ABSTRACT
Bisexuality as a topic of some debate and a fair amount of conjecture has periodically surfaced and gone underground again in the gay and lesbian and feminist communities and press over the past several decades. Recently, it has reemerged in a new way, raising a number of questions dealing with sex, identity, politics, and community. The character of these debates about bisexuality was reflected in the controversy surrounding the 1990 Lesbian and Gay Pride March in Northampton, Massachusetts, and in the pages of Gay Community News, which covered the events leading up to the march. GCN printed many letters from lesbians and bisexual women who addressed that controversy in particular, as well as more general questions about bisexuals and our relation to lesbian and gay communities. A close look at the Northampton controversy and GCN’s coverage reveals a good deal about some of the different ways that identity and community are conceptualized within lesbian and gay politics; some people call for flexible, inclusive definitions, and others urge caution, warning against indistinct definitions they think could weaken lesbian and gay struggles against homophobia.
