Spectrum held a "BIases" conversation on Sept. 22 in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center to discuss biases in sexuality.
The group shared some of the societal biases bisexual people face. These include the belief that bisexuals are cheaters, always down for threesomes, promiscuous, trendy, don’t exist, in denial, afraid of commitment, confused, greedy and can’t pick a side.
Mariann Fant, president of Spectrum, said this was the first meeting the organization has had covering this topic with an interactive activity.
The activity involved giving everyone a bag with certain amounts of pretzels and/or Goldfish. Students then gathered and had to meet new people and share what they had in their bag with each other.
After everyone finished meeting, Spectrum pulled up a slide that displayed the rules of who could and who could not talk. For example, if someone had Goldfish they would only be able to talk to people with pretzels.
The activity was meant to show the biases toward people under the umbrella of bisexuality and the parameters society has put down on them.
Students at the meeting then shared words and phrases they felt accurately represented bisexuals.
Brooklyn Arizmendi, a freshman undecided major, thought the activity did a good job of explaining biases.
“I thought this meeting was really eye opening," Arizmendi said. "It kind of just reminded me of what is happening within our community and outside of it.”
She also said biases aren’t just an issue in the LGBT community but also in race.
Cory Gialamas, a freshman computer science major, said biases inside and outside the LGBT community can be destructive.
“They ruin relationships before they could even get to what they could be,” Gialamas said. “Ignorance is not an excuse.”
He also thought the activity with the pretzels and Goldfish was a clever way to explain what biases were like under the umbrella of bisexuality.
Melody Jensen, secretary of Spectrum, said even though they are not bisexual, they have heard stories from people on campus about the biases against bisexual people.
One of the stories Jensen had heard from people is when they tell someone that they are bisexual and then the other person doesn’t want to talk to them. Another struggle is the way some dating apps are set up with only two options for people interested in women or in men and not both.
“It’s very important that people know that if someone is bisexual or in one of these middle sexualities they are human beings just as much as you are,” Jensen said. “Think of them as a human being and not as a label.”
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