Rev. Francesca Fortunato: “You’re Not Alone”
Rev. Francesca Fortunato is an Interfaith Minister, dance instructor, actress, and activist for LGBTQs, especially the bi community. She is married to Lynn, who is also a minister. They live in Brooklyn, where they are supervised by their cats, Alice and Gracie.
“You should not tolerate intolerance. Any sort of bigotry was the biggest sin.”
Those were the main values that Rev. Francesca Fortunato was taught growing up. Her parents, both quite liberal and non-religious, had many friends who were gay or bisexual. “I knew from the age of 10 or 11 that I was bisexual,” she says. Coming out as bi to her immediate family was not hard. Finding acceptance in the LGBTQ community has been harder.
Married to a straight man for 13 years, she chose not to engage in bi activism out of respect for her husband. He knew she was bisexual, but because she is also “serially monogamous,” it was not an issue in the marriage. Her close friends knew, because she felt it was important for people to know who she was. “I’m not polyamorous,” she says. In relationships with either sex, she’s strictly monogamous. During that marriage, she felt uncomfortable not being more openly bi. “It always sort of nagged at me. I always wanted to be involved in that way, and I couldn’t allow myself to be.” Since then, she’s been very forthright in telling people she’s bisexual.
Now an Interfaith minister, Fortunato says that gaining self-acceptance is one of the greatest challenges bisexuals face. The outright hostility of some in the LGBTQ community distresses her. “There’s resentment,” she says. “It’s the perception that bisexuals have a choice—that they can get ‘straight’ privileges; that they’re taking the easy way out.” She says that an adversarial relationship springs from the idea that bisexuals just won’t commit. It’s as if there’s a battle being fought and bisexuals are not taking sides. Ironically, though many LGBTQs believe they were born that way, they have a hard time accepting that people can also be born bisexual.
Any bisexual knows it is not easy to live openly as bisexual. The ignorance, judgment and jokes are just the beginning.
So what is it like to walk in the shoes of someone who is bisexual, African-American, polyamorous, atheist, a nude model and a cancer survivor? What does it mean to navigate those identities – separately or as a whole – in a world that often reveals its ignorance and judgment about sex, sexuality, race, gender and bodies?
Meet Portland Oregon's own Gloria Jackson-Nefertiti.
Click HERE to read the full article
Anil Vora reviews from the perspective of a queer person of color. It helps him cut through a lot of bulls**t that movies try to spoon feed their audience. He has reviewed movies for GayRadio.com and written a blog. He is also an actor, playwright, and a lifelong fan and expert on Bollywood films.
Source: bimagazine.org
binewsandviews reblogged
Happy Holidays from all of us at Bi Magazine
Source: bimagazine
For many in society at-large, and the LGBT+ community as well, the idea of the male bisexual remains a myth ... One of the best ways to counter this and help dispel these ideas is through personal storytelling ... once you know that you know a bisexual man, it becomes much harder to deny the existence of bisexual men, making Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men-An Anthology, edited by Robyn Ochs and H. Sharif Williams (Dr Herukhuti), all the more important ...
All told, over 60 writers and artists are given a stage in this collection, and that stage is beautifully diverse. The nationalities, ethnicities, religions, gender identities and experiences given voice here are as varied as each author – furthering the truth that everyone’s bisexuality is unique to the individual...
I found myself highlighting aspects of nearly every story, essay, poem, song or combination thereof included in this anthology, either recognizing similar stories to my own or friends’ lives; calls to action for the bisexual community and greater society; and times when I empathized with the author’s experience, even if it was one I’ve never had or never could have based on my own worldly perspective...
I will never be a black man, or a trans* man, or a cis man; I will never know what it feels like to be a religious man, a holy book’s messages seeming to counter my very soul; I will never live in Australia, Chile, India or Spain as a bisexual man; I will never know what it means to be a bisexual man in the 1980s amidst the AIDS scare at its height. But I do know what it means to be a bisexual person, and with that similarity alone, I connected with every single voice in this anthology...
