 Welcome to the British Library this evening. Thanks so much for joining us here tonight. I'm John, I look out of the events programme of the library and also welcome to those watching home online with an awful lot of you out there tonight, which is great. So tonight we're absolutely delighted to be launching Dr Julius Shaw's new book by the Hidden Culture, History and Science of Bisexuality and those of you who were lucky enough to be here in the British Library three or four years ago when we did an event on her last bestselling book, Making Evil, on the Science behind a Humanity's Dark Side or know that she is a brilliant psychologist and brings a fascinating insight into some of the most interesting areas of the human character and human behaviour. So Dr Shaw is a criminal psychologist at University College London. She is also part of queer politics at Princeton University, which works for LGBT plus equality, democracy and civil rights. And she's founder of the International Bisexual Research Group and you may also know Dr Shaw from her hit BBC podcast Bad People, where her and her co-host uses hit research to examine some of society's most pressing issues. So please do pick up a copy of the book outside, hot off the press and do stop to have it signed. And those watching online can also buy a copy by visiting the books tab at the top of your screen. And in a short while, Dr Shaw will be in conversation with Ben Hunt, who we're also delighted he's joining us tonight. He is senior reporter for Vice World News. Previously he was also the BBC's first LGBT plus correspondent and also runs the Find Your Voice Academy, which offers a confidence building programme for school children. At the end of the conversation there'll be short Q&A and those watching online can submit questions via the form just below the video window and we'll read some of those out later on. That's it from me. Please welcome to the stage Dr Julia Shaw. Hello. I am so pleased to be here with all of you today and to celebrate the launch of my book Bye. I have decided today to create a completely artificial intelligence designed presentation. So all of the art is by Dali, which is an artificial intelligence. We can talk about that in the discussion later if you'd like. But I'm also going to be doing something I never do, which is effectively a speech for the first few minutes and then I'm going to enter into conversation with the incredible Ben Hunt. So are you ready for this? A few years ago I was in San Francisco, that queerest of capitals in one of the queerest of bookstores and I asked for the bisexual section. I was greeted by only a handful of books and that was the day I learned that bisexuality has an abysmal amount of space on the bookshelf of queer lives. I remember thinking, why aren't we here? Where are all the bisexuals? It was from that point on that I came to understand that we have untethered bisexual people from their own culture, history and science. But it was also from that point on that I learned that if we dig deep, reading old dusty books, searching for representation in historical archives and learning the academies of our identities, we can find a whole by universe. Already in the 1940s, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey criticized scholars who insisted on turning sexuality into a binary. As he wrote in the critique of his contemporaries, more basic than any error brought out in the analysis is the assumption that homosexuality and heterosexuality are two mutually exclusive phenomena. Data derived from such faulty assumptions can only lead to an entrenching into science of moralizing conclusions about how sexuality should be rather than how it is. Instead, Kinsey found that the true picture of sexuality is one of endless intergradation between hetero and homosexual, and he reconceptualized sexuality as a continuum. Research has found that a quarter to half of all people are in the middle of this continuum between zero exclusively heterosexual and six exclusively homosexual. Although rarely used by the people who fall into this mix of hetero and homosexual, the word for it, the hidden, erased, stigmatized, beautiful, rebellious, accurate word for it, is bisexual. And while we are just deconstructing binaries, note that the by in bisexual means two, but not the two you probably think. The by in bisexual does not stand for the gender binary men and women. Bisexual was coined in the late 1800s to describe those who had both homo and heterosexual attractions, so the same and other genders. Today, the most common definition of bisexuality is the sexual and or romantic attraction to multiple genders. But when I was just a candy colored baby by girl, I knew none of this. I knew who my loved but I didn't know where I belonged. I went to my first pride march and thought it had nothing to do with me because I was never taught my own history and I never thought to ask. That's what a razor does. It steals our ability to ask the right questions. It simplifies who am I to am I. Researchers found that compared to lesbian and gay people, bisexuals are the least likely to be part of queer groups. This has been linked to comparatively high rates of isolation, anxiety, depression, substance use and non-suicidal self-injury. It seems that without the buffer of community being told repeatedly that you don't exist can lead to your own annihilation. And to all the candy colored baby by girls today, I'm so sorry. Yes, things are better, but they aren't better enough. Research published in 2020 found that bisexual girls are more often bullied, touched without their consent and are judged more harshly for their behavior and dress than their peers. They are assumed to be promiscuous, making them subject to what has been referred to as a slut discourse. Slut discourse is the parasitic stalker that follows bisexuals everywhere. Tell people you are bi and their brains glitch to threasomes and sexual insatiability, the toxic assumption that bi people are untrustworthy partners unable to be monogamous, that we are performing our sexuality for them and that everything we are and everything we have is for them to take. We carry slut discourse into universities where bisexual women are more likely to be sexually assaulted and less likely to receive appropriate counseling services than their peers. Into workplaces where bisexuals are given a bisexuality penalty when coming out because compared to homosexuality, saying you're bi is seen as inappropriate too much, too sexual. Into relationships where studies have found that 61% of bisexual women and 37% of bisexual men experienced rape, physical violence and are stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Rates far higher than experienced by homo or heterosexual people. We carry it into justification for the horrifying practices of conversion therapy and corrective rape. There is an alternative to slut discourse, which is denial. Perhaps you're accused of lying because you're actually gay. Told you need to prove it. Show me. To count as bi a society tells us that our word is not enough. This carries over into our refugee policies where bisexual asylum seekers are denied access to safety because it is assumed they can just pretend to be straight or worse that they are lying about being bi about being persecuted by the state and their own families. I've given many reasons for people to stay in silence in the big bi closet hidden away where most people will live forever. Researchers found that bi people are invisible in most spheres of their lives. Bisexuals are less than half as likely as homosexuals to be out to their partners, to their parents, to their own children and to their colleagues. And compared to bi women, bi men are even less likely to be out because of how bisexuality is seen to destabilize masculinity. People can also be more than one color of the rainbow. Many non-binary and trans people also identify as bi but their bisexual identity is typically erased and eclipsed by their gender identity. So what should bisexuals do? Should we hide until society changes collectively hush until it's safer to come out? As activist Audrey Lord wrote, your silence will not protect you. It's been over 130 years of research and activism on and for bi lives and we are still fighting the same fights. It's time for a new strategy to come out and say what we stand for. To all of those attracted beyond gender, if you can, I wish for you to say, I am bisexual and I will not sit down until you recognize and include us in your conversations about diversity. And there's no perfect time to come out. We can wait and wait and wait saying one day we will show the world our shimmering true beautiful bi colors. But if we wait for the perfect moment, we will fail. As Audrey Lord said about standing up against oppression, while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of silence will choke us. Visibility is essential to affording bi people around the world human rights. The psychological idea known as the contact hypothesis has repeatedly found evidence for the benefits of knowing people from other groups to reduce intergroup conflict, discrimination and fear. That means knowing someone who is bisexual, your child, your parent, your teacher, your colleague, your friend, or even seeing people in the media or on TV who are openly bisexual makes it much harder to say that we don't exist, that we are other, less than, perverted, that we don't deserve protection. Visibility saves lives. Visibility is beautiful. And while there may be darkness in the world around us, no matter where we live or what adversity we are currently going through, light still resides in our hearts. Research has found that despite the negative aspects that I just introduced you to, most bi people love being bisexual. And the most common word they use to explain why is freedom. Freedom to love without regard for biological sex or gender, freedom from social labels and gender roles, freedom to explore diverse relationships and experiences and freedom of sexual expression. This is not to say that monosexuals are not free, but rather that embracing who you are is an exercise in freedom. We can also find freedom in the stories of our bisexual ancestors and research that validates the collective challenges of those who are a blend of homo and heterosexual and in the victories of bi activists. And it is when we uncover all of