Focus Is On ‘B’ in LGBTQ

Bisexual Awareness Week, also known as #BiWeek, is an annual celebration co-founded by GLAAD and BiNet USA to promote cultural acceptance of the bisexual community as well as create a platform for advocating bisexual rights. Bisexuals represent approximately 40% of the LGBTQ community, according to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey.

On Friday, Sept. 18, #StillBisexual celebrates bi+ representation and bi+ artists in film in a series of three virtual events,  from noon to 7 p.m. (PT). The cost to watch the entire program is $5. Tickets can be purchased at Eventbrite.

Ashlei Shyne

The series kicks off at noon with “Elevating Bi+ Voices and Stories through Media,” a panel featuring Bi+ & Queer filmmakers Michelle Sam, Giovannie Espiritu, Florencia Manovil, Mara De La Rosa, and Stacy Jill Calvert.

At 2:30 “Celebrating Black Voices” will screen two bisexual web series: “#TMI,” a web series created by and starring Ashlei Shyne, and “Bi: The Web Series,” created by and starring David J. Cork. Both creators will have a conversation with one another after screening their work.

“I find it difficult to see myself in film festivals, on TV, in film,” said Shine, an actress-producer and #StillBisexual board member. “Usually the stories that are chosen for these festivals are ones where we are either coming out as bisexual or having a threesome. They are not our whole entire story.

“I wanted to get a group of bi, fluid, pan, and queer filmmakers together and really talk about reclaiming our story and really shaping the smeared images that I feel like mass media have created about the experience of being bi and pan, especially during bi visibility week and bi visibility month,” she said.

The day concludes with the 4:30 p.m. screening of “Disarm Hate,” a feature documentary film by Julianna Brudek.

Narrated by actor Harvey Fierstein and directed by Brudek, the film chronicles nine diverse LGBTQ+ activists who come together after the Pulse nightclub massacre to join Jason P. Hayes, a hairdresser, and an activist from New Jersey who is on a crusade.

Without political experience, Hayes builds a national rally to demand LGBTQ+ equal rights, fight the NRA, and challenge America’s obsession with gun violence. The film seeks to create awareness about gun violence against the LGBTQ+ community, with the 2016 Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando that took 49 lives as the impetus.

A Q&A will follow the screening, featuring a panel that includes Brudek, Asher Glynn and Alexis Sanchez, and moderated by Jackie Steele.

#BiWeek 2020 runs from Sept. 16 through Sept. 23, culminating with Celebrate Bisexuality Day, held annually on Sept. 23. Bisexual Awareness Week is also a platform to recognize bisexual and LGBTQ advocacy throughout history.

Tickets are $5: Purchase at Eventbrite.

About #StillBisexual

#StillBisexual is an education and advocacy organization focused on empowering those who are attracted to more than one sex and/or gender. Our media campaigns and education programs raise awareness, promote inclusiveness and foster understanding about the unique challenges faced by bisexuals, pansexual, fluid and queer members of the LGBTQIA+ community.