Pride Month

Bisexuality is community

Callan Forrester – LJI reporter

Of all the letters in the 2SLGBTQIA acronym, one of the more misunderstood is the “B”: bisexual. Bisexuals are often the recipients of large amounts of skepticism, along with a lack of understanding of what a bisexual identity looks like.

Rachel Patenaude is a bisexual person who grew up in Hemmingford. She explains bisexuality as “experiencing attraction to same/similar and different genders to yourself, including all kinds of genders. The ‘bi’ isn’t a count of genders, it’s a count of types of attraction: ‘same’ and ‘different’ … I like the phrase ‘Love is a many-gendered thing.’” 

There’s a misconception that bisexual people only experience attraction to cisgender men and women, leaving trans and non-binary people out of the equation. However, bisexual people have a more expansive definition of who they are attracted to. Patenaude adds that when you take into consideration the identity of each bisexual person and the identity of who they date, “No two bisexual experiences are the same,” and adds that “There isn’t a clear guide of how to date people when your dating history may not look like theirs. You’re not always coming from the same social communities.”

For a long time, the term “bisexual” was used differently from how we use it today. Patenaude explains that historically it was used for what we now call “intersex.” Bisexuals often fell under the gay or lesbian umbrellas. There were moments in history, like the radical feminist movement and the AIDS pandemic, that stigmatized bisexuals for not “picking a side,” and often left them ostracized from their own communities.

There are many other misconceptions that come with being bisexual. The obvious ones are that bisexuals are greedy, cheaters, or experiencing a phase that will pass. But there is also the notion that bi folks are not as involved in the political action of the queer community. 

Patenaude refutes this, sharing that she herself has been an organizer and participant in many political activities for the queer community and beyond. Most recently, she was one of the organizers for the 2024 Montreal Dyke March, where she shared that half the team was bisexual. “We’re just as much a vital part of the heartbeat that is the queer community,” she says.

Bisexuality also creates a unique relationship to gender identity. Though gender identity and sexual orientation are two different experiences, they can often be quite linked. “To be a queer person, even a cisgender one, is inherently gender non-conforming,” she says, explaining that it is a societal expectation that women are cisgender and heterosexual and they date cisgender, heterosexual men, and vice-versa. Being queer breaks those expectations. Patenaude defines her own relationship with gender as “genderqueer” or “woman and other.”

One of the most valuable parts of Patenaude’s journey has been learning queer history, and specifically the history of bisexuals. She notes, “The mother of Pride, Brenda Howard, is a bisexual woman. She put together the first march to commemorate the Christopher Street riots (better known as Stonewall) … We have Pride parades because of her.”

For folks who may be newly questioning their sexuality or new to their bisexuality, Patenaude encourages them to learn queer history. For her, it has helped her feel connected to a community that has spanned across generations, which is a feeling easily missed if you are the only queer person within your family or friend group. “I’m proud to be standing in the legacy of so many incredible people,” she states. She recommends the writings of bisexual activists Brenda Howard, Lani Ka’ahumanu, Robyn Ochs, and Loraine Hutchins as great jumping-off points.

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The reality for over one million queer people

Callan Forrester – LJI reporter

June is Pride Month: a time to celebrate the 2SLGBTQIA+ (Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, plus) community, and to remember the fight it has taken the get to where we are, and how much fighting there is still left to do.

Statistics Canada has released some information about the realities of queer people in Canada. The wage gap between queer folks and straight folks is quite wide. Heterosexual men earn an average yearly salary of $61,400 compared to gay men ($51,400) and bisexual men ($39,400). Lesbian women and heterosexual women had a similar average income ($48,600 and $47,300 respectively); however, bisexual women only made an average of $38,500. This could partly be due to the fact that the average age of a bisexual person in the workplace is younger than that of straight people, gay men, and lesbians.

The queer community is a growing population in Canada. Data from 2019 to 2021 shows that approximately 4.4 per cent of Canadians (1.3 million people) identify as queer. That being said, one in ten youth aged 15 to 24 years (10.5 per cent) identified as queer, making them the demographic with the highest percentage of queer people. About one per cent of people in this same demographic identify as transgender or non-binary.

The Quebec government has also released some information about the mental health of the queer community. It says that queer folks are “at greater risk of having suicidal ideations or attempting suicide because of the isolation, stigmatization, discrimination, homophobia, or transphobia that they may face… Moreover, cases of mood disorders (in particular, depression) or anxiety disorders are more common in the LGBTQ+ population.”

Statistics Canada backs this up by sharing that “Transgender or non-binary people (54.7 per cent) were over five times as likely as cisgender people (9.9 per cent) to consider their mental health to be fair or poor. The likelihood of reporting fair or poor mental health was also higher for bisexual (36.8 per cent) and gay or lesbian (16.9 per cent) people than for heterosexual people (9.1 per cent).”

It should also be noted that folks who live at different intersections of marginalization (race, gender, socio-economic background, etc.) experience these realities at a much higher rate.

With the population of queer Canadians growing each year, it’s important to recognize the reality of how people’s lives are affected based on their sexuality and gender identity.

The reality for over one million queer people Read More »

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