Posted on by Ian

The bisexual bench as stereotype in somewhere that should know better?

When doing some searches to check if anyone else called the image of 'a male/female couple on a bench with him holding another man's hand behind her back' the "bisexual bench", it looks like online magazine Queerty made a poor choice almost ten years ago:

A tweet from online GGGGGGLLLBT magazine Queerty uses the bisexual bench stereotype

Is It Time To Start Being Nicer To Bisexuals?

(Tweeted on 20th July 2016. Original still at https://twitter.com/Queerty/status/755751402371223552 at time of writing.)

It did not go well and virtually of the comments are calling them out on the use of the stereotypical image:

A small selection of people calling out Queerty for using the bisexual bench stereotypical image

"Replace 'Bisexuals' with 'Gays' or 'Transgenders' (sic) and see if it's an appropriate headline. Disgusting."

"oh groan on the 3some image.!!"

"wow this is hateful and horrible delete this immediately!!"

"A good starting point is to include bi people's voices & not use stereotypical pics. More tips here"

etc.

Interestingly, the most popular response I've spotted was a quoted retweet posted nine months later:

The most popular quote tweet to the Queerty one

It's time to stop using pictures implying bisexuals are cheaters .

(Tweeted on 21st April 2017, retweeted over fifteen thousand times. Original deleted, but at on archive sites.)

Posted on by Ian

More Health Education Authority memories

In 2018, some academics got eleven people who'd worked in the HIV prevention sector in the UK for a two hour discussion[1]Published as Nicholls and Rosengarten (eds.) (2019). Witness Seminar: HIV Prevention and Health Promotion in the UK. Disentangling European HIV/AIDS Policies: Activism, Citizenship and Health … Continue reading on some of the history.

In this extract, they remember the 'hands' ad. Interestingly, the only ones to get much more space are the 'iceberg' and 'monolith' "Don't die of ignorance' ones.

'Ford' is Ford Hickson, part of Sigma Research, responsible for multiple surveys and research projects on gay and bisexual men.

'Lynne' is Lynne Walsh, talking about her time as half of (also known as 'in charge of') the press office for the Health Education Authority (HEA).

'Dominic' is Dominic McVey, talking about having been an HEA researcher. His line elsewhere about "Much of my work involved developing and evaluating the HEA gay and heterosexual public health interventions" accurately shows how much the HEA cared about bisexuals… Read more

Notes

Notes
↑1Published as Nicholls and Rosengarten (eds.) (2019). Witness Seminar: HIV Prevention and Health Promotion in the UK. Disentangling European HIV/AIDS Policies: Activism, Citizenship and Health (EUROPACH).
Posted on by Ian

The speech about the epic fail of Edinburgh First at BiCon 2013

There have been two BiCons at the University of Edinburgh's Pollock Halls. The first, in 1999 used them for both accommodation and session space. The second, BiCon 2013, had the session space at the John Macintyre Conference Centre.

Both involved dealing with Edinburgh university's 'Edinburgh First' organisation.

In 2013, we fulfilled our end of the contract. They did not.

When that had become clear, this is what was said at the start of one of the plenaries. Unusually for me, it was written down and emailed to myself to read out, otherwise I would have used phrases like "fucking unacceptable" and "don't fucking harm my attendees" a lot. Read more