Transcending Boundaries Conference

Warning: You’re going to want to start sending Ellen love notes.

beautifullyundressed:

buphotography:

This was one of my all time favorite pictures I have taken in my few years of doing photography.

The point of this picture and the people with bags over their heads is to represent what society does to genders. First off, people assume gender by body type but in this picture you could have two transgender people, one, both male, both female, or any other combination and we would still be the same… Human.

Now, women are victimized by wearing revealing clothing or not being afraid to show their bodies with pride as well as being comfortable with their sexuality, while a nearly nude male doing the exact same thing won’t be put down for showing off the body they have.

Regaurdless of what you take this message as, I just want everyone to realize that we are all the same kind and we are all unique. People have no right to judge another person by what they wear, or who they choose to be.

(For safety purposes on this picture I had taken a picture of this from my wall) 

© BU Photography 2013

I am actually like crying at the amount of notes on this in a 10 hour period. This is by far my best picture I have taken in a really long time. 

Thank you guys so much

(via imbisexualbutnooneknows)

bialogue-group:

bisexual-community:

Since 1990 BiNet USA has been advocating for the bisexual community. We are the B in LGBT!

Thank you BiNet USA for all your help!

Dear Members Of This Group please donate today so the BiNet USA can help all of us in the future.

Have you heard about Karma? If you expect change you need to be the one who will help change the stereotypes around us. Thank you in advance for all of your contributions!

Ivo SJ Widlak

Join us today on Give OUT Day 2013 and become part of a rich history of advocacy for ALL bisexual, non-monosexual & queer-identified people!

Come on everyone, let’s support OUR Community today (and everyday actually) with our time, energy and donations $$’s. Why give to big gigunda gay inc groups that only come around when it’s time to collect donations (and like seriously they’ve all shown up today with their hands out - where were they the OTHER 364 days?). Bisexual People give to the People who actually have been working hard for you.

fliponymous:

[USA]: Today, Thursday May 9th 2013 is Give Out Day - a national day to mobilize Charitable Giving by individual people on a single day across the country to the LGBT Nonprofit Community. When you consider who to give your hard earned $$’s to, we’d like to strongly encourages you to support a BISEXUAL SPECIFIC ORGANIZATION such as BiNet USA or the BRC on this day of LGBTQ FUNDRAISING.

Here is PatrickRichards Fink better known as the activist, academic and author Eponymous Fliponymous: an Angry Bisexual With A Keyboard explaining why your donation to a Bisexual Community group like BiNet USA is so important today.

Bisexual and other non-monosexual people are the LARGEST PART of the LGBTQ Population, BUT we are the most POORLY FUNDED. We can change that TOGETHER by ALL BISEXUAL/NON-MONOSEXUAL PEOPLE only giving Our Charitable $$’s and Our Volunteer Hours to Groups That Support Us.

Poly problems

(Source: kimchicuddles)

polynotes:

This chart packs a lot of ideas into an accessible format, and I really admire that. It also includes some stuff I hadn’t heard of before, like deuterogamy (a second marriage after death or divorce) and quirky alones (people who generally prefer being single but aren’t necessarily opposed to relationships). I disagree with how some things are placed in the open/closed categories though. For example, non-consensual isn’t a kind of closed relationship, and non-consensual sex can occur in open relationships too. And polyfidelity is a kind of polyamory, and it can include primary and secondary relationships.

poppsecret:

Attraction

caffeinespirit:

New research on polyamory is challenging popular myths.

I really like these addressed myths.  Personally, these are the things most people attack you with.

bialogue-group:

Busting myths around bisexuals in the workplace: From the pitfalls of coming out to prejudice and professional isolation, bisexuals explain the challenges they face at work —

Myth 3: Coming out won’t change anything — Despite the obstacles, Emma says coming out was a liberating experience for her and can lead to greater acceptance for bisexuals in the long run.

Once she had decided she was going to be open to everyone at her work, it wasn’t long before the company’s movers and shakers were confessing their ignorance of a bisexual employee’s needs and asking her for help to make things better.