Please CLICK Here to read the full review by AJ Walkley in Bi Magazine
A.J. Walkley is a bisexual activist, blogger and the author of "Queer Greer", "Choice" and "Vuto", inspired by her experience as a US Peace Corps Health Volunteer in Malawi East Africa. Walkley currently resides in Arizona, USA
Source: bimagazine.org
This year has been an especially brutal year for transgender people internationally. The stories of the gruesome murders and violence seem to be some of the worst that I have ever heard: An 8 year old gender variant child being murdered by parents; a husband cutting up and cooking his transgender wife in a pot; the horrid stories continue to come out.
At every level transgender people are assaulted, attacked, denounced and victimized by hateful individuals. Violence toward transgender people is at an epidemic proportion.
Statistics, alone do not reflect the depth of the tragedies that have occurred this year. The stories about real transgender people are much more than a simple number in a database. They were sisters, brothers, friends, parents, grandchildren and much more...
Did you know? Every 32 hours a transwoman is reported murdered.
As we enter Transgender Awareness 2014 and the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, the Transgender Violence Tracking Portal (TVTP) has been working hard to collect and investigate the data of violence transgender individuals suffer across the world and report out what we are finding.
Overall 270 murders, 77 instances of direct physical violence, 6 suicides, 4 silicone murders and 3 missing persons were reported from November 19, 2013 to November 14, 2014. For many of the victims we have scant details, yet the details we have are horrific. Transgender murders are the most brutal in the world. Most alarming is the murders of children and youth...
The stark reality is our search engines have just begun their long journey through many news and historical archives to locate the violence that has been committed for years against our community and we are discovering many unreported acts of violence and murders.
In the coming months, more statistical analysis will be conducted by the TVTP to provide an even more in-depth report concerning the violence against transgender individuals. We are grateful to each person taking an active role in bringing further awareness to the plights of those who are transgender. Please continue to report and inform us of any victims that you may know of.
Click HERE to read the full article
Allison Woolbert grew up in Silver Bell, Arizona, a remote copper mining community (now a ghost town), where she never quite fit in. She attended Abilene Christian University, where she didn’t fit in either; ended up in the US Air Force, where she definitely did not fit in; and in 2008 was introduced to the Unitarian Universalists (UU), where she finally started to feel like she fit in. She is a two-spirit bisexual-trans*activist, the CEO of Phoenix Consultants Group a national software development firm and the developer of the Transgender Violence Tracking Project.
Source: bimagazine.org
In June of 2014 bisexual and allied health researchers and activists from across the US met to form a new group, the Bisexual Research Collaborative on Health (BiRCH) at a meeting on bisexual health research chaired by the Fenway Institute in Boston MA USA to promote discussions of bisexual health research and combat bisexual erasure. The new organization’s plans include finding methods to raise public awareness of bisexual people's health issues and planning a national conference on the topic.
I am a member of America’s contingent faculty—a scholar-activist committed to social justice and ecological wellbeing. Seven years ago, two years after obtaining my doctorate, I was sleeping on my mother’s couch. I have not had health insurance for the last nine years and am still awaiting approval from my state’s health exchange for ACA assistance. I have had asthma since 2003. I earn too much to receive social service subsidies and too little to keep my head above the rising financial waters without the support of family and friends. I live among other poor and working class people of color, many of whom are living with mental and/or physical illnesses, substance addictions, and the results of the structural violence of social inequality. I am also a black bisexual man. So when I received the invitation to Boston for a meeting at the large and impressive Fenway Institute—a research division of Fenway Health, an organization committed to “enhance the wellbeing of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and all people in our neighborhoods and beyond through access to the highest quality health care, education, research and advocacy” with total net assets for 2013 of nearly $44 million according to its latest annual report—to form a bisexual health research agenda, I considered it a big deal ... The one-day meeting, which was a who’s who of bisexual research, LGBT public health research, and LGBT practitioners, included a few bisexual activists and junior scholars. I lost count at the number of people with Ivy League affiliations, academic journal editorial board memberships, White House experience, or principal investigator experience on large research studies. And I wasn’t diligent about counting from among the approximately twenty-five (25) bisexual, gay/lesbian and heterosexual attendees the numbers of bisexual men or people of color but there were a few of both. The need for community-driven bisexual health research is too high for imperialist, competitive politics ... This has been painfully evident in LGBT movement politics. Many middle class and wealthy gays and lesbians of European descent have pursued LGBT issues directly related to their self-interest and in ways most advantageous for them—leaving to their own devices the queer others of the sex and gender justice movement e.g., poor and working class people, people of color, bisexuals, transgender people, sex workers, the incarcerated, etc. The mainstream pays lip service to people like me—my neighbors, friends, and family. When asked about her experience of the meeting, Kerith Conron, ScD, MPH, Research Scientist, Center for Population Research in LGBT Health, The Fenway Institute declared, “Our meeting was a unique opportunity to integrate three key aspects of my life: social justice, community, and sound science.” How the group continues to integrate those three elements will tell us everything we need to know about who wins, loses, or "runs a Boston".
