#OurBiFlag and the collapse of BiNet USA

I first heart about the squabble over the bi pride flag on Wednesday afternoon. I’m not sure how long it had been already going on at that point. My colleagues at the Bi+ podcast were discussing it in a private chat, and one of them linked to this article: This Organization Wants to Be Paid for Use of the Bi Pride Flag.

After some digging, I found a few people talking about it on Facebook. It sounded like a mess, but I couldn’t gather enough details. Eventually, I wandered onto Twitter and took a look at #OurBiFlag. Holy hell.

But this is bigger than one person going off-script and making a big deal about an indie creator using the bi pride flag in some merch.

Most people were talking about the flag, of course. However, other patterns were emerging. And that’s where I want to go with my story. I got permission from my Bi+ colleagues to talk about it, since it’s partly their story too. When it comes to the part of this where they had involvement, they can correct me or add details if they choose. I don’t know everything that went on. None of us do.

Bear with me, this is long.

It starts before I even knew what BiNet was. In 2014, I had just finished writing my first novel. I was excited and nervous, as I’d passed it along to a friend to show her publisher. It was during that waiting stage that a bunch of things converged to push me to come out as bisexual. (Note: The language I use in that post does not reflect how I currently identify, both religiously and in terms of gender.)

Through friends at the time, I connected with the BiNet USA Facebook group. I had never heard of the organization prior to that. But once I was in the group, I knew I’d found my people. I made a lot of friends. Some of the wonderful Bi Elders came to support me.

Shortly after that, I learned my first novel had been picked up and would be released the following year. That date was pushed up because I was efficient in responding to edits and proofreading. Ultimately, Lower Education came out November 1, 2014.

Due to my work explicitly writing fiction about bisexual people, and my history of blogging, I quickly found myself doing a lot of cool stuff. I gave an interview for the BiCast about my novel because they were looking for bi creators. Later, I had articles published in The Advocate and LGBTQNation.

None of these were outlets associated directly with BiNet. But I was able to connect with people through the Facebook group. At the time, while the group itself was an offshoot of the organization, it wasn’t required that everything be kept internal.

I joined some other Facebook groups as well, for writers and for activists. None of these groups was or is directly affiliated with BiNet, although former board members are part of both.

In 2015, my second novel was ready for release November 1. I was scheduled to appear on the BiCast for the second time. Just after the novel came out, I attended the Transcending Boundaries Conference. I was able to do this because it was within driving distance of my home.

First, I will say that I had an absolutely wonderful time. I stayed offsite at an Air BnB house and walked to the hotel for the conference. While there, I met some of the coolest people, including author Jendi Reiter, Larry Nelson (whose partner, Brenda Howard, is regarded as the mother of Pride), and activist and all-around cool person Robyn Ochs.

At that time, I also met Lynnette McFadzen in person. She’d interviewed me (along with Jon Clark) for the BiCast. It was amazing to finally sit down and talk face to face.

Lynnette introduced me to Faith Cheltenham, who I regarded as THE go-to person for activism and advocacy. She was a legend in my eyes. I was star-struck and really had no idea what to say. I think I completely babbled. She was gracious about it, if not necessarily warm. I felt overwhelmed in her larger-than-life presence. She still seemed to me to be so cool, nearly a goddess.

At first, she seemed so encouraging. I mean, she even seemed to regard me as almost a celebrity, despite the fact that I was (and still am) relatively unknown. I was only starting out as an author back then, with barely a toe in the door. But it was my ticket in, and I was invited to things like the private lounge and spending time with people who ran other groups and organizations.

I was too busy making friends and enjoying myself at the conference to spend much time thinking about Faith. My interactions with her were somewhat awkward, which I attributed to my own missteps. It felt “off,” but only in the way I always feel “off” as an introvert when I’m around an extrovert.

After returning home, we became friends on Facebook. I was very interested in her advocacy work. It quickly became clear that I would need to jump through hoops to be her friend, though.

