Every 23 September since 1999, International Bisexuality Day, also known as Bisexual Awareness Day, is commemorated, a date that not only seeks acceptance, inclusion and tolerance towards people who like both sexes, but is also a cry for the admission that to some extent we are all different and have the freedom and the right to enjoy it, as long as we do not harm anyone.

This particular date arose from the initiative of three bisexual activists in the United States. They were Wendy Curry, Gigi Raven and Michael Page.

Tired of widespread discrimination against their social group, both by heterosexuals and the LGBTI community, they decided to make the problem visible and call for an end to such intolerance.

What does it mean to be bisexual?

According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), a bisexual is a person who has sexual relations with a person of the same gender as well as with a person of a different gender.

This continuous change of tastes is what has led the bisexual community to be rejected by the rest of the sexual diversity groups, but over time this seems to have diminished.

Perhaps the main reason why this stigmatisation or rejection has subsided within the LGBTI community is because almost 50% of its members are in fact bisexual, but as people are often labelled by their partner of choice, knowing who is or is not bisexual is not as simple a task as in the case of heterosexuals or homosexuals.

What does the bisexual flag mean?

The bisexual community has the peculiarity of having its own flag, designed by one of the founders of this movement, the activist Michael Page. Its colours mean: fuchsia means attraction to people of the same sex, blue means attraction to people of the opposite sex and purple means the whole spectrum of sexuality between the two genders.