Recently added to its page on bicon.org.uk.
Amongst other things, the very lovely designer also made one of the early banners for the London Bisexual Group and the poster for the Second International BiCon.
When last contacted, they didn't want to be credited with their work in this context.
Following their article on bisexuality in Square Peg 14, issue 17 (published some time after June 1987[1]A THT ad elsewhere in it mentions the level of HIV infection as of June 1987.) had something in its news pages on the 5th National Conference on Bisexuality[2]BiCon 5, but this was two years before the first one to be called 'BiCon'. that was to happen in Edinburgh during mid-October.
Note the line welcoming "feminist transsexuals to women-only workshops"!
Alongside assorted art, Square Peg 17 also had one of the most erotic short stories I've ever read, Chrissy by Fi Craig; a look at the bathrooms of six LGBT people; a look at the films of Barbara Hammer and the recently deceased Curt McDowell; some photos of sex involving several women ("In issue 11 we talked about it, in issue 14 we read about it, in this issue we deliver it"); Manchester as England's second city; some photos of sex involving two or more men (probably); a look at pre-Aids gay porn stories; homo-eroticism in Italian cannibal movies; an interview with Roz Kaveney; a look at Aids in the USA; a Prague travelogue, then behind the 'Iron Curtain'. Read more
The last issue of the run, this was first published around September 1991[1]When originally putting these online, Rowan reckoned the date for this one was August or September 1991. The way Bifrost – said to have 'so far produced two editions' – was ultra-reliably … Continue reading as another A5 4 page newsletter, given away free.
Given how much text there was in this one, I can only guess that the type size was smaller to fit it all in the same space – again, I don't think I have a paper copy to check. Read more
Notes
| ↑1 | When originally putting these online, Rowan reckoned the date for this one was August or September 1991. The way Bifrost – said to have 'so far produced two editions' – was ultra-reliably monthly would suggest September as that started coming out in July 1991. But the comment that it was eight months after the publication of Bi Any Other Name which happened in March 1991 would suggest it was later. Or perhaps Kevin made a mistake in that latter comment. I have a memory he'd produced all three copies by the time of BiCon / the '9th National Bisexual Conference' in late September |
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Outright was a free community newspaper in the East Midlands – it started life in February 1990 as 'Outright: Gay Freesheet for the East Midlands', and became '.. For Gays and Lesbians in Central England' by November 1992.
By issue 43 in November 1993, it was '.. For Gays Lesbians and Bisexuals in Central England' and in the same issue carried the following story about the recent BiCon 11 in Nottingham: Read more
With an estimated date of May 1991, the second issue of Bi-Issues was "slightly larger than the first" according to the intro, but was also "an A5, 4 page newsletter, given away free" like the first according to Rowan in 1999.
Perhaps there was more text without increasing the page count; I don't think I have any paper copies to check. Read more
The mention of the Revolting Sexologists from Hell in Bi-Issues #1 got me doing a search for them. Before today, Google knew of one usage, in a Bay Area Reporter[1]Founded in 1971, the BAR is the USA's the oldest continually published LGBT newspaper. The article on the conference was just after two pages of obituaries, almost all as a result of Aids:
article on the first US 'national bisexual conference' in 1990. (And it should have been the 'Radical Revolting Sexologists from Hell'!)
I didn't go to the conference – too poor, amongst other things – but several people from the UK did. I do have a couple of the brochures from it – one as a result of Robyn bringing some to the 1990 BiCon two months later, and one from being married to someone who did go.
That BiCon is probably where I got one of the event's t-shirts from… Read more
Notes
| ↑1 | Founded in 1971, the BAR is the USA's the oldest continually published LGBT newspaper. The article on the conference was just after two pages of obituaries, almost all as a result of Aids:
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After the extended end of Bi-Monthly[1]It had become more and more irregular. The last published issue had a cover date of February/March 1989, but the actual publication date would have been later in 1989. three newsletters started up in 1991: Bi-Issues, Bi-Us, and Bifrost. (Spot the naming convention used by UK bi stuff…)
Bi-Issues was edited by Kevin Saunders. It was, I think, the first of the three to see print: if he was a member of the London Bisexual Group committee when they took the decision not to publish any more issues of Bi-Monthly, he'd have known of its demise before most people.
