25th Anniversary Edition of Bi Any Other Name Pubbed by RAB

Riverdale Avenue Books Releases

Bisexual Classic on September 23^rd

Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out

25^th Anniversary Edition

Celebrate International Bisexuality Day

Then: Bi Any Other Name is one of the most comprehensive, well-edited anthologies I have ever read. It may be deemed the Bisexual Bible. - Lambda Book Report, 1991

Now:  I am part of the generation that came of age when Bi Any Other Name was already in print. This groundbreaking anthology gave me the language, courage and sense of community I needed as a young queer woman. —Daisy Hernández, A Cup of Water Under My Bed 

New York, NY – September 23, 2015 – The 25^th anniversary edition of Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out by Lani Ka’ahumanu and Loraine Hutchins was published by Riverdale Avenue Books on International Bisexuality day 2015. This groundbreaking anthology rode a wave of grassroots organizing and catalyzed a national movement for bisexual identity, justice and equality. The coming out stories of women, men, transgender bisexuals, teenagers to octogenarians, from many different cultures and family arrangements reflect the many ways bisexuals embrace life. This book was on Lambda Book Review’s Top 100 GLBT Books of the 20th century and in 2007 a Mandarin translation was published in Taiwan.  The new introduction updates readers to the enormous cultural changes of the past quarter century.

About Co-editors:

Lani Ka’ahumanu is often regarded as the strategic political architect of the U.S. bisexual movement. She has a 40+ year career instigating and mobilizing social justice actions, campaigns, street theater and cultural events while challenging bisexual invisibility and ignorance within the HIV/AIDS and health industries. She co-founded the first bisexual feminist political action group BiPOL [1983], San Francisco Bay Area Bisexual Network [1987] and BiNet USA [1987].

Loraine Hutchins is a 4^th generation Washingtonian who co-founded BiNet USA and Washington, DC’s AMBi – the Alliance of Multicultural Bisexuals. She is a youth advocate and independent scholar who helped build the communications and development capacities of many social justice non-profits. After earning her doctorate in Cultural Studies, Hutchins teaches multi-disciplinary health, sexuality, gender, and women’s studies courses at Maryland’s Montgomery College.

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What They Are Saying about This Classic Title

When I was young, I was hurt by political ringmasters who said they wouldn’t talk, sleep or work with me because I was “bisexual.”  Now that I’ve talked, worked and slept with them all, I know their secret. They desire what they condemn. The bisexual community was waiting for this classic long before its publication. Read it.” 

Susie Bright, sexpert

To say that Bi Any Other Name is a “classic” in the field of sexuality studies is, in many ways, to miss its true importance.  It was -- and in many ways still is – a “classic,” but also “the only one of its kind.”  Bi Any Other Name remains one of the only texts that situates bisexuals *speaking for themselves*within a rich intellectual context.  It models an approach to bisexuality in particular, and sexuality in general, that has few antecedents and fewer rivals.  It is, quite simply, an indispensable text.

Jonathan Alexander, Ph.D., co-author, Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies

 The LGBTQ movement still fails to enlist the power, voice and leadership of millions of bisexual people. This essential and compelling book argues against erasure, and powerfully evokes the liberatory power of bisexuality and bisexual activism through engaging stories, original theory, vivid history and analysis. Bi Any Other Name presents moving testimony from scores of bisexual organizers and innovators who remain the LGBTQ movement’s most visionary leaders. This is a must-read book for anyone working for social justice.

Urvashi Vaid, Irresistible Revolution:  Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics.

Bi Any Other Name is a must read for those in and out of the bisexual community. The anthology is pertinent in a time where bi voices are all but unheard in reflecting the diverse experiences of the bisexual community.
Eliel Cruz, The Advocate, Mic, and Religion News Service 

   

This book is a touchstone, a declaration, a call to (loving) arms, and a wake-up call. This is the book you read from cover to cover, over and over, internalizing and savoring its insights like fine wine: aged to perfection, transporting you back to the start of the movement, and carrying you forward. This is history – on the move.

Gary North, Co-founder: BiNet USA

As leaders in PFLAG for the past 25 years, the issues addressed in Bi Any Other Name have become increasingly familiar to us and to our chapter members through our monthly meetings.  The timing of this new edition is excellent.  The book will be accessible to younger generations and their families with current, important information.
Julia and Sam Thoron

While much has changed for LGBTQ youth over the past 25 years – their need

to connect and learn about others like them has not.  Bi Any Other Name is an amazing

resource to help bisexual youth – who sometimes face challenges in finding a home in a community which tends to focus on its gay and lesbian members – truly understand that they are not alone.  Considering recent events and the reality that there are still not nearly enough publications out there for bisexual youth – an update to this book is both timely and helpful in our movement’s efforts to support and engage LGBTQ youth.

