Bisexual+ Awareness Week runs from September 16th to the 23rd each year, ending on Bi Visibility Day, first celebrated in 1999 and founded by activists Wendy Curry, Michael Page, and Gigi Raven Wilbur. The week itself was founded in 2014 by BinetUSA and GLAAD. The use of the plus sign in bi+ is a way to signify inclusivity, encompassing a wider range of sexualities that are attracted to multiple genders.
In the first study of its kind to offer trans respondents a full range of orientation options, bisexuality was the most frequently chosen identity in the trans population at 18.9%, just ahead of queer at 18.1% and straight at 17.6%. The same study found that 64% of trans respondents reported attraction to three or more genders. Among non-trans respondents, that figure was 5.9%.
Bi+ people are also the largest group in the LGBTQIA+ population. Gallup puts bisexual adults at 57.3% of all LGBTQIA+ adults, a larger percentage than gay, lesbian, and transgender identification combined.
Being the majority doesn’t translate into receiving more resources, however. In 2024, U.S. foundations awarded $178.2 million to LGBTQIA+ communities, but grants specifically geared towards resourcing bi+ communities made up less than 3% of that total. This trend is consistent with the year prior.
The lack of meaningful funding for bi+ people is only one way that bi+ communities have been historically overlooked.In GLAAD’s most recent “Where We Are on TV Report,” only 20% of the 489 LGBTQIA+ characters represented in media were bi+—a sharp contrast to the real-world demographics. Bi+ people also experience worse physical, sexual, social, and mental health outcomes compared to their gay, lesbian, and heterosexual peers—often as a result of erasure in healthcare settings.
Bisexual History
1970: Brenda Howard, often called the bi+ “Mother of Pride,” organized the first first Christopher Street Liberation Day March to mark the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
1990: The Bay Area Bisexual Network published the Bisexual Manifesto in its magazine Anything That Moves. The manifesto states: “Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or duogamous in nature: that we have ‘two’ sides or that we must be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don’t assume that there are only two genders.” For decades, bi+ writers and activists have rejected a binary way of thinking and instead adopted a multi-gender, poly-identity perspective.
1993: Lani Ka’ahumanu ran a twelve-city campaign to get bi+ people named in the March on Washington. She won, though organizers made her shorten “bisexual” to “bi.” She was the only out bisexual speaker out of eighteen people on the main stage, was scheduled to speak last, and was told minutes before that she had to cut her remarks from five minutes to two. She opened with a line bi+ people still repeat today: “It ain’t over til the bisexual speaks.” Then she used her two minutes to argue that recognizing bisexual and transgender people challenged assumptions that the gay liberation movement had not yet examined at large, and that bisexual, lesbian, transgender, and gay people were in it together.
People to know
Lani Ka’ahumanu (1943 –): Bay Area organizer, writer, and health advocate, born 1943. Co-editor of the 1991 anthology Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out. Has been building bi+ movement infrastructure since 1980, and has consistently named trans people as part of the fight.
Brenda Howard (1946–2005). Often called “Mother of Pride.” Organized the first Christopher Street Liberation Day march and spent decades on bi+ inclusion campaigns, including the fight to get bi+ people named in The 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation.
Robyn Ochs (1958 –). Editor of Bi Women Quarterly and the anthology Getting Bi. Has said plainly that there is no single bisexual experience, and that trans, nonbinary, BIPOC, and disabled writers belong in every issue.
ABilly S. Jones-Hennin (1942 – 2024): Black bisexual organizer and a lead logistics coordinator of the 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. A reminder that Black bi+ organizers built the modern march tradition.
Wendy Curry, Michael Page, and Gigi Raven Wilbur. Founded “Celebrate Bisexuality Day” in 1999. Page designed the bisexual pride flag in 1998.
Organizations to support
Bisexual Resource Center — Founded in Boston in 1985. The oldest national bi+ organization still operating. Runs Bi+ Health Awareness Month every March and publishes a resource page on trans people in the bi+ community.
Bi Women Quarterly — In continuous publication since 1983, the oldest bisexual+ women’s publication in the world. Edited by Robyn Ochs. Began as the newsletter of the Boston Bisexual Women’s Network and now runs independently, with an explicit commitment to trans and nonbinary contributors.
Still Bisexual — Video storytelling campaign and training organization. Its story archive is sorted by experience, including transgender, genderqueer and nonbinary, and bi+ elders.
Bisexual Organizing Project — Volunteer-run, Minnesota-based org, founded in1999. Hosts BECAUSE, a bi+ conference running since 1992. Listed in the OutFront Minnesota resource directory.
Bay Area Bi+ & Pan Network — The direct successor to the network that published the Bisexual Manifesto in 1990. Still organizing, still marching.
American Institute of Bisexuality — Funds and distributes bi+ research and education, including the Journal of Bisexuality.