A couple of months back Anna Paquin announced her bisexuality in a public service announcement for an American gay rights group as one of the first high profile figures to speak publicly about being bisexual. Here’s the ad for org ‘True Colours Fund’:
In a recent interview Paquin spoke about taking part in the ad saying, “I’m not someone who endlessly talks about her personal life for no reason, but obviously, as someone who identifies as bisexual, those are issues I really care about – and frankly, I don’t see why everyone doesn’t care about them.”
I think it’s fantastic and really interesting that a high-profile person has addressed bisexuality in such a matter-of-fact way, because it seems as though being bisexual has a much greater stigma associated with it than being gay. And I’m guessing that has something to do with the absence of outspoken bisexual role models or public figures. Having said that, it also has a lot to do with the attitude of people towards bisexuality. Someone once said to me: “Suz, there’s no such thing as being bisexual. Guys who say they’re bisexual are really gay, and girls who say they’re bisexual are actually straight, just experimenting.” There’s probably a lot of people out there who share the same point of view.
More and more people seem to be coming out as bisexual, but there is inevitably a huge population of closeted bisexuals (PS what’s the terminology: are bisexual people in or out or straddling the closet?). They have to deal with the stigma of being sexually DISorientated – they get slagged off as being a ‘fence sitter’, “choose a side!”, etc; and as a result aren’t necessarily embraced by the gay or the straight community. I only know this because of an awesome episode of The Tyra Banks Show I watched while taking a sick day once.
“The Gay Kingdom”
See! The poor bisexual gets shat on by the rest of the gang. I’m not suggesting that your understanding of swinging both ways is akin to Tyra’s audience and her ridiculous Gay Kingdom, but I still think it provides an example of why we need more Anna Paquins (and David Bowies) in the world – to get a better understanding and greater acceptance of bisexuality in the broader community.
Thoughts?
Via Huffington Post