Greg Varnum, Executive Director, National Youth Advocacy Coalition

In the two and a half decades since Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out was originally published; one of the most remarkable changes has been the alignment of bisexuals and the transgender community. Yes, both groups challenge gender/sexuality binaries, but we share something even more basic: we refuse to give up parts of ourselves to make other people comfortable.  This is both our greatest strength and what makes us most threatening to others: our existence reminds people of what pieces of themselves and their loved ones that they may have sacrificed, and asks them whether those sacrifices are worth it. Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out shows both how far we have come in two decades, and how far we still have to go.

Loree Cook-Daniels, FORGE, Transgender Aging Network

Since 1991, Bi Any Other Name has been part of the adventurous, exhilarating and exhausting life/lust/love trips of many bisexuals around the world, including academics and activists. In 1991, I was an Australian lecturer/student embarking on a PhD into cultural, gender and sexual diversities. BAON dared to name and proclaim that all those identities did co-exist, could mean multiple things to many, and were “hidden in plain sight”.  Since then, BAON has never left my Uni bookshelves, always ready to be referenced in my own work and shared with students, and many more who confidently proclaim their bisexuality.

Dr. Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli

School of Health and Social Development

Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia

Bi Any Other Name continues to be incredibly relevant, which is a testament to the thoughtfulness of the writers and the breadth of material included by the editors.  But it also reflects how relatively little has been published about the lives of bisexual people in the intervening years.  The experiences of bisexuals continue to be ignored or marginalized in many discussions of sexuality and gender.  A growing number of cisgender lesbian and gay activists and scholars have (finally) begun to recognize the importance of including and acknowledging trans people in their communities, movements, and research, but in the process, many have skipped over the “B” in “LGBT.”  BAON can again serve to challenge the silencing of bisexual lives and be an inspiration for another generation of bi, pan, and sexually fluid people. 
Genny Beemyn, Ph.D.
Director, the Stonewall Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst:

For many of us, this anthology was the first bi community we ever knew. This book saves and changes lives, and I wholeheartedly recommend that you invite it into yours. Hutchins and Ka’ahumanu are as insightful and honest today as when their groundbreaking Bi Bible first appeared. 

Margaret Robinson, PhD
Researcher in Residence in Indigenous Health
The Ontario HIV Treatment Network
Affiliate Research Scientist.

"Anthologies can change people's lives. I know because they have changed mine. They provide us with opportunities to have a symphony of experience wash over and through us, saturating our every pore with wisdom born of lives, diverse and full. Bi Any Other Name, published in 1991 is such an anthology. Now in ebook form so that a new generation of readers can submerge and be the better for it."

Dr. Herukhuti
Founder, Center for Culture, Sexuality and Spirituality

Bi Any Other Name is a tremendously valuable book.  I have used it with many clients over the years, to help them clear their own sexual confusion. I am so glad to see a new edition of this book, which I will use with many clients yet to come.

Tina B. Tessina, PhD, LMFT, Gay Relationships: How to Find Them, How to Improve Them, How to Make Them Last.

SELECTION OF ORIGINAL 1991 BLURBS

"Young voices speak next to old, lawyers next to factory workers, blacks next to whites next to Asians; single people and people in group marriages are given equal time. After reading even part of this thick book, bisexuality seems so natural that the reader begins to wonder what all the fuss is about. And that's the beauty of Bi Any Other Name." --Philadelphia City Paper

“Rejected by both gay and straight worlds, bisexuals have been a community in exile. With this rich and varied collection, however, bisexual women and men step forward into their own historical spotlight. The writing here, challenging and authentic, can only deepen our discussions about passion and politics.” 

Joan Nestle, cofounder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, author of The Restricted Country, editor of The Persistent Desire

“These urgent testimonials lead us into a sexually whole society where, with our varied queerness, we are welcome. This is a necessary book.”

Judy Grahn, author of Another Mother Tongue, and Blood, Bread and Roses

“The authors debunk the concept that people are either heterosexual or homosexual and that bisexual women and men are fence sitters. Bi Any Other Name will help tremendously in securing for the bisexual community its rightful place within the larger movement for genuine progressive social change – a movement that will ultimately liberate us all.” 

Warren J. Blumenfeld, coauthor of Looking at Gay and Lesbian Life, editor of Homophobia, How We All Pay the Price