Introducing the Bi Girls Club
- November 9, 2017
- News
Hey, bbys!
I realized that I was bisexual at a very young age but it would be years before I became someone who was proud of her identity. And when I did, I couldn’t shut up about it. That’s what happens when you are finally embracing something about yourself that you’ve been taught to hate.
Pride month is my annual reminder that loving my love was a journey. I mean, it still is. But every June, I think of the adolescent version of myself who was committed to holding pieces of her love back forever, to remaining invisible, and I honor her.
The problem is: bisexual people have to do a little more to make ourselves visible. We’re often lumped in with other groups although our needs and experiences are fundamentally different. People either think everyone is a little bisexual or they doubt our existence entirely. Bi women and femmes are seen as inherently attention-seeking and then we’re hypersexualized — which informs higher rates of sexual and intimate partner violence. And as we deal with issues specific to this community, our invisibility means that the organizations that serve us go underfunded.
In that context, I didn’t just want to be visible as a member of the LGBTQ+ community during Pride. I wanted to be visibly bisexual. I would browse stores for the bisexual flag colors — pink, blue, and purple — but I typically only saw rainbow flags and cliches on t-shirts. So I decided to create what I wasn’t seeing and to use it as a way to give back.
I launched Bi Girls Club as a fundraiser for Bi Net USA and to practice visibility but it has grown beyond that in a very short amount of time. I accidentally created this loving, supportive community of bi girls/femmes. I saw that I wasn’t the only person searching for a brand like this one. So I can no longer goodbye when June is over, Bi Girls Club is here to stay.
I’m still figuring things out. I’m learning literally on the job. I thought I’d sell two or three t-shirts to my friends but today, I had to teach myself to update shipment tracking info for thirty different orders. Things might be a little rocky for a bit — but I also have so many loving people helping me out. And I guess that’s the beauty of Bi Girls Club. Even when it might feel like it, I’m never doing this alone.
xx,