these that we find solid ground for the beautiful bisexual desires that are all around and perhaps even inside of us. No matter what your own sexuality is, I want to help you ask yourself new questions about who you are and how you love and to open your heart to new possibilities. I poured all of me and all of the research I could find on bisexuality and a whole master's degree in queer history into this book where sometimes people say, I did the research so you don't have to. I wrote this book that I had been searching for that time years ago in that bookstore in San Francisco. My wish is that when you read by, you use it to deconstruct toxic misconceptions and fuel bisexual inclusion to build a world where all the candy-coloured bisexuals can live happily amongst the rainbow gum drops and to ask yourself new questions that allow you to go deeper into your own sexuality. And remember to never stop fighting for love because sexual freedom is magnificent and fragile. Thank you. Hey everybody, how are you doing? Sit over here. You good? Oh gosh, they're very quiet during your talk. Maybe this is how we are in a British Library. I'm like, oh gosh. Hello, my name is Ben Hunt. I am senior reporter for Vice-Ward News. Previously, I was the BBC's first LGBT correspondent. A little woo there, thank you. Don't get woo too often for the BBC these days. But yes, it was a good time. It was a good time. I feel like we did some good work. I did some stories about Bayer people which always got good traction because the community is huge and very engaged, shall we say, on social media. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation today with Julia. So thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Firstly, you did kind of touch on it but I'd love to understand more about what made you want to write this book. Like what was it that pushed you to get this done? By the way, I'm so thrilled that you are here partly because I saw those documentaries and just your work is incredible. So I look forward to talking about some of your just heartbreaking and incredible documentaries around LGBT people in countries where it's illegal to engage in homosexual behaviour and LGBT free zones. And we'll talk about that later. It's all heartbreaking and amazing coverage that you've done. And also this is interactive as well. Let's not forget. So we are going to have like a Q&A session. So feel free to store up your questions and then we'll ask you at the end. And also if you're online, you can write somewhere, I guess. And then we'll kind of like take them from the ether and put them to you and yeah, we'll make it happen. So yeah. Perfect. So what made you want to write this book? I wrote this book. There's two real answers. There's two different answers that are both correct. The one that I usually give is that I had so many questions about bisexuality that I was like I want answers and as a scientist and someone who values research, I enjoyed anthologies and I enjoyed the coming out stories that existed. But I found it very difficult to find the answers and the research studies that I wanted as answers to my questions. So I think because I've come from a history of quantitative analysis and quantitative data where we're trying to like look for averages. Like on average, what is the experience? You don't really, it's hard to get from an anthology because you get one story at a time, which is more qualitative, which is great, but not what I needed. And so I was looking for lots of different kinds of research and put it into this book. There's another version of that story. Is this the real tea? Two things can exist at the same time. Of course, of course. The other version of this is that I was over having to prove my bisexuality slash having that conversation with everybody who I told I was by. It was like I was answering the same questions on repeat and I got really boring and it got really, oh I just, I didn't want to do it anymore. And then I thought, wow, I bet every single bisexual person who comes out has to do this for the rest of their lives. I mean, there's that joke that you come out as bi and then you come out and you come out and you come out and you come out. Because you just have to keep doing it because what does a bi person look like and how do you keep being visible? So, on the one hand, answering all the questions I had. On the other hand, hopefully giving people a book that I can just shove at them when they come at me with a question. Read it. I like that. Cool. I learned a lot from this book. A lot. I thought that I knew by life. I thought I understood it. And digging deeper into some of these studies was just incredible. It was so great to have this research available in very concise chapters and kind of break it all down for you. I learned about starfish being queer mascots. I learned about sheep dating apps, which was incredible. I learned so much about just by life in general and what it means to people internationally. Was there anything that really surprised you when you were writing this book? I feel like there's someone out there watching who's like sheep dating apps, spiling. Read the book. I'm plugging you with the best bit. See what you got? Yeah, so that was all about looking for the bi gene. Yes. And how it turns out that there's a lot of research on the sexuality and genetics of sheep because a lot of sheep don't like to breed they're homosexual. And so there's been a lot of geneticists who are trying to break sheep DNA to fix this breeding problem with an agriculture. And it's a much nicer, also because you can, right? Like you can actually go into sheep DNA and change it, whereas with humans you should not. And so I was using that as an interesting sort of sideline as like oh look there's all this, by the way there's all this research on sheep sex. It was a great chapter. It was really good. But by culture? Yes. What was the question it was? I just feel like I wanted to disentangle the sheep sex from bi culture. Was anything really juicy that you found out while you were writing this book? Anything that really surprised you about bi life? Lots of things surprised me. So I knew very little about being bi except for being bi until I wrote this book. So I'd only just started talking more to friends who turns out like in like one wave all came out to me and was like oh yeah me too. And it was like oh. Oh we never discussed this earlier. But that's what happens is if you are part of an invisible population of course you are worried about coming out potentially which is why you haven't. And so that moment when somebody else says I am bi is the moment you go oh it's safe. I can do it now. And you can say me too. And that's when I mean that's the only times really I've ever had people come out to me as bi is when I first said that that's what I am. And I think that taught me a lot about bisexuality even just realizing that lots of my friends had never had that conversation with them. We'd never had that conversation and that was a bit heartbreaking. But I learned in the research and by writing this book that there is a lot of shared experience and shared commissary. There's a commissary that comes with aspects of bi life which are often the result of hypersexualization and that slut discourse that I mentioned which I think it can feel very lonely and very like oh well this thing happened to me or you know I was sexualized in this way and it felt really weird or it was really horrible and is it just me or is it something else? And the answer is it's something else and there's unfortunately a lot of people who have suffered that as well. But there is a unity in suffering that can bring strength. Yes. And also help us fight for change. I love that and to be honest that's actually what drives me in my reporting if I'm being honest. When I was at the BBC people always expected me to be like this big shiny unicorn like this glittery being and would just like show up and give you like rainbow news about stuff. And I wasn't. I was a real dark cloud like over the rainbow just like remember about suicide trigger one. Hate crimes are happening and all of this. And it is tough but ultimately like this is real life. This is real life and I think it's that's what for me was so fascinating about this book was reading about the trauma. And some of the really terrible things that have happened to people that they have kept silent about because they didn't feel comfortable much sharing it because of their bisexuality and because they felt invisible as mega. Can I do a quick poll actually? We talked about with a British Library yesterday about who would come to something like this. If you are proud bisexual can you put your hand in the air please? I told you. So many. You came, you came. Look around. It really are. So I want to understand who this book is for. Is it for the person who's trying to understand what about bisexuality? Who isn't bisexual themselves? Is it for the bisexual who wants to understand more about the wider community? Is it for a parent of a bi child who's just come out to them? Who do you say for? That is a question I ask myself. The whole way through writing this book the whole way through talking about this book I basically wrote it for two purposes. One it's primarily for and about bisexuals. Let's be honest. But that is in its most inclusive term. And so also just to be clear when I use the term bi I include other plurisexual identities. So basically anyone who's attracted to people of multiple genders. And that includes pansexual, omnisexual, plurisexual, polysexual. There's other terms for me those are all within bi. And that's typically how the research also deals with the many different flavors of sort of labels that people use to describe themselves. And that's not saying that bi is necessarily qualitatively somehow better. It's just the oldest. And I think it's- We'll go into that. We'll get into that. You're not on my list. We'll get into the bi pan wars. But yeah so that sort of community aspect of bringing us all together and saying hey this is your history. Like this is our history. This is research on us. This is fuel that you can use to change the discourse about why. Because how many times have you heard why does it matter? Oh my god. The amount of times even with this book people are like ah so boring it doesn't apply to me why does it matter. Come on. And if you were- If I read a