Click HERE to read Dr. Herukhuti's full article on Bisexual Research Collaborative on Health (BiRCH)
In addition to now being a founding member of BiRCH, Dr. Herukhuti is a clinical sociologist, cultural studies scholar, performance artist, and neotraditional African shaman who focuses on sexuality, gender, and spirituality themes within Africa and the Diaspora. an adjunct Professor at Goddard College, he recently organized the successful Bisexual Institute at the 2014 Creating Change Conference. He is the author of "Conjuring Black Funk: Notes on Culture, Sexuality, and Spirituality"; co-editor of "Sexuality, Religion and the Sacred: Bisexual, Panexual and Polysexual Perspectives" with Dr Loraine Hutchins; and is co-editor of "Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men" with Robyn Ochs.
Source: bimagazine.org
binewsandviews reblogged
Bisexual by Birth ▼ Out and Active by Choice Live Openly • Coming Out Day • October 11th
Source: bisexualindex.org.uk
Imagine a congregant who is commited to a straight, traditional marriage, coming to you, the pastor, distressed by finding homoerotic websites on a spouse’s computer. Or what would you think, or do, if a teenager in the youth group where you are an advisor, comes out, one evening, as bisexual?
The new study guide, “Bisexuality: Making the Invisible Visible in Faith Communities,” begins by asking us to imagine situations like these that are becoming more common . . . This goal is based upon the fact that most people—many of them religious--know nothing about bisexuality or the experience of bisexual people. That was certainly true for me. I was confused about my identity as bisexual for a very long time.
When I was growing up everyone I knew—including in the church--talked only of “heterosexual and homosexual.” When I was a young adult we began to use “lesbian, gay and straight.” I was invisible to myself and to the world around me, including the church home where I grew up.
There was nothing in our vocabulary to help me articulate questions and fears raised when I felt drawn, as the guide says in its definition, “toward people of more than one sex or gender.” It was the emergence in the early 1990’s of “LGBT” as a commonly heard word for people different from the straight, male/female norm that finally helped me click: I am the “B” in LGBT.
With that click came immediate clarity and peace. Finally, long doubt and fear dispelled like mist. My body and soul came into harmony because I knew myself fully for the first time. This freed immense energy in me to love myself and, therefore, to love others in ways I had never experienced before. This is how important making visible that which has been invisible can be for bisexual people and for all of us ...
The guide testifies to the crying need for both true understanding of bisexuality, and practical welcome to bisexual people in our own congregations and neighborhoods. It will help congregations of many traditions create communities where bisexual people will feel embraced as God’s beloved children, just as we are./p>
It does this through three sections. First it provides basic education on the myths and facts about bisexual experience. Then, there is an introductory exploration of sacred texts, religious traditions and denominational policies related to bisexuality. Finally, the writers offer practical strategies for action that will equip a congregation to become partners with bisexuals as we seek justice in the world. They begin in the congregation, itself, with suggestions for bi-friendly worship, pastoral care and youth ministry, and then branch out to possible community action to improve the lives of bisexual people.
