Pride March biphobia ‘not acceptable’

Pride March biphobia ‘not acceptable’

Members of Melbourne’s bisexual community have spoken out about biphobic abuse allegedly hurled at them during this year’s Pride March in St Kilda.

Bisexual Alliance Victoria (BAV) president James Dominguez — who’s marched in Pride March four times — said he was disappointed to hear the reports, but said negative comments towards bisexual marchers is common.

“It’s happened every year that I’ve marched since 2005,” Dominguez told the Star Observer.
“The things we hear every year are ‘make up your mind’, ‘you’re greedy’, ‘finish coming out’, ‘bisexuals don’t exist’, ‘get off the fence’ — negative things like that.

“We really want to let people know it’s unacceptable.”

Dominguez said he finds the negative comments, at a gathering celebrating sexual diversity, surprising.
“At a pride event where people are supposed to be embracing their sexuality and celebrating diversity, we’re being told we don’t exist, we don’t have a valid sexual orientation, we’re not real, and we’re lying to ourselves and lying to everyone by being there, which is a really upsetting attitude to have at an event like that.”

Dominguez said he wasn’t aware of the biphobic comments until a BAV member spoke about them weeks after the event.

“This time around I didn’t actually hear the comments. It just came to a head because one of our members became very upset by it.

“I didn’t find out how upset she was until we had a discussion group and one of the topics that came up was how upset she was by the things that had been said by the crowd.

“I thought, this has gone on long enough, we need to do something about this now.”

Dominguez stressed the BAV marching group received an overwhelmingly positive reaction during this year’s event, apart from the negative comments coming from a minority of Pride-watchers.

Pride March Victoria president Brett Hayhoe told the Star Observer the organisation would work with BAV to help raise awareness of biphobia, but said negative comments made along the march route are difficult to stop.

“We can’t held responsible for what individuals are going to say or do along Fitzroy St,” Hayhoe said.

“However, the organisation will certainly do whatever is in our power to highlight the plight of the bisexual community, a very strong, solid and legitimate member of the LGBTI community.”


You May Also Like

4 responses to “Pride March biphobia ‘not acceptable’”

  1. Yes Biphobia is here in Chicago as well. I do have some great gay friends but I am shocked when I encounter biphobia. I mainly hang out in with straight men and bi women who support me. Really I want bisexuals to get involved in changing it. I want the closet bisexuals to join me and say to people who you are. I want bisexuals to create community. Because really although there are certainly shared bi gay concerns there are definately areas that don’t cross. For example try getting advise from a gay man on what to do when you are having problems with your girlfriend, or how do you negotiate monogomy or open safe relationships or poly. How do you not erase yourself in same sex or opposite sex relationships? Etc. These are important concerns and bi support and community is needed. Last how is it I didn’t exist til science told me I did?

  2. Time. Time will end all this. Homosexuality, as a concept, is a pendulum-swing by society to try to deal with the fact that everyone is bisexual. Eventually, hetero and homo will cease to exist.

  3. In a gender and sexually bi-polar world, those that stand in the middle of the road are hit by traffic coming from both directions. And not only that, there are gays who hate lesbians and vice-versa. Take the event at Pride when the drag queens were finished and on came the drag kings – one drunk gay guy screamed in my face “it’s always the lesbians that ruin everything!”

    What we need are some nice traffic islands, made from education and the very tolerance the rest of the community expects from the greater heterosexual community. It is patently hypocritical for the gay and lesbian community to expect tolerance from hetrosexual people when it is not capable of extending that very same tolerance to everyone else.

    But, like the heterosexual community, it is often a small minority of bigots that spoil it for the rest of us. I’ve got gay and lesbian friends, trans and genderqueer friends who take me as I am, and I take them as they are. The way we do it is without judgement.

    Until we get that, there will continue to be small minded fools who yell and scream profanities at others.

    We can do better.

  4. How very ironic in a celebration of sexual diversity, people are singled out for their sexual preference.

    Whether or not you beleive bi-sexual exists, its not the time or the place to raise it at a pride march. Shame on those people.