book about love without couching it as bi or about human rights without couching it as bi or about relationships without couching it as bi everyone would be like oh it's a book on relationships great. Because the default and the assumption is it's probably about heterosexual relationships and that's what everyone wants to know about. Yes. And as soon as you add the bi it's suddenly this like oh it's a bit niche. Well isn't that niche. Exactly. We've got all of these people here ready to buy the book. Like this can't be that niche. Well and that's right. And if you look at the research on how many people even though most people don't use the word bi for lots of reasons including societal bi phobia unfortunately. Most people don't use the word bi but a lot of people have attractions to multiple genders at some point in their lives. And I think it's a beautiful thing to encourage people to accept that within themselves and to see love where they find it and not to ignore or erase it within themselves. So that's- So I want it to be for bi people and people who know or recognize within themselves the capacity for love beyond gender. But I also wrote it as an encyclopedia for anyone who's interested in including queer lives in discourses. And that can be parents of queer kids. That can be grandparents. That can be friends. That can be partners. That can be teachers. I mean I was speaking to an independent sort of a queer bookstore who does a lot of orders for schools. And they were saying oh we've never had a book that we could send to schools on bisexuality which also is just mind blowing by the way. And so I'm hoping that it will go into those spaces as well and inform educators and people who structure systems to make better decisions and to create more bi-inclusive spaces. Let's make it happen. Yes. So it's for everybody. Yes, literally by the book. One of the biggest things that I hear at the moment because I'm still working within like the LGBT space and getting DMs all the time from ultimately unnecessary people the throw shade about the wildest things going on in the world. But today I had a DM from somebody who said that this event should have been called pansexuality. And actually that this isn't a trans-inclusive event and as a result they will not be coming. I just wanted to understand your perspective on that and how that kind of sits in because you've talked about it being a trans-inclusive term you see the term bisexual as trans-inclusive. This person is saying that no, only pansexual is trans-inclusive and I have spoken to other bi-people who say that actually they don't even like the term pansexual because they feel that pansexual erases bisexual. Julia, what's going on? Help me. The great bi-pan wars. It's okay. Step one. Yeah. Whatever you want to call yourself you go and call yourself. Yeah. Step two. Don't erase other people's identities is also within that. So if someone calls themselves bi and you choose the word pan because you prefer it for whatever reason don't erase bisexual identities. Just like I'm not going to erase pansexual identities. However, I would like to empower with history. So one of the things that I think is currently going on with why there's been a bit of a move against bi as a word is because there's been so much chat which has been wonderful about deconstructing the gender binary. We have been talking in a new way certainly within my lifetime about what gender means and whether we can be things like non-binary and what that means and what that experience is like. And so because when we hear bi right now all we think of is the gender binary because that is the main dominating conversation the assumption is that bisexual erases non-binary and people who don't fit within that gender binary because we're assuming that bi means men and women but that is not what it is meant and that is not the history of bi. Side note, do we know what the history of pan is? Tell us. We're ready. We're so ready. So bi has existed as a word for about 130 years and was coined shortly after heterosexual and homosexual to include people who had all the attractions basically that were known at the time and so that's why I like the word bi because from the beginning it's been used in this way and pansexual again like I feel like just like nobody knows the history of these things the original use of the term pansexual had nothing to do with gender just to be clear just like bi wasn't men and women pan wasn't all genders pansexual was a critique of Freud's work about making everything about sex as in he's so pansexual he reduces everything and all psychological problems to sex that sort of joke like ah you're feeling depressed it means you want to have sex with your mom like that kind of thing Freud and so it's reducing everything to sex and so that's where the word came from and then it was claimed by King communities and it was claimed at some point I think it was the 90s for the first time by people as an identity marker but it that's not where it comes from so I think understanding the histories of these words also allows us to make better choices as to which histories we would like to buy into and again there are of course words change and pan now means something else than it did then and for some people maybe bi now means something else than it did then but I prefer bi and just whatever you do try not to use it as don't weaponize labels as like you don't exist or you shouldn't exist or you're phobic of something because of the label you use I think that's interesting though because the younger generation definitely is doing that I was in I told you I was going to plug this somehow didn't I? I told you I was going to so I run a confidence academy for young people he does I usually take off my Fridays and I go around the country and I just speak to young people in schools and I deliver this masterclass and basically gives them a kick up the bum to just get their lives together because I felt like I didn't get that when I was growing up I just needed someone to come and be like you know this is literally your life like you're in control of this like do you want to work in Greggs for the rest of your life or do you want to go and like be a doctor or whatever else it's up to you what you do so I run this masterclass and I had a school last year where I went into it and I always expect for these young people to kind of be excited to see me and tell them all about queer stuff and like being themselves and loving themselves and whatever else and the masterclass is for 6 to 9 year olds 10 to 12 year olds and 13 to 18 year olds and I had one of my 13 to 18 year old classes in like the north of this country where it's so specifically where it was and I went in and not a single young person identified as straight they were all pansexual and it blew my mind because I was expecting to tell them all about Stonewall and about LGBT hate crimes like what's going on and they were like actually banned like let me tell you in the LGBT club last week in school we actually covered this and like your dates are incorrect like the people you're pronouncing the name wrong like you're using whatever and it was incredible and I'm seeing now that this younger generation is just so passionate about sexuality and so passionate about gender identity which is incredible but I am seeing like the decline of bisexuality within that and I just wondered if that is kind of a generational split then that you are going to see like the old not saying we're old but like the older people who are fighting for bisexual whilst the younger ones are saying actually it's pan now Ultimately if people want to call themselves pan I can only say it again go for it and as long as that isn't used to fracture the community and the research on the community which I think is harmful then I think that's fine I think that again there's a question as to why and sometimes the reason why is biphobic and is actually not a lack of acceptance that most people who use the word bi most people use the word pan according to research define themselves in the same way and define their attractions in the same way so I think we're introducing friction whether isn't any often and we're just sort of making up differences that don't exist and really confuse the heterosexuals we like that way we do that we were like yeah but just a little bit of that but pan and bi and like oh you have all these names it's true I mean even when Leila Moran came out as pansexual I was in the BBC newsroom one that day and they were just like get bent on we need someone to talk about this and it was wild because suddenly you had all of these newsrooms scrambling for an understanding of a term that had existed that people had come out as but because someone within their bubble and within like public conscience had actually come out as it suddenly we all had to talk about it and so for the first time I think pansexual did trend on that day and we were all talking about it and a lot of memes of pans I really I remember this day Oh Twitter but as someone so you identify as gay right oooooh Is this the moment you come out as a guy? Well you know what's interesting about it so obviously we're talking before about it is I feel like my bycard was snatched away from me and I feel like I was almost pushed out of that community as a result of being in a monogamous gay relationship because if you're not polygamous if you're not operating like a polygamous way then you don't really have anything to prove your bisexuality I mean I've said all of this before this isn't even juicy this isn't an exclusive like you're not getting anything that great but I spoke about it when I into the attitude when I first jumped on to the LGBT correspondent role and I said look I've had more relationships with women than men I've slept with more women than men yet suddenly being the LGBT correspondent for the BBC I was like Ben's a gay but it's like well it's just it's interesting isn't it like people want to put you into the easiest box that they possibly can so I just jumped into that by went to an old boys school Christian school as well and within that space you just dated people from the girls school you didn't get to think about it you just went and got a girlfriend from the girls school you just picked up anybody and that was that and you went to the cinema together like you went bowling or whatever else and that was it you