Click HERE to read the full article by the Reverand Edwards
Resources For Bisexual/Non-Monosexual, Queer + Questioning People of Faith (any faith):
- Bisexual People of Faith on Facebook - A community for bisexual people from all faith, religious, spiritual, spirit and wisdom traditions
- Blessed Bi Spirit edited by Rabbi Debra Kolodny - a collection of 32 articles, poems, prayers, and stories from bisexual men and women on a wide variety of spiritual paths
- Bisexuality: Making the Invisible the Visible in Faith Communities - a guidebook to aid congregation’s to welcome and minister to bisexual people and their families
Source: bimagazine.org
binewsandviews reblogged
Californian parent Mike Szymanski, co-author of The Bisexual’s Guide to the Universe has for many years had to deal with many questions about his sexuality. In a society that likes to see things in a clear-cut, binary, black and white way, bisexuality can often confuse people, or even prompt suspicion. 'I always knew that I was interested in boys and girls… And I didn’t really know what bisexuality meant or used the word because I came out as gay first and I told my parents and it was a big deal.’ And then I was sleeping around with a woman and they thought that it was strange. I was living in West Hollywood and we would go to gay clubs but I was with a woman. And then I thought, “Well, okay, maybe I’m bisexual”.’ For example, after his parents adjusted to the fact that a young Mike was attracted to men, they then had to understand why he also wanted to date some women. ‘Well if you’re bisexual why would you choose the wrong way?’ his dad asked him once … ‘It’s often a frequent conversation with the family at Thanksgiving dinner, they don’t understand it. “So you’re still bisexual?” “Yeah, we’re still bisexual.”’ Szymanski went on to become a spokesperson for bisexuality, appearing on talk shows and being interviewed for newspaper articles. It was through such an article that he met his partner, American Institute of Bisexuality’s John Sylla, who read about him and got in touch …
‘We have a child … we’re pretty much a nuclear family. And we’re boring… we go to the PTA meetings and concerts. But we’re together and we both identify as bisexuals and that throws a lot of people off’… Szymanski has now recorded an illuminating video in which he discusses being bisexual, dating women, how he met his long-term male partner, and how they’re raising a child.
Source: youtube.com
binewsandviews reblogged
This week, President Obama signed an Executive Order that prohibits federal contractors from discriminating against their employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
On Friday, join a conversation on the new Executive Order and steps the President has taken to expand opportunity for the LGBT community. Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President, will host for a Tumblr Q&A this Friday, July 25 at 1pm ET.
Right now, you can ask your questions here on the White House Tumblr, and Valerie Jarrett will answer a bunch on Friday, July 25 at 1pm ET.
This is the third article in our coverage of LGBT issues in India with a particular focus on bisexuality. Bi Magazine launched this series in January 2014 with the article "India’s Stonewall". The second article is "Bisexuality, Section 377, and India's LGBT Movement" includes an interview with Bi Activist Dr. Ramki Ramakrishnan.
Delhi social worker and community health expert Rajiv Dua’s attraction to men and women dates back to his teen years. Dua grew up in Delhi at a time when 1 in 20 households had a telephone, people communicated across towns via postcards, and there were no video recording devices. It was a time when Indians knew that one could be attracted to men and women and they were permissive as long as personal matters were kept between consenting adults... When Dua looks back on his personal journey he wonders whether things are better now. “I think there is a small regression, in fact,” he says. He grew up in a culture that may not have understood the complexity of sexual orientation but at least refused to condemn dual attraction outright. “The discourse has become more stringent,” Dua says. “Now we have very strong gay groups, very strong trans groups but, somehow, bi visibility has not taken root at all”... Dua thinks this regression is due to
- lack of understanding, and acceptance, that desire can be many hued and fluid, and
- failure to disengage same-sex behavior from disease transmission
Dua went silent for a while but not for long . . . [he] has decided to be true to himself, keep coming out, and continue to explain bisexuality to those who don’t get it.
Click HERE to read the article including the full interview with Rajiv Dua
Anil Vora is a principal partner at Indian Tiger Films, a film production company spotlighting films about LGBTQ people of color. A self-confessed geek, VORAcious in his consumption of books and films, Anil is also an actor and playwright, and teaches private classes on the history, symbolism, and appreciation of Bollywood films.
