West Hollywood is set to play backdrop to the first ever city-wide Bisexuality Pride to be held in the United States.
Organised by community group , the public event will be held on September 22nd, coinciding with both Bisexual Visibility Day and Bisexual Awareness Month.
"While a small number of cities have issued proclamations recognising Bi Visibility Day, this is an historic celebration as the first full-fledged Bi Pride celebration hosted by any U.S. city,” Ian Lawrence-Tourinho, President of the amBi network, said in an interview with.
He continued: “Ostensibly LGBT events and LGBT organisations fail time and time again to address bi community. Just a few years ago, it was common for amBi to get booed and heckled by gays and lesbians in the crowd as we marched in the LA Pride Parade."
"We still get hostile people coming up to us at the festival every year."
Even though in the United States identifies as bisexual, Lawrence-Tourinho believes that people still feel “threatened by bisexuality” due to the fact it challenges the “clear lines between straight and gay that people find very reassuring.”
John Erickson, who works for the West Hollywood Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board, added: “Communities of color, trans and non-binary people, bisexuals, and lesbians still receive a lot of discrimination in our community at large."
Erickson continued: “After the city formally recognised Celebrate Bisexuality Day last September, it came up as another way to engage the bi community in West Hollywood - outside of the policy work we did internally at the city to draw more attention to the bi related services the city offers as well as has on its website."
“The board took it upon themselves to work out this major event and get it cosponsored by the City Council and then work with all the partners that are currently engaged to make it the success that it will be.”
For Ashlei Shyne from the Human Rights Campaign's Community Engagement Subcommittee, the event represented an opportunity to help bisexual people feel included in the LGBTIQ+ community.
“Since being involved with HRC, I wanted to make it possible for bisexuals, especially bisexual people of colour to feel equality and to feel part of the community and celebrated,” Shyne said.
“I hope this is a first step in coming out of the shadows and feeling prideful of our bisexuality in The City of West Hollywood.”