just had a girlfriend and so I didn't really get a choice to be gay or be straight or be bi I was just I just had a girlfriend and then when I was outed then I became gay within a school term I was outed for having slept with men and so Ben was gay I then went on had relationships with women outside of my major space in London because women wouldn't date me and London would come on to this but it wouldn't date me in London and yeah so I do feel like my biocard was kind of snatched from me and I think that's probably the same for a lot of men within like the entertainment industry especially it's like you I don't really feel the need to then scream to people I slept with women as well it's just like what does that achieve and who needs to know but at the same time then that does erase bi people so complicated Does it erase you? I don't really feel that deep about it I think it's for me it's as long as I gosh I've been on a journey since the pandemic tell you honestly when I should have been because I was fully expecting kind of like to be in people's lives and to tell everything about myself and tell everyone about me I've become such an introvert now I am entirely happy with my relationship and with my family and with building the house I'm building and I'm like I'm insular so the time of me waving like a rainbow flag and being screaming in the streets and stuff that's kind of gone and I think there was a time when I was like a YouTuber I was waving the bi pride flag definitely but yeah that time has since passed interesting but for you like you came out only a few years ago right as bi so that must have been a huge moment for family, friends, followers everyone suddenly be like oh I've been seeing you in a completely different light yeah so my friends and my close friends and family certainly new my closest family I think there's probably quite a lot of family members who are like ha! oh wow my book came out ha! is she? like yeah I yeah um also I mean oh man I got accused of a family friend by um for performative bisexual what? it was hilarious like what commitment to a performance? whoa performed a whole master as a whole book and I'm here now I was like well I mean if that's the case then I'd I'd somehow deserved it anyway anyway um so there's I think there's still a sound to the performativity and my mom has been mostly she so my I came out to my mom when I was 15 I recently aged because I was in a relationship with a girl and she asked me she's like I recently saw her again my ex-girlfriend and we had a whole conversation about this and since then I've been using her name because she said go ahead she's also bi we talked about it so she said so you've been spending a lot of time with Sarah and that was the moment that I had to decide do I come out as lesbian or well she actually asked are you a lesbian and I said no I'm bi and I we couldn't remember if I'd actually use the term but apparently I did I don't know where I knew it from I didn't know any bi people I didn't see any bi people maybe the internet who knows but I yeah so I came out to her really early but even there she was mostly supportive but whenever I had a girlfriend she didn't want me to tell anyone like she didn't want me to tell family she didn't want me to tell my stepdad never knew I was bi who passed away I have a new stepdad now like until his death he never knew he would like he would have been a surprise to him writing this book and she told me not to tell him like it was explicit and so why was that why did she want that I think she was trying to protect me from sexualisation and homophobia gosh and that's and I understand why because I'm sure she's heard things that maybe I don't hear and she's heard not necessarily about me but in general and so as parents do they try to protect people and sometimes they do that in ways that I think are not good but overall she knew and she was mostly an ally and continues to be and family now my extended family has been wonderful my friends all know but coming out publicly that was absolutely terrifying I was a scientist I wasn't allowed to have sex or a sexuality come on and I think that was something I've always fought against the normative assumptions about what a scientist is supposed to be and what a scientist is supposed to look like because I remember being I mean just like I was a little candy coloured by girl I also was a little candy coloured academic and I saw around me like all these people who looked a certain way and it very much rewarded masculinity and things that leaned into masculinity and things that were feminine are bad so make up is bad heels are bad nice outfits are bad dresses are bad right unfortunately not the only space like that and so I pushed back against that there and then the sexuality was like this is going to be too much and I had a whole long conversation with my editor about it because I came out of my second book because I was talking about the monsterisation of queer people and the villainisation of queer people around the world and in the context of a book where you know I talked about things that we associate with the word evil and quite a lot of people in the world associate homosexual behaviour and related identities as evil and so I was talking about visibility there and I'm still talking about visibility now but it wasn't visible and so I realised I was being hypocrite telling people to come out when I wasn't out and so then I came out and I survived and I'm here and now I get to be with all of you beautiful bi people that's nice and it was in fact amazing I will say it so there has been biphobia but there's been mostly such a beautiful community that I didn't know existed that I didn't know I wanted that I didn't know I needed and yet here you are and here we are making a beautiful bi space for ourselves see I always love hearing positive coming out experiences because honestly my DMs are just filled with trauma and just the worst things that people have gone through especially on an international setting as well so we're very blessed well in 2022 maybe not so in terms of LGBTQ rights in this country but I think we're very blessed to be in a space like this or we can even hold this conversation to be talking so openly I would love to understand in the book you talk about what bisexuality looks like and you say that you went to real efforts to become more of a bi look like like someone that looks bi what did you do and how did it go you taking notes how to look bi bi julia um I I have no idea what bi people look like um turns out there's quite a lot of research on this because there's quite a lot of bi people who then you know when you make the choice to be visible then the question is but how and there is and not to like wait into stereotypes here but there are scripts for how to perform or to look gay would you agree with that definitely yeah yeah and there are scripts for how to look or perform being a lesbian yeah but the question for me was and the question for a lot of bi people is is there an equivalent if you want to look bi and so there's been all this research on people asking people like what do you do to look bi and is there a bi look can you spot a bisexual if you see one it's a good question can you sometimes as one of my gay friends once said it's all about the eyes oh really no but I honestly I have no idea most of the time unless you have like a purple streak in your hair in which case 50% chance so what they what researchers found and which is something that I have also played with when trying to fit into queer spaces and to present as more bisexual and be read as more bi is often that people play with basically both lesbian and gay scripts and or if you will gender non-conforming scripts and so you'll mix things that are a bit more mask with things that are a bit more femme and now of course that entangles all kinds of things but that is what most bisexual people seem to do when they try to look more bi and there's something that I noticed when I went to the first bi pride which is fun bi pride which now also is going to exist in Germany I think for the second year this year and is going to happen again this year in the UK and is a big fun party but also filled with activism which is really interesting it's also where I learned quite a lot of the lexicon for my early chapters so when I started writing about bisexuality a lot of the words I was using I learned at bi pride and then I went and did a master's and learned more from the academics but in the setting I also realised that quite a lot of people are really cute and I don't just mean the people I mean you're all cute but I mean the style there was a real leaning into like soft toys and like pandas and sure that's because of pansexual sure but there's like green bows we are all learning today I was like what? and gumdrops and I started leaning into that with my last sentence because it is a real thing and I think so my guess I don't there's no research on this far as I know my guess is that it's to combat the hypersexualisation it's like leaning against that with cuteness and so that's my guess but that that surprised me and I see it's a lot so I don't know if your experience is that but in the Q&A let's yeah let's talk about that that's really interesting really where adorable yay I want to talk about being by and out at work in the book you talk about a study where people who mentioned they were bisexual in cover letters were then rewarded with less money and less job opportunities than people who said that they were gay or they were lesbian and that was fascinating to me I think you likened it or the researchers likened it to saying they were into threesomes and telling your employer that you're into threesomes in your cover letter and she's like well why would you do that? and that's exactly what they thought why would you do that? so coming out at work as a bi person something you should do or something you should hold on to so that study it's the only study I could find on bisexuality in the workplace besides a couple of studies that just showed that basically nobody's out at work who's bi and that we're way less likely to be out at work but in terms of the bi penalty which I think what those researchers called it that was quite shocking in terms of just overt discrimination really of bisexual candidates and I think that is mostly the experience that bi people have when they come