Source: bimagazine.org
With this article we continue our coverage of LGBT issues in India with a particular focus on bisexuality. Bi Magazine launched this series in January 2014 with the article "India’s Stonewall".
In the aftermath of Indian Supreme Court’s decision on Section 377, activists have implemented two major game plans: aggressive legal challenges and campaigns to change public perception and attitudes toward different forms of gender and sexual expression . . . Across India a devastating sense of disappointment in the Supreme Court verdict is being channeled into social change efforts with renewed vigor. Sensitization events are being organized to dispel stereotypes and demystify LGBT identities and sexualities. Section 377 pinpoints anal and oral sex as “unnatural” acts. Few people acknowledge that heterosexually identified couples would also be impacted by this narrow categorization. And even fewer know the distinction between “unnatural” acts and lesbian, gay, or bisexual orientation. Bisexuals have a tough road ahead of them as they continue to fight misconceptions within the lesbian and gay communities and in the larger mainstream. . . . “Bisexual behavior is so prevalent and so widespread in India that a lot of people think of it as something any person will engage in given an opportunity,” says bisexual activist Dr. L. Ramki Ramakrishnan. “We live in a gender segregated society so there are a lot of opportunities for same-sex encounters.” Equally widespread is a misunderstanding that these encounters are non-consensual or coercive, an impression the general public has gathered from reports or personal experiences of non-consensual sexual advances from men in seminaries, hostels, the army or even while traveling in public transport. The huge pressure to marry and perpetuate the family line affects everyone regardless of sexual orientation. Gay men forced to marry often call themselves bi while seeking extra-marital same-sex encounters, further fuelling the stigma against those claiming the bi label for themselves. Ramakrishnan has also noticed another trend that he finds troublesome. “There is this notion that biphobia is really homophobia, and that the discrimination and prejudice faced by people who are bisexual is solely because of their “gay” side. These are people who partition bisexual orientation into a gay orientation and a straight orientation. They imply that if there were no homophobia then there would be no biphobia. This is simply not true because the prejudice encountered by bisexuality is not just from the straight communities but within the queer ones.”
Click HERE to read the article including the full interview with Dr. Ramki Ramakrishnan.
Anil Vora is a principal partner at Indian Tiger Films, a film production company spotlighting films about LGBTQ people of color. A self-confessed geek, VORAcious in his consumption of books and films, Anil is also an actor and playwright, and teaches private classes on the history, symbolism, and appreciation of Bollywood films.
Source: bimagazine.org
Finalists of the 26th Annual Lambda Literary Awards: Bisexual Nonfiction
Looking for the very best in contemporary Bisexual Thought & Bisexual Culture? Look no further than the Eight Finalists in the Bisexual Categories of the Lambda Literary Foundation Awards.
Now in their Twenty-Sixth Year, the Lambda Literary Awards honor achievement in LGBTQ writing for books published in 2013. This year our community has a wonderful selection, with Five Books in the Bisexual Fiction Category and Three Books in the Bisexual Nonfiction Category.
Every one of them a winner and all well worth your time and attention!
Finalists of the 26th Annual Lambda Literary Awards in the category Bisexual Nonfiction are:
- The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television, Maria San Filippo, Indiana University Press
- Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution, Shiri Eisner, Seal Press
- The Soundtrack of My Life, Clive Davis, Simon & Schuster
Click HERE to read the full article
Source: bimagazine.org
Finalists of the 26th Annual Lambda Literary Awards: Bisexual Fiction
Looking for the very best in contemporary Bisexual Thought & Bisexual Culture? Look no further than the Eight Finalists in the Bisexual Categories of the Lambda Literary Foundation Awards.
Now in their Twenty-Sixth Year, the Lambda Literary Awards honor achievement in LGBTQ writing for books published in 2013. This year our community has a wonderful selection, with Five Books in the Bisexual Fiction Category and Three Books in the Bisexual Nonfiction Category.
