This page is based on the notes used by the various co-leaders of this session at BiCon 2005. Specifically, this is based on the version used for the final re-run, after things had been changed during BiCon.
Many thanks again to Cat, Marcus, Anna and Bethan for their leadership, support, and wise feedback "on the day(s)" about what worked and what didn't.
For more about the context of this session, you might like to look at these other things: part II of my BiCon 2005 report, The challenge of designing something replicable, and the original version from 2002.
[Note: Explanations shown like this were to give details or clarify the purpose of various bits, for the leaders' information. Anything in square brackets was a note for the leaders, rather than something for the leaders to say to the participants.]
[Paper, stickers and pens as they come in.
Count number of people in the room to predict how division into 3s will work.]
- mostly in small groups and I'll give questions for you to talk about amongst yourselves
- some writing which we'll then put up on the wall
[close session at this point - don't want people coming in after ground rules]
- Usual ones about confidentiality and speaking for yourself. We're going to add 3:
- Any questions about ground rules?
- two or three roles or identities or interests you have or facets of your life. Or only one if you only want to do one.
- When we say "identity", we don't just mean the sexuality ones. We mean any word or label that you use to describe yourself, or to describe your history, or a community that you belong to.
- We're only going to go round once, and after that you'll be getting into your small groups. So if you specially want to hook up with people you have something in particular in common with, like for instance meeting other bi parents or other Christians or other ex-Lesbians, then you might want to advertise that facet of yourself. But otherwise you can just choose anything.
- could be based on a work role or a family role, like doctor or bus driver or parent of teenagers
- could be based on history, e.g. ex-bus driver
- could be based on an interest you have like cycling, or knitting, or writing, or playing music, or listening to music
- could be based on political or religious beliefs, or nationality
- could be based on sexuality or gender (inc bi if you id as bi)
- favourite kind of food.
- could be anything you like.
[a lot of blurb here, but this is partly to give them time to think and time to settle in while you're talking]
- As you're thinking about identities and roles, notice how comfortable or uncomfortable you are with outing yourself "as that" in this group. You might think "Oh, don't say that one, say another one!" Like, what are the identities that are easy to claim here.
[this sows the seeds for the identity continuum thing later]
I'll start...
[space here for your own notes]
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.
.
Who else is ready to go?
[Look round for someone who's ready to go; Then go round circle. Or in the case where there's 2 leaders, other leader can go next.]
- in a moment we'll get into groups of three
- feel free to accost people who you think you'd like to talk to
- if you're the last few people & you can't make a three, make a two, or two twos. Don't make a four, because if you're in a four, someone won't get their turn to talk.
Off you go. [take a hand if necessary.]
- I want to warn you now that these are quite juicy questions and we're not going to spend very long on each one. So it's likely that you'll just be getting into a question when we give you another one. So our recommendation is: treat the workshop as a catalyst and continue the interesting questions over lunch.
[This "future-pacing" is to head off frustration at the shortness of time.]
- Whenever we ask a question, we'll tell you how long you've each got to talk about it, and we'll call out "switch" when it's the next person's turn. Remember when it's someone else's turn you just listen to them.
1 minute each, then another 1 minute each:
[6 mins total.]
Whether or not you identify as bi, how do you think of your place in the bi community, or in relation to the bi community?
That could include whether you identify as bi or whether you're connected to the community in some other way;
it could include whether you're quite new to it all or whether you feel like a veteran;
it could include something about your friendships, or whether there's any kind of a bi community near where you live;
it could include more abstract ideas like whether you feel you're on the edge of the community, or in the middle of it, or in it only some of the time, or half in and half out, or whatever.
1 minute each:
[3 mins total.]
- Q - What words would you use to describe or label yourself in the area of sexuality? And are you happy with those words, or are they compromise words for you, that you use because there isn't a better word or because they are the words that other people would understand?
1 minute each, then another 1 minute each:
[6 mins total.]
- Q - How at home do you feel at BiCon so far, and why or why not? It may have gone up or down during the time that you've been here. What made you feel at home and what made you feel not at home?
- get pens & ordinary paper.
- When you've written on your piece of paper, we're going to stick them all on the wall and I'll read them out.
[this is partly so they know not to write anything they wouldn't want others to see, and also so they know not to write it in a notebook of their own instead.]