out at work is why are you telling me this? and that's the nice side of it in some ways and I mean unfortunately no because I've written this book I also hear people's horror stories and I hear especially bi men at work especially in masculine workplaces like say you work in a factory or you work in sort of storage there's there's more I think toxic masculinity in those spaces and the more toxic masculinity or there is the less there is acceptance of what it means to be a man in all its forms and that includes being bi and so there is you know overt sort of avoiding and ignoring people at work who have come out as bi now that can also happen to gay people of course let's not pretend that this is a bi only thing but there are bi specific things and the bi specific thing is that is still associated with telling people about your sex life and it's just it just is and it shouldn't be why should it be and I think there were sort of I sometimes say we took 25-30 years behind the conversation at work about people coming out as gay so 25-30 years ago you would have expected in a workplace unfortunately if you come out as gay to be told why are you telling me about your sex life and I think that that is just what is still happening to bisexual people and so there's a parallel there and we just haven't cut up because nobody knows anything about bisexuals and so they have all these misconceptions and they say these things that are really exclusionary and to act in ways that are harmful to bi people at work so but the answer my answer always to visibility is that none of this is going to change if we all state invisible and so ultimately if you can be out at work yes there might be some negative consequences but there will probably probably also be other people who are thinking you for coming out and other people like in my experience saying me too and once you've got that allyship there is strength and once you have that strength a revolution can happen and so if you can't do it please for also for younger you for other yous who can't do that because without us those biases will persist you mentioned in the book that you do drop the buy card as quickly as possible in conversations with with colleagues and I wondered what that actually looks like like by pow by a card I think I do the same thing in the in the gateway deal yeah I think you have to in some ways like it just chills the room doesn't it it's kind of like I sometimes walk in I feel like a huge like straight presence like a scary way and so just like playing the gay card and just being like I have a boyfriend it's like it's okay he's gay it's like it's something about it that's just it does make people chill out I don't know what it is I genuinely don't understand it but it definitely I try to play the card as quickly as possible but also it prevents awkward conversations later on as well the assumptions that people will make I guess it's difficult as well I guess from the buy way because if you are in if you're not in a homosexual relationship then you will still present as straight to some people so they will still make those assumptions so how do you play that buy card I in workplaces now have the luxury of being able to mostly choose the work that I do and so it's different so I understand that there's a huge power imbalance now to me and previous me even and I didn't I wouldn't have had that luxury and I might not have risked losing a job or having any kind of negative treatment because of my sexual identity but now that I can I say it as quickly as possible because if you're not down with the fact that I'm bisexual this is not going to work and it's the same in a relationship my partner paul shout out to paul oh boy it's shy I'm going to just stand up and wait wait wait wait wait wait we love it we love it I mentioned that I was buy because I also had had enough of it I would wait till the third date or fourth date to mention that I'm buy and there'd be two reactions oh well no I don't really want a polygamist relationship or assumption right or oh I love threesome's but it was never for me was it that was the pervy porny glance of ooh one day you will perform for me little one and so I have one man in mind in particular who's a bit bigger than me anyway and and also then when it actually came down to like me flirting with woman it would be like all hell would break loose and you could just see the sort of as soon as the realization kicked in of oh this isn't performative suddenly it would be oh well I'm jealous now and that was just oh I had enough of that so I started dropping it first date and it worked out very well so thanks Paul for being down with the buys so so yeah so I drop it as really as possible in lots of contexts not all contexts of course but again it's made it's improved my life and I would encourage you to do it if you can as well love that I am going to get into Q&A let me just make sure the time okay maybe in like five minutes we'll keep talking I like this this is good this is good this is good um the political chapter was probably my favorite one like I said my dark cloud over a very fabulous rainbow so I loved it it was just a real sense of where things are at currently you talked about in fact I've actually written down the first sentence of that chapter you opened with your sexuality is political whether you like it or not I love that absolutely love it and it's something that I try to get people to remember with all of my storytelling yes it's going to make you feel something my stories my reports my documentaries whatever is going to make you feel potentially bad potentially scared but it's going to make you feel something because welcome to real life like this is where we're at and ultimately our rights are under attack it's that simple so you need to understand that yes all of this is political within that chapter you talked about asylum seekers you talked about how some or several asylum seekers in the UK who come to this country who are seeking refuge here struggle to prove their sexuality break that down even further and they struggle to prove their bisexuality the rates I think usually around 30% for asylum seekers who come to the UK who are then successful in having their claims approved and they get to stay here even less for those who are coming based on sexuality for bisexuality I don't even know if those numbers exist I know if there's even a box 4x because most people would have to be proving it based on a homosexual relationship that research for me was really powerful and the question to you is how would you prove to a court that you are bisexual pormans I don't think I could so genuinely I think what I write about as well is that having to prove your sexuality or being accused of lying being accused of making up the fact that you are bi or homosexual but also bi in this particular case there's a real lack of understanding within decision makers about what bisexuality is that it's real that it's not performative just like in wider society and that it's seen as a thing that's half homosexual and you can just like pretend not to be that half it's almost like you get to choose who you love or who you know where your attractions fall and unfortunately that's not really how well fortunately but also unfortunately for people in oppressive countries that isn't how it works you fall in love with people you fall in love with whether or not that you're legally supposed to do so and so that is that's something that people carry with them and unfortunately once you are outed as well and someone realises that you're bi or you what they might call homosexual but you might say bi and say actually no I'm attracted to men and women and other genders that you can get kicks out of your family you can get assaulted the state can persecute you there's things for women which is also applied to lesbian women but sometimes specifically to bi women as a sort of forcing them into well typically heterosexuality it's called corrective rape which is raping women to force them to show them that this is the way that they should go which seems like the opposite of what would work but also is just there's these horrible things that happen in the justification of like well we can just like force this queer bit out of you and so there's the reality of that is that people who are seeking asylum who have had terrible things who have experienced terrible things are coming to a space where they are trying to prove who they are in front of the people who often don't believe bisexuality really exists or that it's not that big deal and you're not allowed to use which is something I learned in asylum claims about your sexuality you're not allowed to use what are called sexually explicit narratives in other words you could be like oh I have this video of me having sex with multiple genders they were like no no sex no no no stories about didn't know yeah you can't do that what do you use and so the answer is mostly that you get witnesses to talk about oh I saw him with and yes it's real and no it's not and yes and oh in different genders and yes he did in fact love but multiple genders and um but that is really really hard to do as well because if you are escaping an oppressive regime who's going to stand witness for you who's going to put themselves at risk to defend you to go abroad it's it's really really difficult so I think for me how would I prove it in a court of law I mean I would try and bring up witnesses to say did we date I guess were we in love because we can't talk about sex and and talk to like my mum take a stand and say yeah she told me she was by when she was was younger and isn't that a wild is it I think even from like the the gay stereotype perspective I was invited to Parliament to talk about this actually when everything was happening with Afghanistan and LGBT Afghans were coming to the country and an MP was sat with me in Parliament it was like Ben we don't know what to do because we don't understand how to ask gay Afghans to prove that they are gay and he's he basically laid out this criteria in front of me and it was just like all of these different charities have said all of these different things and we're not sure which one to go with and each of them had the most ridiculous list of gay stereotypes I have ever seen I was like I should even be in this country like based on based on this I should not have been allowed into this country