“Where I work at the moment, I am creating education packages which we can give to network groups around the world, teaching how you can make spaces more accepting for bisexual colleagues,” she says. “I’m explaining to them that it is a valid sexuality, it’s not just a passing phase.”

”However, the more bisexual people who stay in the closet – either as being gay or straight – the harder it will be in the long term.”

But educating employers and colleagues is more than just dropping the word bisexual into conversation every now and again. Milena says that Gable is trying to understand what the specific life events for a bisexual man or woman are, to ensure they can provide the right support.

For example, Milena says: “It might be that if my current partner and I decide to go our separate ways and I start dating a woman, my life suddenly starts looking very different. And if a person in that situation had not been out or they had been perceived as gay because they were in a same-sex relationship, suddenly it really begins to matter in a workplace context.”

“So, we’re beginning to develop materials to train our managers to understand some of those issues. Ultimately, it’s all about having that right to be yourself at work.”

bialogue-group:

Busting myths around bisexuals in the workplace: From the pitfalls of coming out to prejudice and professional isolation, bisexuals explain the challenges they face at work —

Myth 2: Biphobia is a heterosexual problem — It’s not just Emma’s heterosexual colleagues who have raised an eyebrow about her sexuality. Bringing her opposite-sex partner to office LGBT events was frowned upon and she sometimes felt more acceptance with gay-friendly heterosexual colleagues.

One way in which companies are trying to reach out to their LGBT employees is through their diversity networks. But previous Stonewall research found that bisexual men and women often feel excluded from these groups.

Milena Popova is trying to change all that in her company, Proctor and Gamble. Despite the consumer goods company being named one of Stonewall’s top 100 gay-friendly employers this year, Popova claims bisexuality is still new territory and their LGBT network only began focusing on it in the past year. She says historically the company has had a one-size-fits-all approach to LGBT employees, attracting mostly gay men to its network Gable, which Milena leads for the UK and western Europe.

Milena says one of the basics that is very easy for employers to get wrong is to only talk about lesbian and gay employees. “I have been to industry events and LGBT conferences where people persistently talk about lesbian and gay, but never mention bisexuals,” Milena says. “So we’re making a concerted effort to make sure we’re not doing that, that we are specifically calling out bisexual and transgender and are supportive of the full spectrum of LGBT employees.”

bialogue-group:

Busting myths around bisexuals in the workplace: From the pitfalls of coming out to prejudice and professional isolation, bisexuals explain the challenges they face at work —

Myth 1: Coming out is easier if you’re bisexual — Coming out as gay or lesbian at work isn’t always easy. But what if you had to explain your sexuality twice, three times or more to the same colleagues whenever you had a new partner? For accountant Emma Brice that’s the reality of choosing to be openly bisexual in the office.

Emma has been honest about her sexuality since she joined the company, a global financial services firm, and is the bisexual representative for the business’s LGBT network. Despite being currently happy in a same-sex relationship, everyone, from her boss down, knows she is attracted to both men and women. So why is any mention of a man she finds attractive always an eye-opener for her well-informed colleagues?

It’s a normal reaction, Emma explains. “You always need to come out to every person at least twice,” she says. “They forget or your relationship changes and they express shock and surprise that you’re now going out with someone whose gender is different.”

“People think that because you’ve been in a same-sex relationship for a long time, you must now be a lesbian.”

Stonewall’s latest Workplace Equality Index showed that bisexual women are eight times less likely to be open with colleagues than lesbians and seven times less likely to be open with their manager. The figures are even more discouraging for bisexual men, who are 10 times less likely to be open about their sexual orientation with colleagues than gay men and six times less likely to be open with their manager.

For Richard, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, coming out doesn’t feel like an option. As a risk analyst for a major insurance company in the City, he fears that his colleagues will ridicule and ostracise him. At worst, he believes his sexuality could hinder his chances of promotion.

He said: “If I am working with a consultant in the Middle East, a lot of clients there are homophobic. They probably wouldn’t want to work with me if they found out I was gay or bisexual. That could have a big impact on my position in the company.”

bisexual-community:

The Bi-Weekly Show Episode 2: “Bisexuals Deserve Respect!”