[up on display:
"In the bi community/at BiCon
everyone seems ______________
but I'm ______________"
"In the bi community/at BiCon,
people seem to assume that ______________,
but I'm _____________"
"Before I came to BiCon, I imagined
that people there would be _________________
and I might be the only __________]
Some background and context for this...
First of all: This is about an impression that you might have had, and on reflection it might not be strictly true.
In reality it might only be "most people" or even just "a few people", not everyone.
But even taking that into account, some people dislike writing anything in this kind of format because of the way it's a generalisation about other people, which is perhaps part of what we've come here to get away from.
So feel free to rephrase it if you can't make this version fit at all. But what we're getting at is any situation or flavour where you get an impression that you're the odd one out, or different, or in the minority, and you start thinking "BiCon's supposed to be diverse, where are all the other people like me?"
[Writing time - they can talk as they write if they want to.]
[Everyone sticks them up on wall.]
[Session leader(s) read(s) them out, in a tone of voice implying "that's a good one", maybe a bit humorous, not adding significance or drama.]
[Text on ends of continuum display is:
Easy to come out as / discuss in the bi community (in general)
Hard to come out as / discuss in the bi community (in general)]
Back into small groups.
This next exercise harks back to the first go-round.
1 minute each, then another 1 minute each:
[6 mins total.]
- Q - Aside from bisexual (if you identify as bisexual), what are some of your other identities or circumstances, and how do you feel about that identity or circumstance when you're in the bi community? (Again, when we say "identity", we mean any word or label that you might use to describe yourself, your history or a community that you belong to.)
[By now they should already have (paper) labels to write on - check everyone has some.]
- Next we're going to make a big picture of all these identities on this continuum:
[Read out continuum end text. "at this end we have..."]
The basic idea is
- Take a couple of minutes to write down as many of your identities or circumstances as you like, each on a separate label.
Then when you're ready, you can come and stick them onto the paper, and the place where you put them will depend on how you feel about that particular label.
First some background:
- Note the wording: easy to
- A limitation of this exercise is that we've only got one continuum here and in fact there may be different bits of the bi community where your answers would be different. For instance you might feel comfortable talking about something in your local bi group and less comfortable here.
We discussed this in a previous running of this same session, and decided we'd take BiCon as the test case. So if it varies, you can do it as how you'd feel at BiCon.
Or if that doesn't quite satisfy you, do what makes sense for you. Another possibility is you could put the same words on more than once in different places.
- Another apparent limitation is that if you've only just got to BiCon and this is your first taste of the community, you might not have all that much experience to base this on. You might think "well how am I supposed to know, I've only just got here?".
But actually that's OK, because even if you only go by your feelings right now in this room, you can probably tell that there are some things you'd be happy to start talking about and some things where you'd wait to know people better or feel a bit cautious about how you'd be judged. And it's true that your ideas might change later as you get more real life experience, but that's actually true for everyone.
- This brings us onto an interesting dynamic of this exercise.
- On the one hand, at first glance we're asking you to think about the community.
- On the other hand, we're talking about your personal feelings. And you might find that for one of your identities, you think that would be easy to talk about at BiCon, so you stick it up this end <<. But then you see that someone else has put the same one over there >> and you realise for them it's different.
Couple of practical points:
- We're going to leave this up on the wall till the end of BiCon, so that it can accumulate more labels. So if you think of one later, you can always pop back and add it. Also if there are any that you'd like to add but you have a concern about outing yourself, you can wait and do them when there's no-one about.
- You can add identities or circumstances that aren't currently true for you as long as you have experienced them at some time. E.g. if you've never identified as monogamous, then don't write down monogamous at all. But if you used to be monogamous and now you're not, you can still put up a sticker based on your memories of how that was.
[Set the amount of time for this according to how much time remains in the session. Minimum is perhaps 2 minutes, max more like 4 or 5. If short of time, tell them they can stick more stickers after the final go-round.]
If time, in small groups:
- Q - Take (a minute/two minutes*) each to share anything you want to share about any of this.
* depending on remaining time - or skip if you need to be getting on to next bit
Then back into main circle. (About 8-10 mins before end, or longer if group is specially big.)
- One thing you'll carry on thinking about after this session is over.
If the session finishes early, invite people to stay if they want to put more labels up, or leave if they'd rather.
The end!
Here's a pic of the paper strip upon which we stuck our stickers during the "identity continuum" exercise. We kept the same piece of paper throughout all four times the session ran, so this is the cumulative result:
D