Every one of them a winner and all well worth your time and attention!
Finalists of the 26th Annual Lambda Literary Awards in the category Bisexual Fiction are:
- Corona, Bushra Rehman, Sibling Rivalry Press
- Hild:A Novel, Nicola Griffith, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- In His Secret Life, Mel Bossa, Bold Strokes Books
- My Education, Susan Choi,Penguin Group/Viking
- The Two Hotel Francforts: A Novel, David Leavitt, Bloomsbury
Click HERE to read the full article
Source: bimagazine.org
HBO’s new series Looking, set in San Francisco, centers around the life of four gay friends: Patrick, a video game designer; his best friend Agustin, a struggling artist, and Agustin's boyfriend, Frank, a musician; and Dom, a waiter with dreams of opening his own restaurant ...
Noticeably, the show features multiracial characters and in just eight short episodes has already touched on ageism and classism with unapologetic frankness ... What Looking is definitely not about is the L, B and T of our community ... Among all the men running around on this show there is not a single bisexual man.
It begs the question, “What do queer themed television shows have against bisexual characters?” From Grey's Anatomy to House and The Good Wife, some mainstream shows have accommodated bisexual storylines. So, why the absence of a bisexual character from a queer show based in San Francisco?
Is there only the hegemony of gay men and their infinitesimally narcissistic issues now glorified in Looking?
Click HERE to read Anil's full review of HBO's new 2014 TV Series "Looking"
Anil Vora is a principal partner at Indian Tiger Films, a film production company spotlighting films about LGBTQ people of color. A self-confessed geek, VORAcious in his consumption of books and films, Anil is also an actor and playwright, and teaches private classes on the history, symbolism, and appreciation of Bollywood films.
Source: bimagazine.org
Say popular bisexual author and columnist Mike Szymanski,
For much of the past two decades, my boyfriend John Sylla has taken a backseat to me in the "bisexual activism" world. He's tagged along with me to bisexual conferences, he's suffered through long and boring activist meetings, he was forced to edit The Bisexual's Guide to the Universe a book I co-wrote with my bi-friend and fellow writer Nicole Kristal. Today that has all changed, and I couldn't be more proud. John Sylla, and the great work he has done with the American Institute of Bisexuality, is being featured in The New York Times Magazine of the weekend of March 23, 2014 and it is a big deal. Not since the Newsweek cover declared: “Bisexuality. Not Gay. Not Straight. A New Sexual Identity Emerges,” has there been such a positive portrayal of bisexuality in the mainstream media. And that was July 17, 1995. It took nearly two decades to get another story like this done! It's a partially first-person story by the handsome journalist Benoit Denizet-Lewis and it details the dinner in West Hollywood that we had with him, and some of the things we discussed over lots of wine . . . Yes, it's surrounded in the story with people I knew before I ever met John. Regina Reinhardt, the therapist from San Diego, is pictured, so is Gary North. Robyn Ochs ... is quoted in the article . . . In fact, the woman who inspired me to write "The House that Bisexuality Built" . . . my longtime friend [Ed Note: an American Institute of Bisexuality + Lambda Literary Board Member + editor of Bi Magazine] Denise Penn, is the reason why John and I met. She coaxed me to write that story that made the cover of the Orange County Blade that she was editing, (and for years I went on her public access TV show) and that is the reason John looked me up. He left yellow tulips on my front doorstep with the note . . .“I would like to get involved in the bisexual movement, and I would like to meet you."
Click HERE to read Mike's full article
Mike Szymanski is a critically acclaimed journalist including two Hearst Awards for investigative reporting & feature writing; a film critic; and popular columnist who writes the widely read Bisexuality Examiner. A bisexual activist since the early 1980s, he first came out as a gay writer but then found himself sneaking around with a girlfriend for a few years. So then he had to come out second time, this time as bisexual. He was previously a media coordinator for BiNet USA, and now teaches journalism at UCLA. He is also an award-winning author of several books with bisexual themes, including co-authoring the Lambda Award Winning "Bisexuals Guide to the Universe".
Source: bimagazine.org