Bethan's Radio Interview Transcript

Download radio interview here.

00:00 Presenter:
So Bethan, you're part of the Birmingham Bisexual Group, running the workshop that we did at the LGBT consortium. I just wanted to actually talk to you a little more casually about the work that you do because it's really interesting because we talk about bisexuality all the time and Ophelia Bits who works with us and has a few programmes identifies as bisexual and really wants to bring about more awareness about it.

Now I mean it must be a bit like Big Brother shouldn't it getting a load of bisexual men and women together in the same room you don't know what might happen next!

00:29 Bethan:
(laughs)

Sorry, not quite! Erm. Get a load of bisexual men and women in a room and you get much what happens when you get anyone else in a room, usually you talk about Dr. Who. And when people get together in a group, usually it comes down to the books you've read, how hard it was to get here, the weather and what happened last week on Torchwood.

And usually it's just good that we can get people together in a room and not have to justify who we are and not spend the whole time fighting and saying y'know we're people as well, we're not going through a phase, we're not one of these myths that you've heard about and not have to justify our existence every other minute.

1:01 Presenter:
You mean bi's don't just sit on the fence?

1:07 Bethan:
Sadly no, we get out there and we make our own decisions as well.

1:11 Presenter:
I mean that's a quite an interesting one you know, but I mean surely though, once you've made a committment to some one &emdash; usually one person that would then identify your sexuality, no?

1:22 Bethan:
Well people don't usually make a committment to one person anymore. Definitely when I was younger and I was going out with people, I once went out with someone with blue eyes and my partner at the moment has blue eyes but I've gone out with loads of people who've had brown eyes in between. And bisexuality is usually just not looking at the gender of your partner when you choose them and looking at...

1:44 Presenter:
Colour of their eyes.

1:45 Bethan:
Looking at the colour of their eyes, or just looking at the personality and the person you fall in love with. rather than what they've got between their legs!

1:50 Presenter:
Oooh okay, yeah. I mean you say people don't just go for one person any more you. You're saying you're promoting promiscuality, err promiscu people being promiscuousness.

2:00 Bethan:
Well no, cos that's not what people are looking for. If you look at. I mean if you look at your relationship history have you met one person when you fell in love and stayed with them right up until now?

2:14 Presenter:
I have never met anyone longer than three months, so it's pointless asking me that!

(laughter)

But it's interesting topic, cos I was actually speaking to a family member who could not get their head around bisexuality and it must be quite difficult for parents because they can't - they don't know what's going to happen with you - I mean, is that the most, is that going to be the most challenging thing for bisexuals, is they actually come out to their family and say "I'm bisexual" and the response is like "well which one are you?"?

2:40 Bethan:
Well it's an issue we have to face, as I do have a worry that one day I'm going to fall in love with a guy and have him as my lifetime partner and my dad will do a wedding speech and say "Once upon a time my daughter was Gay!" - and it's a personal worry of mine.

But, Even if you find only one person when you're 16 fall in love with them and stay with them till they're 80 it's looking at bisexuality is when you look at the personality of a person rather than their gender first. To me as a bisexual it seems strange that people only allow themselves to fall in love with half of the human race and totally ignore the other half. When there's loving, kind and amazing people who are both men and women.

3:30 Presenter:
Where can we get information on your organisation?

3:32 Bethan:
We've got a website on brumbigroup - that's all one word - that's http://www.brumbigroup.org.uk and that's about our group.

There's the - about the whole bisexual community - there's a newsletter which comes out every other month called the Bisexual Community News you can find out about that on http://www.bicommunitynews.co.uk and bicommunitynews is all one word again.

And in Manchester there's a group called BiPhoria which is biphoria all one word with ph http://www.biphoria.org.uk

And also once a year there's also something called a BiCon where we all get together on a university campus and there's usually a few hundred people who are bisexual, bisexual allies, friends of bisexuals, partners of bisexuals and we all have workshops on activism and usually people bring their kids along and generally there's a bouncy castle and everyone has a good time. And...

4:38 Presenter:
And I was gonna say that cleans things up, when you actually say "We're going to get a load of bisexuals together on a university campus" one thing springs to mind.

(laughing)

But when you've got kids and a bouncy castle, that kinda dilutes that...

4:45 Bethan:
Yeah it's the kids, bouncy castle and face painting that really takes away a lot of the myths. And also a few times a year there's BiFests which happen in London, Brighton and Manchester, where it's a day long event rather than BiCon which is a few days long. And a day long event where usually there's activism in the morning, talk about what's going on and then a party in the evening.