bisexuality

This week is Bisexual Awareness Week, an annual event intended to raise bisexual visibility and combat the marginalization of people who are attracted to both their own and other genders. Bisexuals face challenges not only within heteronormative mainstream culture, but within LGBTQ culture as well. Their identity is often challenged by straight and gay alike, and they're frequently compartmentalized as straight or gay based on their past, current, or preferred partners. Bisexual Awareness Week exists to challenge these preconceptions. To mark the occasion, artist Kris Anka posted an image of some of his favorite bisexual comics heroes and villains on Twitter. His picks included John Constantine, Catwoman, Psylocke, Mystique, and Prodigy --- all confirmed on-panel bisexual characters --- plus a sixth character that some fans were surprised to see; Wonder Woman. Is Wonder Woman bisexual?

It's Celebrate Bisexuality Day today, also called Bisexual Visibility Day -- a day to celebrate and promote recognition of those who are sexually attracted to people of more than one gender. The day exists because people with non-monosexual queer identities face unusual challenges in being recognized by both mainstream and queer cultures, yet visibility helps break down barriers and encourage acceptance. In superhero comics, the problem of bisexual invisibility is as ingrained as anywhere; the medium struggles to acknowledge the existence of anything that didn't exist in The Honeymooners or The Andy Griffith Show, unless it's a space god, a shapeshifter, or a parasitic psychic monster. Having a character say, "I'm bisexual" is apparently more implausible than any of those things. There are signs that the industry is changing in this regard -- but slowly, and rather half-heartedly.