I met bi community leaders, and tried desperately to heal the deep rifts and end the organization’s longstanding neglect. I believed HRC could do better for a group that constituted half of the LGBTQ community.

In my two-year tenure, with the support and feedback of a small crew of wonderful coworkers, I created the content for a bisexual page on the HRC website, wrote three of the five publications for the page and edited a fourth, all co-branded with national bi advocacy organizations, wrote nearly all of the bi-related blog content and op-eds, organized an employee resource group for bi, queer, pansexual and fluid (bi+) coworkers, worked with the diversity staff to bring in bi community leaders to do trainings, developed and conducted my own bi community cultural competency trainings for board members, staff, and volunteers and coordinated all of HRC’s programming for Bisexual Awareness Week.

When bi community leader Robyn Ochs came to do a training with HRC staff, a cis white gay man who directed the organization’s entire field operation said, “You know, I just never think about bisexual people.” No shit you don’t.

Six months have passed since I left HRC, and it seems that a handful of blog and social media posts during Bisexual Awareness Week last September is the only thing the organization could muster in my absence. Half of my out bi+ coworkers (love y’all!) have left and the others don’t have positions that allow them to do the kind of work I was able to do.

It seems clear that what started with one angry bisexual attempting to effect change from within also ended when that same angry bisexual left.

To be fair, HRC isn’t by any means the only national LGBTQ organization with this problem. Several national groups have a habit of using “gay and transgender” as shorthand for the LGBTQ community, completely erasing us. Although a few of our national LGBTQ organizations have openly bi+ staff who are doing amazing bi-specific advocacy, our numbers are dwindling and virtually no one else is doing bi work in these organizations except for those few brave souls.

To put it bluntly, when bisexual people aren’t around to advocate for ourselves and push for change from within, that work simply doesn’t get done, because the vast majority of y’all lesbians and gay men don’t give a shit about us. And yet, we still fight for you and with you.

When Amber Heard got the shit beat out of her by Johnny Depp and the media blamed her bisexuality, you were silent. When right-wing weirdos launched a public attack on a native bi+ leader who spoke at a White House event, more silence. When gay icon Boy George went on a blatantly biphobic Twitter rant, still nothing.

In the words of esteemed and dedicated bi+ leader Faith Cheltenham, former president of BiNet USA and a personal mentor:

Until bisexuals stop being the unmentionables of the LGBTQIA community we will continue to be the punching bags of both gay and straight, with respite nowhere to be found. If bisexuals believe there are circles of influence that they are systematically prevented from accessing to their detriment, they believe correctly.

Until bisexuals find equitable representations of their organizations in litigator roundtables, national and state policy roundtables, legal policy teams, national and state transgender policy roundtables, rapid response communications groups or faith working groups, we should protest our exclusion.