Visibility

OUTSPOKEN

written by Sarah Sundermeyer and edited by Micaela Macagnone

OutSpoken, a queer publication founded in 1998, was created to provide a forum for queer students at the Claremont Colleges, thus increasing their visibility and agency. Our selection of OutSpoken articles focuses on bisexuality.

In the forty three articles published in OutSpoken, only ten explicitly mentioned bisexuality. However, only five of those articles focused on bisexuality. We see this as a clear reflection of the phenomenon of bisexual erasure in queer advocacy.

Erasure is a theme within the aforementioned articles. In “Identity Crisis,” Amy Kaufman PI ’01 explains that, though she likes both “boys and girls,” she has struggled to feel as if she belongs in the queer community, especially when she is dating man. She writes, “I feel like somehow I’m not queer enough” (16). Kaufman explains that she has constant doubt about her identity, and describes being bisexual as being "nowhere" (16). Similarly, in "Deviating," Arjuna Greist PI ‘01 describes that bisexual people are often seen as "fence-sitters" who are "really gay," with sexualities’ so ambiguous that they never be able to find real love (18).

Another theme within the articles is the view of bisexuality as something trendy. Kaufman explains the attitude that "‘it’s cool to be bi’," which leads to some people "pretending" to be queer (16). Kaufman's assertion is reified by an article entitled "Your Lover Has a Story, Too,” where Jeremy Hart Douglass PO ‘99 writes, "I thought bisexuality was soooo cool... The only problem was that I wasn’t into men” (2).

In "A Personal Utopia," Marissa Carlson PO ‘01 envisions a world where everyone is bixsexual, which would lead to attrac- tion being based more on personality than physical appearance (14).