San Francisco Bisexual Center

The Bisexual Center, according to it's founders, is a safe haven to promote a more sex-positive environment for bisexual persons. The desire for a place that bisexual persons can be authentically themselves started when a group of people, all of them bisexual, got together and attempted to create a center where they can hold potlucks and gatherings and generally a safe space for bisexuals to celebrate their sexuality without feeling any judgement. The main issue for creating the center however, was the lack of any sort of financial backing, which was the only thing blocking them from success. 

The most prominent person that helped the center become a reality was Dr. Maggi Rubenstein. Rubenstein and her two partners that helped her tremondously, David Lourea and Margo Rila, initially tried to get the amount of money they needed to open up the Bisexual Center in 1974 from the owner of the local paper that was closest to them, The Berkeley Barb, however, this idea has failed. In 1975, Jeanne Pasle-Green, one of Rubenstein's friends, introduced a woman named Harriet Leve to Rubenstein, and Leve supplied some of the financial support and additional energy to fuel this vision of a center that would draw together a bisexual community, which is what she strongly desires as well. Thus, in 1976, Rubenstein and Leve finally gathered together a group of a group of twenty other similarly minded people in Rubenstein's attic to create a plan as to how to open a community center that would be both benevolent and celebratory of people's bisexuality. Many of the others involved from the onset of the Bisexual Center were also psy­chotherapists, counselors, and sex educators, including Rubenstein's helpful friends David Lourea and Margo Rila, and also Alan Rockway, Evelyn Hoch, Hogie Wycoff, Jeanne Pasle-Green, and Vicki Galland. All of these people were fascinated to the idea of a both expanded and inclusive safe haven of sexu­ality that avoided the dichotomy of sexual orientation, which is why the center is centered around bisexuals.

As soon as the Bisexual Center was created, it was intended to be more than simply a social group for bisexuals; as David Lourea put it:

"I knew that the one thing we had all agreed upon was that none of us had the time, interest or energy to devote to an organization that was primarily a place to party...More importantly, we had all experienced the rage of being discounted, invalidated, taken as insincere individuals incapable of any degree of integrity, because of the biphobic notion held by many monosexuals...Dispelling that image was one of our priorities, yet we did not want our existence to be based in reaction to the anti-bi feelings of the gay, straight and lesbian communities...Since we were likely to be the only safe place that served the bisexual community we needed to provide a safe, supportive haven for people to celebrate being bisexual" (Lourea 3)

References

Lourea, David. 1983. The Bisexual Center: More than a social club. The Bi-Monthly. 7(1): 3-4, 8.

Gindorf, R., and EJ. Haeberle. “SAN FRANCISCO'S BISEXUAL CENTER AND THE EMERGENCE OF A BISEXUAL MOVEMENT.” BAY AREA BISEXUAL+ & PANSEXUAL NETWORK, 1998, https://www.babpn.org/sfbc.html.

Rubenstein, Maggi. “A Profile of the San Francisco Bisexual Center.” Journal of Homosexuality, 18 Oct. 2010, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J082v11n01_13.

Parent Map

Map: Race, Gender, Class, Sex

Coordinates

Latitude: 37.771688100000
Longitude: -122.424029700000

Timeline of Events Associated with San Francisco Bisexual Center

Date Event Manage
30 Jun 1977 to 30 Jun 1977

San Francisco Bisexual Center's First Press Conference

On June 30th of 1977, the San Francisco Bisexual Center has had it's first press conference. The speakers of the conference included one of the co-founders Dr. Harriet Leve, and others including Dr. Benjamin Spock, Dr. Phyllis Lyon, Ruth Falk, and Dr. Claude Steiner. These people have spoken up against the anti-gay activist and singer Anita Bryant, as she desired for homosexuals to never be allowed to become school teachers, which is what the speakers are fighting for. 

They have also discussed other civil rights issues as well, but it was Dr. Harriet Leve's goal to get across the fact that "It is imperative for bisexuals to support and form a unity with our gay sisters and brothers in order to demand what's rightfully ours" (Rubenstein 228). This powerful sentiment has perfectly demonstrated what the center is all about, which is the inclusion of every sexual identity and that they all deserve peace and freedom. 

The conference has been broadcasted on two local news TV programs and was reported and talked about by several radio stations all around San Francisco. It has also been included in many newspaper articles, such as The San Francisco Examiner, The Oakland Tribune, and The Bay Area Reporter, all very prominent sources of news during this time. Because of the popularity the conference has created, the Bisexual Center has seen a large increase in it population. Four Hundred and Thirty Five people have joined the center in just a month after the conference has taken place. The San Francisco Bisexual Center was on it's way to prominence. 

Sources

Rubenstein, Maggi. “A Profile of the San Francisco Bisexual Center.” Journal of Homosexuality, 18 Oct. 2010, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J082v11n01_13.

Gindorf, R., and EJ. Haeberle. “SAN FRANCISCO'S BISEXUAL CENTER AND THE EMERGENCE OF A BISEXUAL MOVEMENT.” BAY AREA BISEXUAL+ & PANSEXUAL NETWORK, 1998, https://www.babpn.org/sfbc.html.