Bisexual Awareness Week 2025
Bisexual Awareness Week 2025
Bisexual Visibility Day, celebrated on 23 September each year, stands as an opportunity to recognise and celebrate bisexual people and the bisexual community. In 2014, the celebration was expanded to Bisexual Awareness Week, enabling an extended focus on education and raising awareness of bisexual issues to the wider population in addition to celebrations.
A bisexual person is romantically, emotionally, and/or sexually attracted to people of the same gender, and people of different genders as themselves. Bisexuality is often misunderstood to mean attraction to only men and women. This misunderstanding is probably rooted in the fact that the prefix “bi” means 2, and the fact that many used to think that there are only 2 genders (man and woman). In reality, bisexuality does not exclude non-binary genders in its definition, and the umbrella term bi+ can be used to cover additional identities such as pansexual and omnisexual.
Bi Community News reported in January, on the basis of the 2023 ONS survey results, that 987,000 people identified as bi across the UK, up from half a million before the pandemic. In addition, there was a distinct gender split as 2.8% of men identify as gay, but only 1.5% as bi, while 1.2% of women identify as lesbian, and 2.2% as bi. As with other such findings, when broken down by age group younger people are more likely to identify as bi, gay or lesbian, and older people less likely.
However, despite the growing number of people who identify as bisexual, they still face discrimination, including things such as homophobia but also bi erasure. Bi erasure is the tendency to ignore, deny, or misrepresent bisexuality, often by simplifying sexual orientation to a binary of straight or gay. This can manifest as dismissing bisexuality as a "phase" or seeing it as a stepping stone to being gay or lesbian, leading to negative impacts like isolation and mental health issues for bisexual individuals. Combatting it involves more positive representation, increased education, and respectful dialogue that acknowledges the validity of bisexual identities.
So to our wonderful bisexual community, we see you, you are valid, and you are always welcome here!
For more information, follow any of the links below, get in touch with us at leadership@outmaking.games, or join us over on our Discord - we’d love to hear from you!
Jasmin Fox - Out Making Games
Resources
Stonewall Bi Hub - https://www.stonewall.org.uk/resources/lgbtq-hubs/bi-hub
Glaad - https://glaad.org/biweek/
BiCon - https://bicon.org.uk/ (next event scheduled for 2026)
Bi Pride UK - https://biprideuk.org/
Bi Community News - https://bicommunitynews.co.uk/
Jasmin Fox - Out Making Games
