.
I bought 200 bisexual stickers, peppered them throughout the basement bar nook, and allowed Mixxed’s gay decor to do the rest. I couldn’t tell if my nerves were from a funky no-turnout hunch or The Knicks being two quarters away from their first championship this millennium. The people came. Nerves ceased while the Spurs fizzled and blew another 15-point lead.
“Are you the owner of this event, love?!” I turned around hesitantly. It was Clara, a bisexual who hosts D.C.’s Bi Night. She was currently on break. “This is so cool! We should collab one day!”
We made the walls sweat. We danced. We poured body shots. We made friends. We yelled loudly every time I or a DJ asked where the FUCK were the bisexuals at, like a silly adult game of peekaboo. This easily became a night not about success, or making a bar minimum, but unity, being seen without begging. Blending without asking.
I saw the very reason I cultivated the space. I saw freedom. I saw carefreeness. I saw spectrums of bisexuality I never considered but never clashed with my own. I heard bisexual and pan artists of our time as we ground into ourselves to Janelle Monáe’s “Lipstick Lover,” envisioning vibes of Isaiah Rashad’s pool party with Doechii.
Personally, the most fulfilling piece of it all was watching friends from other corners of life attend. Fellow event curators like Phillips, who gave me my first DJ live performance on a whim, came. Ace, a nonbinary singer and gritty community member, worked the door. My best friend Steven came and entertained Ace, but also stood by as security for folks brushing past Ace. I got a chance to playfully press my new friend Jenae about why she didn’t tell me about being a Pulitzer Center Fellow when first introduced.
And I will not lie—who didn’t want to dance after the Knicks won? East Coast love is real. As the crowds swelled into the basement, Alaina came down the steps carefully. She balanced seven tequila shots on a silver saucer. “New York, we back, baby! Who wants one?!” she yelled. Her moment of rejoice coincided with the DJ’s transition into Charli XCX.
Bump the Knicks. Bisexuals were back.
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Citations: Lawther, A., & Lee, A. (2021). (rep.). 2021 RESOURCE TRACKING REPORT LGBTQ Grantmaking by U.S. Foundations (pp. 13–23). Washington, D.C.: Funders for LGBTQ Issues.
Amber D. Dodd (she/her) is a Marylander who lives in Washington D.C.’s H Street Corridor in the U.S. She is a nonfiction writer, editor, and journalist whose works contextualize Black America. Amber currently serves as the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Producer and Content Manager. She enjoys cilantro, SEC football, and telling sonic stories as DJ Ekletik.
