The week after posting here that "It's going to be a more interesting than usual Pride season this year. Each one will be judged on how trans-inclusive it is", the Trans Safety Network produced an open letter calling on Pride events across the UK to not allow anti-trans political parties to attend.
BiCon 2025 and Continuity signed it. In doing so, we joined Biscuit and BiCamp.
Trans people have been an integral part of the UK bi community that BiCon is part of from its very start in 1981.
As an event, BiCon has been trans-inclusive since its start in 1984. I sometimes say 'since 1993', but that's just when we had the vote following someone objecting to the policy at the very end of 1992's one.
It's not been up for debate since. It's not going to be up for debate at this one either.
Sexual orientation isn't binary
It's the basis of the community. It was proven beyond doubt decades ago. Even so, somewhere between a quarter and a fifth of the UK population think bisexuality doesn't exist and everyone is either hetero- or homo-sexual.
Gender isn't binary
Gender is a spectrum, like sexual orientation. Some cultures explicitly recognise more than two. Even if someone thinks there are only two, and thinks their definitions are the only 'right' ones, they should recognise that what a 'woman' or a 'man' is varies according to where you are in the world (and when!) They might not like that, of course, but you have to be very well insulated from reality to deny it.
Sex isn't binary
Having the UK's Supreme Court say otherwise this week is just an example of the Douglas Adams joke about "such attitude is based on three things: ignorance, stupidity, and nothing else".
If you don't want to join them, do some reading* that's not presented to you by bigots and you might learn that people's sex anatomy sometimes differs from their sex hormones which sometimes differ from their sex cells or chromosomes.
It's an horrific judgement. The mere fact of it being unanimous, with all five judges agreeing with this garbage, is bad enough.
Their definition of "biological sex" is "the sex of a person at birth", i.e. 'what someone wrote on their birth certificate', presumably after judging their genitals. That choice disagrees with the actual biology more frequently than you might think.
Every time you hear a politician talk about "biological sex" just substitute the words "what someone wrote on a birth certificate" and see how much sense that makes
The level of ignorance of reality is astounding.
The word "bisexual" doesn't get mentioned once in the judgement. It's a bit odd, because it's quite happy to talk about "lesbians and gay men for whom the biological aspect of their same sex attraction is defining". Remind me what the biological bit is… ah, yes, so they listened to people whose defining attraction is to an M or F on a birth certificate.
I'd be astonished if there weren't some people who demand to see an original birth certificate before deciding whether or not they're attracted to someone, but that's not being 'lesbian' or 'gay', that's being batshit.
…
I sometimes moan about the bi community not having external funding. You can't be a 'professional bisexual', at least in any way I'd be happy being, in the way you can be a professional bigot.
But it does mean that we do not have to please any funders, public or private, or worry that if we say 'that judgement is an appalling pile of shit', they'll stop giving us money.
It's going to be a more interesting than usual Pride season this year. Each one will be judged on how trans-inclusive it is.
We're going to stay on the right side of history.
To help with that, I've ordered a couple of hundred enamel badges:
They'll be available for free to attendees. Donations towards the cost are welcome.
* You might need to use Tor or a VPN to access SciHub.
If you've got a colour printer, a PDF you can print out is below.
There are several ways to use it:
1. One A4 poster – just print page one. Stick it up somewhere, with permission.
2. Two A5 posters – use your printer to print the first two pages on one side. If your printer can't do this directly, your PDF viewer may be able to do it. Cut the result in half. Stick them up somewhere, with permission.
3. Two A5 flyers – use it to print the four pages double sided, preferably flipping on the short edge, two pages per side. Cut the result in half. Hand them out / put them in a leaflet rack, with permission.
As the last two pages are deliberately only in B/W, you can also print those one side in a mono laser printer and do a second run through a colour one.
There's also a JPEG version of the colour page that can be uploaded: if you click on it, you'll get a larger version that's 1200 pixels wide by 1700 high. (That's still a bit small to print A4, so if you want to print one, rather than post it somewhere, you're better off using the PDF.)
The text of the other side says:
[begins]
BiCon is…
… a gathering for the bi+ community, by the community.
It's a place where you can be you. Most people who come are somewhere under the bi+ umbrella, but as long as you behave, we don't care what you call yourself.
"No matter where, no matter who, BiCon feels like coming home"
You can come to do stuff – there will be a variety of sessions, from the serious to the very silly, practical ones and talky ones – or just to chill out in a space where being attracted to more than one gender is the norm.
Unlike most Pride events, what happens is generated by the people who come. If you've wanted to find people interested in what you want to do, BiCon is a good place to find them.
It's also non-commercial. It's run by volunteers and ticket prices depend on your resources. Any surplus goes to help enable future events.
We've been going since 1984: it's not just the world's longest running bi event, it's the UK's longest continually running annual LGBTQ+ event!
"BiCon is where I find my tribe", said one person at last year's event. Come and find yours.
Find the next BiCon at next.bicon.org.uk
Other UK bi events:
Bi Pride – biprideuk.org
Bi Camp – bicamp.org.uk
BiFest – bifest.org
[ends]
Want another format? Come up with a better poster / flyer? Email us!
BiCon 2025 flyer (PDF, about 318kB in size.)
It's exactly four months before BiCon 2025, and bookings are now open.
See the page on booking for more details and a link to the booking form.
We can now announce that the venue for BiCon 2025 is..
Nottingham Girls' High School
Arboretum Street,
Nottingham NG1 4JB
It's during their summer holiday break, so we have the venue for three days: Friday 25th July to Sunday 27th July.
There's much more on the site, including how to get there.
Bookings will open in the next week.
I'm just waiting for the venue to send an invoice I can pay before publishing all of the details, but it's extremely likely that BiCon 2025 will be..
.. in Nottingham, near the city's Arboretum park
.. from Friday 25th July to Sunday 27th July.
