Nicole Kristal

#StillBisexual Campaign Founder Fights For Visibility

EDGE READ TIME: 2 MIN.

Concerned that attitudes toward bisexuals have not changed much in the past 20 years, #StillBisexual advocate Nicole Kristal is pushing forward with the video campaign she began in 2015, to try and let people know that her identity is valid.

In a recent report on NBCNews.com, Kristal spoke about the biphobia she has experienced from both straight and LGBT communities since her college days at University of Oregon more than 20 years ago.

The 39-year-old TV script coordinator from Los Angeles said that lesbians tell her "we don't want your kind here," fearing that bisexual women will always go back to men, while straights just think that she's a freak or slut.

"What happens is bisexuals come out to straight people who don't really understand it and don't take it seriously and think it's going to go away, or they go to a gay bar and they come out to people there and they're told that their identity is not valid," Kristal said.

It caused her so many problems while dating, that she both co-authored the book, "The Bisexual's Guide to the Universe" in 2006, and decided to start the video project #StillBisexual.

"I thought I'll make a video about how I've been bisexual since I came out, and I've stayed bisexual for 20 years, and I'm going to be bisexual for the rest of my life," said Kristal.

She got friends to also make videos, and through social media, more and more bisexuals submitted their stories. She knew the campaign had made its mark when bisexual actresses Sara Ramirez and Evan Rachel Wood started following it on Twitter.

"I want them [bisexuals] to realize early on that their identity is valid," she said. "Most of all, I want them to have the same opportunities for love that anyone else does."

According to GLAAD, bisexuals experience "alarming rates of invisibility, societal rejection, violence, discrimination, and poor physical and mental health -- often at rates higher than their lesbian and gay peers."


by EDGE

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