The UK has a thriving bisexual scene, which does not resemble the gay scene very closely.
The UK gay scene grew out of the illegality of homosexuality - people had to meet up and cruise in secret for fear of repercussions and stigma. As illegality faded, the pubs that catered to the gay scene started to be more visible, and some such pubs in the UK have been gay for more than 50 years.
Bisexuals have always been very prevalent on the UK gay scene, but since the 1980s an additional separate 'bisexual' scene has emerged. Initially coming out of the trade union movement (the first national bisexual conference was organised by trade union activists) the bi scene is less about pubs and clubs and more about social activism. There are no bisexual bars, yet!
The LGBT scene in the UK still contains many bisexuals, not all of whom are out about their bisexuality. There is also a lot of bisexual people in the UK that don't socialise on the LGBT scene, or attend bisexual events.
National Groups and Organisations
BiCon
The largest event in the UK is the National Bisexual Conference & Convention, called for brevity BiCon. Founded in 1984, the event moves around the country, so that each year is accessible for different communities. It is a weekend long residential event, usually held at a university campus outside of term time and regularly attracts more than 250 people.
Bi Community News
BCN is the UK's longest running bisexual journal, established in 1996. It publishes bi-monthly and is widely regarded as essential reading on the UK bi scene. They have an extensive set of back-issues online with many fascinating and detailed articles about bisexuality in the UK, bi history and opinions.
The BCN website, with links to their MySpace pages, LiveJournal and Facebook group is here: Bi Community News
Bi-UK
BiUK is a reasearch and activism organisation set up by a number of prominent UK bisexual academics.
They organise an academic conference called "BiReCon", full details of this and their other work is on their site: Bi-UK
BiMedia.org
BiMedia.org aims to provide a news outlet for bi comment and to act as a publicity resource for bi projects in the UK.
As their invaluable newsfeed is made available to other UK bi organisations, we feature it on this website. The original can be found at: BiMedia.org
Bi.org
Bi.org has been the invaluable central resource for bisexual links and information in the UK since September 1996 - it's one othe world's longest running LGBT websites.
It is currently being refitted by volunteer activists: Bi.org
Regional
BiFests
Throughout the year there are regional events called BiFests which are one day festivals celebrating bisexuality. These are less formally organised than BiCon, and have a focus on people new to the bisexual scene.
Local Groups
At a local level many towns have bisexual groups and almost all universities in the UK have an LGBT society. Since the late 1990s (and with greater frequency since the 2006 Equality Act) a large number of lesbian and gay organisations have come to embrace the power of 'And' by becoming LGBT organisations. The following list of local bisexual groups is from the UK bi journal Bi Community News:
If you're thinking of starting a new group, we recommend Bi Community News's "A to Z of running a bi group" as an excellent read. And if you do start a group and want to be listed on this page, let us know!
UK Bi Events Calendar
An online calendar of UK Bi Events is kept here: BiEvents.Calendar and can be imported into Google Calendar is you use that service. It is worth checking regularly as different groups update their schedules at different times.
Other Websites and Blogs
There's a lot of LGBT sites on the internet, and Google alone can keep up with all of them (we certainly can't!). Here's a few we keep an especial eye on:
- Bi-Furious is a good bi activism blog, with some interesting discussion of the issues behind the slogans.
- Queers United is a good general LGBT activism blog - often the first place to report on homo- or biphobia in the mainstream US media.
- Jen Yockney is one of the pillars of the Bi scene in the UK, she has an excellent blog that we feel is required reading.
- Uncharted Worlds is an extensive archive of the bisexual writings of UK Bi activist Jennifer Moore.
- Sue George is a highly regarded British bisexual writer and her blog is well worth checking out.
- Bi Social Network feels like a breath of fresh air - a news site with a modern look and feels up to the minute.
- And Bi The Way is a great blog about bisexuality from a male perspective.
The Bisexual Index
You've already found our site, so we shan't tell you the address. But if you want to link to us, please go right ahead - we do not need to be asked for permission to do so.
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