Filmmaker, activist and the bisexual community’s own Mouth From the South (South Jersey that is …) Kyle Schickner takes on Dr. Amity Buxton and her biphobic Straight Spouse Network - Round 1!

Telling them and anyone who picks on bisexual people, who tries to tear apart other successful couples and who generally play the blame game foisting their own personal and relationship failures on their bisexual partners that … Until there is no more cheating/infidelity in the straight world, and until there is no more cheating in the gay and lesbian world, SHUT UP!!

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Bisexual Filmmaker & Firebrand Activist Kyle Schickner and EqualityTV present “The Bi Weekly Show”. Tune in every Tuesday for a new Webisode. Subjects covered include Current Hot Topics in the Queer Nation as well as interviews with Bi Folk of Note.

If you have any ideas for guests, topics, or just thoughts about the show please post your comments.

acquaintedwithrask:

this comic defines me

(Source: dont-tell-anybody-anything, via vegawriters)

Houston we have a keynote speaker! The Transcending Boundaries Conference is thrilled to announce the keynote speaker for our 2014 conference will be long time friend of TBC, Wintersong Tashlin!

E. Winter/Wintersong Tashlin is an educator, blogger, shaman, photographer, and activist with over a decade of experience running rituals and teaching classes that range from private one-on-one instruction, to workshops at some of the premier events in the United States. Topics he presents on include alternative sexuality & BDSM, spirituality, magic, queer/LGBT issues, polyamory, and disability management.

He is associate editor for the LGBT blog The Bilerico Project, and an assistant producer/programing coordinator for Dark Odyssey Events. Organizations he has presented for include Transcending Boundaries, Five College Queer Sexuality & Gender Conference, National Tourette Syndrome Association, Dark Odyssey, The Floating World, Free Spirit Alliance, and The Pagan Kingdom of Asphodel.

His ritual work particularly focuses around rites of personal transformation, and he is a founder and council member of Clan Tashlin, a magical and spiritual order built around a unique relationship between people and the energies of the world around us. He has appeared in television documentaries featuring topics such as polyamory, spirituality, and genital integrity in both the United States and Great Britain.

His photography has appeared in Salacious Magazine, on the websites of Crash Pad and Fruit Punch Productions, as well as in a number of both pagan and mainstream books. Winter received a Bachelors of Arts from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA.

bisexual-community:

When I told Jared I’m bisexual, he couldn’t, or at least didn’t, hide his discomfort. “Why do you have to announce it like that, like it’s still relevant?” he asked, his eyes darting around the restaurant as if he were on the lookout for gun-toting bigots or maybe a pack of lesbians (in sensible shoes) poised to drag me off and feed me herbal tea …

But I wasn’t looking to chronicle my romantic escapades. I was clarifying my identity …

Early on, I’d made coming out part of my routine. First date: Reveal introverted bookishness (usually made obvious by my cat-eye glasses and social awkwardness). Second date: Pet heavily. Third date: Announce bisexuality …

Protective friends counseled me not to mention my orientation until later in the wooing process. “Why scare people off?” they would say … They suggested it might be better to let people fall for me before I came clean, so when I did, my love interest would already be too smitten to dump me (the same advice, I imagined, given to registered sex offenders and convicts on parole) …

Is it strange that I call myself bisexual even though he and I have been married for four years and I haven’t so much as held hands with a woman in seven or eight? Is it reasonable for me to claim queerness when I’ve benefited so much from heterosexual privilege: shared health insurance, uncomplicated baby-making, implicit legal guardianship, inarguable life insurance beneficiaries, a federally recognized union?

Strange or not, reasonable or not, it is what I am …

Even when I’m gray and wrinkled and have had my life forcibly downsized and my driver’s license revoked and my wardrobe reduced to velour loungewear, I will still go both ways. And when I’m an octogenarian, I’m sure I’ll find sensible shoes to be an even bigger turn-on than I already do.

Click HERE to read the full wonderful essay