Published around February 1991, Bi-Issues #1 was an A5 4 page newsletter (i.e. a sheet of A4 folded in half) given away free. I don't think I have any copies of it (or Bi-Us) but it was converted to HTML by Rowan – editor of Bifrost, the most successful and long-running of the three – around 1999:
Every issue contains all the articles originally published in it with the exception of poetry, reprints from other publications .. Listings are not included in order to avoid confusion. Adverts are generally not included, though they may be if they were for an event within the bi community.
Bi-Issues ran for three editions. Kevin died in summer 2019. Read more
Notes
| ↑1 | It had become more and more irregular. The last published issue had a cover date of February/March 1989, but the actual publication date would have been later in 1989. |
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It looks like two lesbian and gay magazines have used the title Square Peg. The later one is American, founded by long-time lesbian activist Jeanne Córdova, and ran from 1992-94.
The original was British, started in 1983 and if it wasn't unique, I've never seen anything else like it. A later subtitle for it was '(the journal for contemporary perverts)' – a queer art and politics and art quarterly magazine. On heavy glossy paper. In a square format.
In one of the few mentions I can find of it, 1980s gay activist Colin Clews says "In effect, it was probably one of the first publications to segment the gay and lesbian market by any measure other than gender" – and that's probably why it was so good. The collective that ran it were mixed gender, at least after the first issues, and the content was far more gender balanced than any other lesbian or gay publication.
The book What is She Like: Lesbian Identities from the 1950s to the 1990s includes it in a list of lesbian publications[1]If you can think of another mixed gender magazine that someone with a very definite lesbian perspective would say that about without any hedging, do say. that disappeared in the 1980s. That last bit's not true – its last issue was in 1991 – but the comment that "It was alternative, upfront, sexual, mixed, arty, offering fiction and plenty of art work. At the time, Square Peg was decidedly innovative, and it led the way for journals with stronger design input, higher production quality and higher prices" is spot on.
The design aesthetic didn't always make it the easiest thing to read, but the actual content was all highly readable.
Anyway, somehow it became known as somewhere that – in comparison to the rest of the lesbian and gay media – Square Peg was bi friendly. Maybe that was because of the mixed gender collective, but it confused them… Read more
Notes
| ↑1 | If you can think of another mixed gender magazine that someone with a very definite lesbian perspective would say that about without any hedging, do say. |
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Originally published in BCN 54: Mar 2002 with additional footnotes added in June 2020.
January [2002] saw the 15th anniversary of the start of the Edinburgh bisexual helpline (RIP). It almost saw the end of the London one.
After over 13 years of letting it use a phone line in his West London flat, Ian Saxton moved to somewhere in Berkshire. The new people were due to move into his old flat the following weekend.
While I am of course incredibly grateful to him for his help over past years – especially when the helpline operated by connecting two phone lines together with an expensive but appallingly unreliable box of tricks that he had to keep kicking – I would also really rather have liked to have had more than two days notice of the move. Oh well.
For almost seven years, we've been operating with a single line. Most times of the week, callers to the helpline get through to an answerphone. Its message tells them to go away… and call back when we're open. At those times, we use a service BT now call 'Smart Divert' — we were one of the first to use it in the UK! — which enables us to divert calls to the helpline's number to (almost) anywhere else in the world, from anywhere in the world.
So volunteers can do shifts anywhere that's convenient and callers don't know the difference. We pay the cost of diverting the call 'from' the flat to wherever the shift is being done plus a quarterly fee for the privilege of letting BT charge twice for one call, but that's less than the previous cost of having two lines. And as the line is only open at evenings and weekends, the diversion call costs are minimal.
Now, with Ian gone, we were in trouble. Especially as I had to remove the helpline's answerphone while he was still there, so for one week callers 'outside hours' only got a ringing tone.
Something had to be done… but what, exactly? Read more
One of the sessions at BiCon 2003 was "Number unobtainable – what next for bisexual phonelines?"
This is an expanded version of that session, now with added bisexual phoneline.. that I forgot about until after first publishing it, ahem.
At that point, there had been five six 'bisexual phonelines' in the UK and none of them were operating any more. Read more