Wed 23 September 2020 14:00-15:00
Online via Blackboard Collaborate (using Google Chrome)
For Bi-Visibility Day, the Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) Team, in collaboration with The Diversity Trust, are hosting a talk by Nikki Hayfield, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology.
No booking is required. This public event can be accessed in BlackBoard Collaborate using the Google Chrome browser https://ca.bbcollab.com/guest/2659bfbe149446848385e39ef2dbf4b1
The session will not be recorded.
The Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) Team, in collaboration with The Diversity Trust, are hosting a talk by Nikki Hayfield, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology. Nikki’s research interests are in bisexualities, pansexualities, asexualities, and LGBTQ+ sexualities more broadly. She has published and presented on a range of sexuality topics including identities, marginalisation, and relationships.
Over the last 100+ years understandings of sexualities have evolved considerably. The early sexologists’ conceptualisations of heterosexuality and ‘homosexuality’ were based on a binary model of sexuality. During the 1950s and 1960s, pioneering psychologists undertook gay and lesbian affirmative research. Their findings, alongside significant efforts by gay and lesbian liberation movements, saw a shift towards the validation of lesbian and gay identities. It was during the 1970s that bisexual communities and bisexual affirmative research developed and bisexuality gradually began to be somewhat recognised. Since the 1990s, the academic and cultural discussion has been around bisexual marginalisation, bisexual erasure, and bisexual invisibility. By the 2000s, pansexuality began to emerge, before becoming more widely recognised in recent years. The last ten years have seen significant increases in people identifying with bisexuality and pansexuality, alongside other terms which relate to attraction to multiple genders or ‘regardless of gender’. This talk maps a brief history of bisexuality and pansexuality and the ways in which these identities are understood to challenge the binaries of sex and sexuality.
This event is open to staff and students and the public – all are welcome.