because I could not genuinely could not prove I'm a gay man I don't really go out partying I'm not out here sleeping with everybody I'm not I don't have pink hair I don't have like rainbow wristbands and stuff like this all of these things that are thrust upon these asylum seekers many of us don't actually do and then from the bi perspective the conversation went that they said well surely I'm not going to add this MP because it was biphobic but he said well surely they could choose to be in a relationship that doesn't then put them in danger in their origin country what is your thought about that actually because in some people would say that is true they could potentially choose to not engage that side of their sexuality yeah a sort of sexual camouflage idea ooh yeah and that is definitely something that I think a lot of people think just don't be by basically and it is in practice something that again just it can work just like you can pretend not to be gay like it in some ways that's not not quite the same except that but it is related to the same argument of just like don't engage in that kind of behavior just engage in compulsory head of sexuality marry the person you're supposed to marry have a couple of kids and hide everything about that other part of you and that is just not in a civilized society something that we consider a reasonable thing to ask people to do and I don't think that it is a reasonable thing to ask people to hide their bisexuality just like I don't think it's reasonable to ask them to hide their homosexuality and that is the main thing when we're talking about things like immutability so things that can't change that is one of the major arguments for protections and human rights is saying well this is the thing that can't be changed about you and you are being judged or persecuted or harmed based on this thing that you can't change and you didn't choose and so you deserve protections because you shouldn't have to pretend to not be that thing that you are and for me it's just the same argument and we need a lot more clarity and a lot more education for the judiciary and for people who work on human rights to understand that Yes and a quick shout out actually if you're not aware of the Rwanda stuff that's happening right now and how that's going to impact LGBT people I mean I'm supposed to be going to Rwanda in the weeks Are you? Yes to report on LGBT experiences over there I mean the first flight I think is next week for people who have come here technically illegally who are now being sent to Rwanda for processing I think the biggest thing that scared me about this and reading through your book is it highlighted this even more was the fact that for a lot of these individuals who are fleeing persecution once they've actually gone through processing in Rwanda they then get to stay permanently if they're successful so they don't actually come back to the UK they stay in Rwanda for bi people for lesbian people gay people who were then there in a country that doesn't necessarily actually even appreciate LGBT rights at all it's wild like this government is doing wild wild things so please do read up about it and just understand what's going on within that within that context I would love to understand more about representation and role models we all talk about role models something I say in schools every single week you need to you need to be able to see stuff you need to be able to see it and in order to be it but who was there for you who made you realise what you could be I mean I've had scientific role models and so that was important for me so seeing women in science who were very successful and were changing the way that we thought about things so that was sort of in the first part of my life I think that was in some ways the more pivotal role model and type of role model and in terms of bi role models because of the invisibility of bisexual people and it takes a lot of work to be and stay out and to be and stay in something that kids might see as a role model and I mean I'm I mean the book it's like today is the book launch and I'm already like done with the bi activism just like this is so hard so I mean I love it but also whoa so it's I have a lot of respect for people who have been fighting like Robin Oaks who is a bisexual activist in the US who's been fighting since the 80s and 90s that is that is strength to keep that fight going and to like Lonnie Calhomano another US so a lot of bi literature and a lot of bi rights especially early early rights were fought for in the US particularly in New York which is also where Stonewall happened and in San Francisco and in those spaces that's also why we have like the B included in LGBT because Lonnie Calhomano did in the March on Washington basically made a fuss and was like we are also here by the way Lonnie again by rights activists first came out as lesbian because it was easier some come out as gay because it's easier and then they decide later that maybe they're bi I mean whatever hypothetically but she then later came out as bi and said actually this is actually who I am and so it's for me this is an important step so again I think it's important to remember that bi isn't just a step like a step from hetero it can be a step from homosexual as well and it can happen at any point in your life like you don't need to decide on your sexual identity forever as much as there is this argument which I think is important that you can't choose whom you love so it's not a mutable thing it's not something you're just deciding willy nilly simultaneously I think we should accept and embrace the fact that sexuality all sexuality can be fluid as in for some people heterosexuality is their phase for some people homosexuality is their phase for some people bisexuality is their phase and that's fine and you different phases are potentially good for different parts of your life anyway that was a long way of saying Lonnie Cahumanu was one of my idols for fighting for the B in LGBT but when she fought for it we couldn't include bisexual because while that's too sexual so they insisted that it's just bi so it's lesbian, gay, bi not bisexual which I thought was an interesting little fact that in the first version of it it was just bi as they cut the sexual up but those are two of my heroes and then there's now there's quite a lot of well not quite a lot there is some representation in film like Villanelle our favorite little bi psychopath does it make you feel good for but that representation is there well as I write about in the book there's a whole genre of bisexual vampires and psychopaths and villains as unfortunately it applies to lots of queer groups and it's the sort of the sexually excessive manipulative character who wants everything and everyone all the time and if you don't see it at face value though like I think with Villanelle to me it's almost she's like a metaphor or representation of women living outside the norm then suddenly it can you know it's still the person you're rooting for you still kind of love her and so in that sense yeah it's still a bi representation even though we also deserve people who aren't psychopaths yes we do we do I'd love to open this up to the floor any questions questions questions questions I think we've got a roving mic I'm going to make you work here we go and now you're even more bi can you go to this person here please right here with the glasses on your left on your left there we go shout out to the lighting designer genuinely hi hi um I'm glad I have a microphone quiet um thanks this was really great I was wondering if you came across in your research or kind of through personal experience how you kind of kept a sense of bi-ness in a monogamous slash um in a monogamous relationship when you're not with someone else who's by um yeah because I feel like I sometimes struggle with that and even if it's like a queer presenting relationship or a straight relationship like not losing that part of myself that is a common struggle that is found in the research on bisexual people and there's sort of two forms of it one is the mixed sexuality relationships that you're talking about so if you're in a monogamous relationship as you said as well earlier Ben it makes it hard to show the bisexuality because you have nothing to show you've got just the one person and so you're always assumed to be either in your case probably lesbian or straight and so that's it leads to the struggle of like no but I'm still me and in mixed sexuality relationships so that could be if you're straight of somebody and your partner is bi or your bi and your partner is gay that can introduce friction and a lack of understanding about sort of the unique aspects of being part of different letters within some sexual identities so I mean I sometimes joke that my partner is the only reason I believe heterosexuals exist you're welcome I love you but we're in a mixed sexuality relationship as well and basically there just needs to be conversation about that and what that means and whether or not that's that you have different ideas about what a relationship should look like and how to make sure that your sexuality just like his heterosexuality I don't want to erase you is important like it's to keep that alive and in bisexual research that is often something that people talk about as like a mixed sexuality relationship as a thing there's also the invisibility of things like motherhood so if you suddenly become a mother and you again the assumption is going to be throughout that the partner you are currently with well a it's mostly going to be assumed that you're heterosexual and then if you are in a female female relationship the assumption is that you're gay and again there it's sort of constantly trying to assert and show your bisexuality and it can feel very erasing even more than normal so the answer is it's a shared experience and I think the main way to come out is when you're called so I have a friend who's dating a woman and she regularly said until recently until she changed her mind she just said I'm lesbian because it was easier because she's currently with a woman and so she didn't have to do the explaining she didn't have to do the whole like oh but is one person enough for you question when clearly it was because she'd chosen to be in a monogamous relationship with one person and so she just said she was lesbian and I said I know you're bi why