This weekend, BiNet USA launches the Bi Stories project with a panel at Comic-Con in San Diego, a project that invites bisexual community members (including those who identify with labels like pansexual, fluid, queer, polysexual, and other terms that denote attraction to people of more than one gender) to share our stories. The project focuses specifically on bisexual people’s experiences with discrimination, and the journeys of our family members toward embracing our identities.

As the larger LGBTQ community continues to gain visibility and see their stories represented in every arena from television to political campaigns, bisexual people’s stories still aren’t being told. We are still too often rendered invisible in LGBTQ spaces and represented in stereotypes that suggest our identities aren’t real or valid.

It is no surprise then, that bisexual people suffer major disparities when compared to our lesbian, gay, and non-LGBTQ peers — we are sicker, poorer, and more prone to mental illness and suicidality. Bisexual youth are dying by suicide at alarming rates and have lower levels of social support than their gay and lesbian peers.

Bisexual youth and adults need to see stories of people like us. In the face of these challenges, they need to see the incredible diversity of the bisexual community, hear of how other bisexual people have overcome biphobia and discrimination, and see how our families have come to embrace and even celebrate us.

We need to be empowered to tell our stories on our own terms, and the BiNet USA Bi Stories project gives us a place to do just that. The panel at Comic-Con this weekend, Sunday, July 24 at 3 p.m., “Bisexuality and Beyond: New Frontiers in Popular Culture,” sponsored by the BiNet Bi Stories Project and Prism Comics will look at how bi stories are changing and becoming more prominent in popular culture, and we hope these stories will inspire others to share theirs.

Share your stories of experiencing discrimination as a bisexual person at binetusa.org/bistories and follow along with the panel on social media using the hashtag #bistories.

Full story at The Advocate.