I considered myself to have two separate pieces of my life: work and not-work. “Work” included my activism. “Not-work” was mostly sharing Facebook memes and catching up with friends by way of photos of their kids or dogs. I tend to prefer to have some separation or the blurred lines make me anxious.

That’s significant because I considered Faith a friend, in the same way I considered the other people I’d met to be friends. So I would, for example, engage with things she posted in the BiNet group differently from how I engaged with her on her personal Facebook.

And that was when the rules began. I started noticing that she would periodically make posts about her expectations for people to remain on her list. What posts we should be reading and liking. How we should respond to things. Who could comment or not. I had trouble separating the reasonable from the unreasonable. But ultimately, I stopped liking or commenting at all because I felt that it was so much micromanaging that I couldn’t keep track.

Around that time, there was a dust-up regarding a protest that happened at the Creating Change conference. I was not there; I can’t speak to what happened. I do know that I added my voice in support of Nancy Marcus, also a longtime advocate (who I believe was with BiLaw at the time, someone can correct me if I’m wrong).

I was scolded like I was a small child because I hadn’t been at the conference. But trust me, I could feel the obliterated line between anti-Israel and antisemitic attitude. (It resurfaced later on as well, in the conflagration over the banning of the Magen David at Dyke March.) I was pretty much done. I don’t tolerate antisemitism, and I’m not a pushover.

Faith removed me from her Facebook friends list, which I didn’t feel especially sad about. I’d grown to not really like her. What I’d initially seen as exuberant and full of life by that time felt overbearing and threatening. I didn’t get it full in the face, but others did, and it was awful to watch.

I sort of…ignored her after that. We didn’t need to interact. I wasn’t going to conferences because my health wasn’t good due to an undiagnosed (at the time) autoimmune disorder.

In 2016, I became part of the BiCast as an interviewer. It was good fun. I liked my cohosts, and I got to interview a lot of really cool people. I mostly did author interviews, which included my now cohost, Mick Collins. Elizabeth Mechem was on board doing a lot of our tech stuff, and the two of us also had the chance to interview people together. (That’s always fun, as we get somewhat distracted and end up on wild tangents!)

I can’t recall when it was that BiNet received a large donation, but it was after that when things went downhill. In February of 2019, Elizabeth had invited Faith as a consultant to put together something for Black History Month.

Around then, I’d been on a break while volunteering at my kids’ school. According to Elizabeth, there was some pressure to add a black cohost. Permanently or just for Black History Month, I’m not sure. This isn’t unreasonable, so obviously there wasn’t a concern in doing so. We just didn’t expect things to go the way they did afterward.

We still don’t know what happened. It was sudden, but to me it had the feel of being planned and seeking a wedge to get in. The others could probably explain the “partnership” we developed with BiNet; I don’t know the details. It was a fiscal sponsorship that had apparently been started some years earlier. However, none of us know the exact terms despite asking multiple times.

Elizabeth even asked for documentation. When Lynnette left the BiCast to Elizabeth, she didn’t give any details or instructions. So Elizabeth thought it might be wise to cut ties and dissolve the fiscal sponsorship right away. However, we were not able to do so. Lynnette couldn’t produce the documents, and Faith said the board would be angry if she gave us the information.

Aside from that, what I do know is that without my knowledge or consent, Faith stepped in and began telling us how to run the podcast. Up until that point, it had been us seeking out interesting bi+ creators who didn’t have a large platform. Ordinary, just people in our community doing cool stuff.

All of a sudden, we were pressured into getting celebrities. The guests I’d had lined up were no longer acceptable because they were unknown. We were told we needed approval from the board (or more likely Faith herself) for any guests. There was even a spreadsheet with contact information for “approved” people. I’m sure most of the lesser known people I’d lined up wondered why no one ever contacted them back after they sent us their initial emails. We simply were not allowed to without “board” approval.