you keep saying you're lesbian like you're doing us all a disservice including yourself so she's now changed her ways but ideally like say it like if someone makes an assumption about you that is incorrect correct them I like that great question um let's go go down the facade going to make you work going to make you work let's do this on your way Jayden G I recently came out as a starfish you got to read the book to know what I'm talking about very very good so my question is really what's next I mean you're you know it's not your first rodeo writing books doing research is kind of what you do and I know you did just allude to it they're saying okay I've written my book now kind of that's it I don't want to do any more bisexual activism but genuinely I guess through the process of writing your book like there must have been things you learned or things you came across you're like okay I need to look into this more and I need to learn more about it so yeah really kind of what next and if it's anything related to what you learned along the way what is it it is uh related and I so I'm going to be doing some work with queer politics at Princeton and going to some countries where activism is needed to include various kinds of queer identities in the conversation and to create protections legal protections for people who are LGBT plus and basically I'm going to be there represent in the B being like we are here too and that is something I'm going to be doing this year so I will be participating in a bit more activism but overall I don't know I mean I didn't expect I'd write this book or that I'd come up publicly as five for that matter so I didn't didn't see any of this coming so I really don't know what's going to happen next I really hope that this book starts conversations and brings bisexual scholars and historians and figures in history and activists into a wider conversation so I was really hoping this to be like an access point for a lot of people who are interested in bisexuality to use and to then work with so in some ways that that's what I see as my role is sort of collecting stuff and being like here it is but what's next we'll see I will continue to be out as bi I mean as long as I identify that way which I presume I will yeah a bit hard now whole book about it but but yeah so I will also be so we're doing four episodes of bi people so bad people anyone here listen to bad people? so bad people the podcast there'll be four special episodes on bisexuality this month so you may have noticed that they've just like changed the whole cover art of the entire podcast to bi people which the whole most of the team is bi which is which is nice and we're bringing some of the stories also things that aren't in the book into the podcast into a mainstream audience BBC on air they can't not see us when we're on their platform so which I'm sure was one of the reasons you wanted to work with the BBC initially yeah yeah let's keep talking about you so bi people so we're doing we're putting out bi people and I hope that that will also help some conversations happen around bisexuality and introduce some people to their own history and related things and also I am going to be going back to bad people and just regular criminal psychology regular my day job as a criminal psychologist which is the thing I have my phd in as well so I am looking for it also to going back and sure weaving queer stories and bi activism within that but mostly focusing on crime in general she busy yes I want to get as many questions in as possible so let's see yeah let's go back up oh to the gentleman there where yeah yeah on your right there we go they're minds oh there's online questions as well oh yes is that what you're going to say no I was going to say there might also be one more book related to queer things oh she even busier there we go come on look it's a secret they just told all of you how exciting yes sir I just wanted to ask a question about attitudes of bisexuals a different attitudes between men and women there was something on some survey that came out last year that was something saying women seem to be very open about admitting it whereas men seem to there's a I don't know what the figures are but a lot fewer men will say that they're bisexual because they seem to feel it's a threat to their sexuality and Ben you said something about women didn't date you because you said you were bi or something like that so and that's interesting that men seem to feel that but also other women seem to feel that when you said it so I'm just what are the percentages between them and why is there that difference why do why do women seem to be okay with it and men don't so you're right that it's as far as the various statistics that I've seen go about half as many men are out as bi as women so there's a massive gender gap and I think the research on that seems to tie it to masculinity and to stereotypes around the idea that bi men are actually gay and that's also something that is often seen in dating scenarios is that as soon as you say you've had sex with men it's like oh well what are you doing with me so that is something we need to deconstruct and accept that bi men also are bisexual and are no less valid than bi women but again the bigger problem is often that all of it's invisible and bi men are even more invisible so there's like layers of invisibility going on and toxicity that comes along with that so I'm going to also point out that you said admitted being bi just came out we're talking about the negative connotation yeah I'm sure just in terms of language it's always nicer to say came out or chose to come out rather than admitted because admitting sounds like a negative thing yeah exactly yeah yeah I'm just pointing it out so yeah so there is a difference between men and women in coming out and yeah I unfortunately that continues to be the case curiously enough the idea that women are more sexual slash more fluid slash given more leeway in terms of exploring their sexuality that is often something that we also see now especially when we talk about things like ooh I was I was bi at university that's the kind of thing you hear it was my phase right the classic bi phase I had a bi phase and that's what often women are talking about not men and that is the opposite of what was the case when first research came out on sexuality so both Alfred Kinsey and Fritz Klein so Alfred Kinsey in the late 40s and early 50s and Fritz Klein who was a bi researcher in the 70s and 80s they both said there's twice as many bi men as bi women I don't know when it switched but sometimes some point between the 70s and me being a kid so 70s and 90s at some point in there that reversed both in terms of the assumptions and the percentages and I think it's probably because more men felt able to come out as gay but I don't know so I think for a while bi was a softer entry point whereas now it's harder all I know is that the apps made it absolutely trash to be bi in London it was damn near impossible um and I to the point like I was wondering whether I was internalising like paranoia about telling women that I was bi because it would always be I think it was easy with it was easy with men to be honest like gay men would always be just trash in terms of being like oh well I'm gonna turn you or whatever it is but with women it was conversations just fizzled out like to nothing people would disappear I had a couple like the unmatching on Tinder that was real gosh where you're like having a conversation a person just disappears or what um there were a number of occasions where I was really just surprised by people's reactions so like I said yeah to the point that I did think that it was me internalising maybe that their response wasn't as negative as I was thinking and then I'm almost projecting what I'm expecting them to be like and that's what's pushing them away deep deep but it was tough it was tough and I know it's something that so many people experience in London like if you're a man telling a woman that you're bi on like a first date I can't even imagine that kudos I can't even imagine doing that because that it would have just gone horribly for me I know for a fact it would have gone absolutely horribly I always had to just scatter the bi in the app somewhere on like the Tinder profile being like a little rainbow or something there that kind of alluded to it yeah wild any other questions let's go to yeah this person here please I think you talking about that kind of experience is really important because I think it is something that we internalize as us having done something or surely we're over interpreting surely that's not what it was it was something else yeah and I think you saying that and then other people perhaps even in this audience saying yeah that is what happened and maybe like we almost like gaslight ourselves when it comes to these things yeah of saying and it's like yes yes it is that is what happened the wind that I did actually find sorry we're coming to your question the wind the wind that I found with that was dating a bisexual okay and when I dated a bisexual woman that's when I was just like oh my god life can be easy I don't need to explain myself to you get it and I think I'm seeing that in a lot of my friends relationships as well that when they do date other bisexuals they are happier anyway yes your question please leaving that one in the air so something I've been struggling with for a while is the bisexual ask which the one of the reasons I think for my sins I work in corporate diversity as well as being ardently and loudly bisexual so that's a whole game but the so what question is often accompanied by like what next if you come out as gay it's like oh okay you're going to ask for like equal parental leave or something and even I mean obviously transphobia is rampant but at least the asks are like relatively clear you want like an inclusively and stuff like that like at least businesses and governments know what you want from them and I think the bisexual question is like do you just want us to be nicer to you is that like don't kill you and don't be a dick like what is next for bisexual activism in a little answer great question what's the ask my ask is for corporations if we're going to stay in the corporate sort of business space if you have rainbows on your walls you've painted your bank in rainbows okay now what and one of the things