A well spent five minutes

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When asked for Purple Prose, my suggestion for some bit of activism in five minutes was 'write something'.

Sometimes you can see it have an effect..

Yesterday, I saw the EuroBiCon Twitter account had retweeted something from Diva's:

"4 ways to meet #lesbians and #bisexual women – here's where you just might meet the girl of your dreams" and a link to an article on their site from 2014.

I read the article and, as I do, made a note of the language in an article that's said to be for lesbian and bi women:

4 Ways to meet lesbians and bi women

"Gay: 6 uses
Lesbian: 8 uses
Straight: 1 use
Bisexual: nowhere
Biphopic 'jokes': 1 use.

#BiErasure"

Someone – thank you Natalya – pointed Diva at this and they responded:

"Very sorry about this. It's an old article that doesn't reflect our values and commitment to bi inclusion and has since been edited."

I can forgive the way that sounds like it was edited before they were pointed at the problems with it, because of the editing that was done:

Before: 'I've become very adept at spotting lesbians in the wild (as in, not in gay bars)'
After: 'I've become very adept at spotting lesbians and bi women in the wild (as in, not in LGBT bars)'

Before: 'another gay woman'
After: 'another gay/bi woman'

Before: 'a lot of lesbians are athletic (or at least the best ones are) and .. a few gay gamers on the team.'
After: 'a lot of lady-loving women are athletic and .. a few gay and bi gamers on the team.'

Before: 'When I came out, I thought my days of playing with balls were over (sorry, I had to) but never fear!'
After: (bi/transphobic 'joke' gone)

Before: 'a lot of the best gay women'
After: 'a lot of the best women'

Before: 'A certain breed of lesbian'
After: 'A certain breed of queer woman'

Before: 'meeting a lot of lesbians this way.'
After: 'meeting a lot of women this way.'

Before: 'a lot of gay women.'
After: 'a lot of queer women.'

Before: '(I have an also lesbian twin sister)'
After: '(I have an also queer twin sister)'

Diva erases lesbians' identity shock! 🙂

Before: 'Your friends know gay women.'
After: 'Your friends know gay and bi women.'

Before: 'handfuls of lesbians just dying to meet you.'
After: 'handfuls of women just dying to meet you.'

Before: 'know any other gay women'
After: 'know anyone'

Before: 'set up a lesbian couple?'
After: 'set up a new same-sex couple?'

Before: 'stalk down those lesbian ladies in your area.'
After: 'stalk down the sapphic women in your area.'

.. so this is what erasing erasure looks like 🙂

Oh, my tip? Well doing bi activism has worked for me in more ways than one, even if that's not why I started doing it.

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