For the record, a fiscal sponsorship does not give the sponsoring organization this kind of power unless those are the agreed on terms. Since we have no idea what the actual terms are, we felt trapped.

We were also all told to use a specific program for the interviews, despite how we’d been perfectly capable of using the tools already at our disposal. Only BiNet-approved programs could be used, and only with their login. We were not properly trained. When we asked for this, Faith told us she didn’t have time.

This happened with multiple things over the course of her takeover of the BiCast. She would set us up with something needing training, then tell us she was too busy or not an expert. We were left holding the ball more than once.

The real kicker for me came in an interview with performance poet Gray Crosbie. First, I was locked out of the interview. Initially, it had been meant to be Elizabeth and me. This was before Faith took over. Once she took over, she insisted on being part of the interviews. (In fairness to Elizabeth, she thought I might be too busy once Faith stepped in.)

I found out about the interview an hour before it was to happen. I insisted on being part of it because we were interviewing a nonbinary word creator, and I am a nonbinary word creator. This was my wheelhouse. Faith told us she would only allow one of us, me or Elizabeth, because that was too many white people. Elizabeth graciously stepped back and recorded for us.

Before the podcast, we also discussed inviting a Jewish person for our panel. I wanted to know why, seeing as I also come from a Jewish background. It felt to me first like tokenism and second like people who don’t take you seriously if the “wrong” parent is Jewish (my father is my Jewish parent, not my mother). She made a couple of other remarks about “cultural Judaism,” despite not understanding it at all. It was frustrating but not surprising.

Once we did the interview, it was awful. Faith kept pressuring the guest to talk about American race relations, something our guest in Scotland knew almost nothing about. She virtually took over the interview, spending little time getting to know the guest or what they were there to discuss. I finally had to wrench the conversation back. You can hear most of this in the podcast.

My cohosts had similar difficulties. In the end, when Faith left us hanging again, we collectively decided we would not work with her. Instead of telling her to step back, we got an email from Lynnette saying she was taking down the podcast. (I don’t know whether she actually had this authority, to be honest. She’d already left the podcast with us and only came back in a limited capacity, and the podcast’s originator was still part of it in the background.)

We were sad, but we understood and felt it might be for the best. We decided to turn to podcasting on our own, with fewer restrictions regarding the guests and who was allowed to interview them. And the next thing we knew, BiNet had entirely taken over the old BiCast and was resurrecting it…using all the work we’d done for years.

I know this is not as horrific as the outright abuse others have detailed. Most of it was just overbearing behavior, pressuring us to do things without consulting us, failing to listen to our perspectives as longtime podcasters, micromanaging us with rules, and ultimately ripping the podcasting rug out from under us. We’ve been able to move on without much more than being rightfully angry.

My hope, though, is that in talking about it, this might allow others to speak up. For a long time, I stayed silent because I did not believe it was necessary or wise. Marginalized people face much more criticism on average, and I did not want to be part of that. I’m very sensitive, and it hurt to think I could be contributing to a bigger problem.

However, I believe that is exactly the tool Faith uses to control people. She knows that many of us are decent, caring people, and she preys on that. Not to say marginalization-based antagonism doesn’t exist or isn’t a problem, or that I have conquered my own biases. Only that pointing out someone’s inappropriate behavior is not that.

If you’ve made it to the end of this, thank you. If you’re thinking none of this sounds terrible, that’s only because I can’t detail everything that was said in these meetings or online. I can’t capture the feelings I had of being intimidated and bullied into compliance.

But if you understand where I’m coming from, maybe because you’ve been there too, then my heart goes out to you. I’m sorry if you’ve had to endure this as well, if you felt like you were constantly on eggshells, watching your every word and deed to be sure you didn’t fail or face public berating.

I also want to say that while this problem is mostly the work of one person, it has been done with the permission and complicity of the BiNet board. Aside from those who resigned or were forced out, these are people who willingly gave themselves over to a person who desires full control. I hope you all don’t wake up one day and find that the rug is gone from under you too.