that you should try and do I certainly my ask would be that if you have an event and you're inviting queer people to this event and maybe you have a panel for your event good job maybe you're even bonus points paying people I mean necessary pay people for being there don't expect all this stuff to be for free which is still depressingly common pay people who are there and get someone who's by on stage like we exist we are around you can find them you can probably find a bisexual oh I know in your workplace especially if you start having messaging that actually includes the be and talks about bisexual issues and erasure and challenges and euphoria and joy and so saying the word and including it in your messaging and talking about biospecific things is really important and making space on your stages for them is as well and that's something I had I'm speaking to a friend of mine who recently came out at work after many conversations with me where I was like do it do it and she was in a position of power so it was low risk in terms of you know her not being able to continue in her career and she said she started by showing up at LGBT plus groups and everyone just assumed because she looks very stereotypically straight everyone just assumed and she's a mom double points right assumed that she was an ally and she's like no I'm the bee and then she went to an event a month later and one of the senior partners came on stage and talked about being bi and she was like this has never happened and she felt so seen and she felt so included and you could just see the energy that comes with that kind of visibility so my ask is talk about bi people include the word include it in your messaging and put bi people on stage love that can I check if we've got online questions some very nice statements online it's a very long thoughtful really gosh okay and there's a lot of people questioning a lot of people who haven't haven't come out just by you who are potentially doing so do we do one of them? well I mean it's really a little bit of a a little bit of a long one rather than the questions so but I mean it's around the idea that is it easier to come out as bi when you're single which is quite an interesting one and and also yeah I think we can answer that okay let's go with that one yeah coming out as bi in a relationship is a mind field especially for you in a monogamous relationship what's your perspective on this I think for me is it's the proof element people want proof and I hate that but they do want proof when I was an answer to LGBT correspondent I went through attitudes comments on Instagram where people were saying why is this straight man going to be the BBC's LGBT correspondent I was like what you literally saw black man muscles like six foot two and four straight and that was it you hadn't done any research about me you hadn't looked into anything you saw my photo and just assumed people want proof they want to see the proof so like I said for bisexual relationships like you need to prove something and I guess if you are single that is easier because you can jump between like ooh look at me I'm bisexual you don't need to prove of course you don't need to but people want you to but people expect you exactly there is an expectation and there's because of the deeply ingrained stereotype that bisexual people can only be satisfied by being in relationships with multiple people at once which by the way also great but not a bi thing like you can be consensually non monogamous and heterosexual also an option that lots of people are choosing that has nothing to do with being bi that's just choosing to be in a relationship with multiple people it's just assumed that for bi people it's a necessity which is a stereotype and the problem is because of that stereotype if you come out in a relationship you're often met with the assumption of oh does that mean you're cheating on me oh does that mean you need more oh does that mean I'm not enough for you and that's the problem it's that that tension can very quickly arise I'm not saying that we shouldn't challenge it and if you are in a relationship and you want to come out as bi that is a good way to have that conversation as well but you're probably going to encounter some negative stereotypes because of that that's how we've been socialized so yeah single is better easier not better easier I love an exclusive can we go to the back please yes to the person in the back on the glasses there we go hello thank you so much I was just going to ask oh so on the asylum issue has anyone suggested taking people at their word and that actually and that actually coming out to a terrifying home office official might be test enough that was a statement and a good statement my question was do you draw a distinction between bisexual and biromantic or does bi cover all of that and actually referring to the Kinsey studies there seems to be a lot of people who would be identifies bisexual but maybe they wouldn't see their romantic destiny as being with somebody with people of both sexes so or all sexes so yes that's my question so I'm a big fan of using the big tent sort of idea of bisexual and so anyone who thinks they are capable of or currently has or has had bisexual attractions so has had attractions to multiple genders that are sexual and or romantic I like to welcome into my tent my by tent because I think there's strength in numbers but ultimately again only you can know what the right label is for you in terms of biromantic one thing that I found fascinating that is changing in the world around us which I think is incredibly promising is that when asking heterosexual identified people if the right person came around would you be able to fall in love with them regardless of their gender over 40% of heterosexual identified people say yes that's a beautiful thing so it's the sort of idea of yeah it hasn't happened yet but it could so I think it's that is where I see the sort of also the need or the desire to write a book where I see a lot of people who I think know about themselves that there's something there but they don't really know how to understand it they don't really know what to call it they don't really know where people like them are and I really want more people to accept that within themselves and to embrace those moments when they're there so I think it's yeah the biromantic thing I think there's a lot of people who identify as heterosexual who probably are open to love beyond gender which is a beautiful beautiful thing I'm going to do one more question I'm just going to push it why not um can we do this person just say yeah thank you I just spotted my editor my former editor hi Rami he's the one who made bad people happen and also by people yes hi um it really interested me at the beginning that you said that it's been difficult and the reason why you wanted to write the book was because you didn't you couldn't find the history and there's nothing really out there I'm a secondary school history teacher and where's the space in culture and education and young people today for history curriculums and schools to start introducing not just by but lgbtq histories and yeah your perspective on that and I don't know if we're doing the best job yet but I think I think you know the conversation of getting people to think about their sexuality like for me personally I didn't question my bisexuality until I was like mid 20s because you know it wasn't even asked of me or the history wasn't there but yeah I'd love your perspective on where education lies within that and young people too yeah so I'm enjoying the shifts in some parts of the world towards more sex and relationships education that includes diverse kinds of family structures and that is something that in the UK also as we know has changed recently and there are massive protests or not massive there were protests very loud protests against inclusive teaching of different kinds of relationship structures I think that that is a really important step I think that California is probably my benchmark as to how we can do it even better which is that there is now a requirement in state schools I think it is there's always the state private division which is a whole another conversation but anyway that in state schools there's now a requirement that schools include in their history classes and in their science classes visibility for women black people and queer people and so there's a requirement that you basically normalised talking about who people were and to specifically because I mean how many of us went to school and we basically learned textbooks filled with only white dudes I know you hate the term white men but it's just like it was the same person over and over and over again and yes of course a lot of white men had a lot of power and did a lot of research because they could but to highlight the stories of subversion and resistance and other groups is so important because as you said earlier you need to see yourself in those fields and that's where you can see a pathway to be that and so I think it's crucial if we can and as teachers if you can to normalise talking about those people and their sexual identities if you know so for example if you are teaching queer history at all like you're talking about pride or stonewall to also highlight the fact that Brenda Howard was a bisexual activist who may also known as the mother of pride sometimes we heroise her a bit but fine who made was responsible for making sure that pride the pride marches that we know today happened and like almost nobody knows that and you can just that's like two sentences and suddenly bisexual people are visible so I think weaving it in and normalising it is a way forward awesome stuff thank you I'm going to wrap up the Q&A there I would like to end on a positive note as well in the final chapter of the book you say that many people for many people being bisexual is an incredible thing it's something they absolutely love so we've touched on some trauma touched on some deep elements but I wanted to end with this quote from someone who was involved in a study about various different aspects of bisexuality and they said rather than being this not that I am this and that I felt like a blossoming flower as I become more fully me and as I'm more comfortable with each petal of my identity I open myself up and look into the sun I love that can I get a round of applause please