By Joseph Erbentraut
On the heels of a few admittedly dormant years, bisexual Chicagoans are re-emerging on the city's activist scene this fall with the formation of a new group called Bisexual Queer Alliance Chicago.
Led by co-organizers Br. Michael C. Oboza and Ed Negron, bi-identified community members gathered Oct. 16, for the organization's first meeting at the Center on Halsted. Among the group's goals are increasing visibility of the city's bisexual community and encouraging members to both show up and speak up within broader LGBT circles.
"Bisexuals are visible in New York, San Francisco, Fort Wayne, Ind. and Minneapolis, but not so much in Chicago," Oboza said. "But as long as I'm here, that's not going to happen again."
According to Negron, the initial response from other LGBT organizations has been overwhelmingly welcoming. He hopes the organization will ride that momentum through the coming months as they begin to establish themselves.
"Yes, we've been invisible in Chicago for a long time, but I think we need to take ownership for that. It was more [ due to ] us not being out there, not being active as a group," Negron said. "The way I take it is they have been holding a seat for us, waiting for us to reclaim it when we're ready."
Negron and Oboza both acknowledged their new group owed credit to Noel Spain who, in 2008, founded a bisexual Meetup.com social group that has since grown to over 200 members. The group follows in the tradition of a long history of bisexual activism in Chicago, dating at least back to the formation of a group called Chicago BiWays in 1978.
Other groupsincluding Chicago Bi-Women, Chicago Bisexual Network and the Bisexual Political Action Coalition ( BiPAC ) , co-founded by Paige Listerud in 1987 and active through the mid-'90scame and went, but nothing stuck. This groupincluding Listerud and Spain, both present at Saturday's meetinghopes to change that.
Among Bisexual Queer Alliance Chicago's initial goals are establishing a web presence, including generating some of their own media, and potentially creating a "speaker's bureau" program to identify advocates who can represent the organization at LGBT community events and rallies. They also will make it a point to support the bisexual-centric programming already in place in the cityincluding the Meetup.com group and bisexual events held monthly at the Center on Halsted.
Group members spoke about their experiences of discrimination against their sexual identity, often from other queer people. Negron described losing several gay friends when he began to identify more openly as a bisexual man following his efforts in organizing the Bi Health Summit in conjunction with the National LGBTI Health Summit last year in Chicago.
One woman at the meeting described her difficulties being accepted as queer while in a long-term relationship with a man. That experience encouraged her to get involved with the organization.
"It really, really hurt," she said. "I felt invisible. I didn't even know what that word meant, actually ... But I didn't want to be called straight. It kind of offended me because it's not who I am."
Organizers for the group plan to keep it a traveling one for now, meeting in different locations that cater to people throughout the Chicago area. Next month's meetingalready scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 6will be held at a member's home in Rogers Park.