By AJ Trager
Photo courtesy of robynochs.com
DEARBORN – National speaker and award-winning activist, Robyn Ochs, is coming to the University of Michigan-Dearborn to talk about bisexuality and the multifaceted experiences of the LGBT community in her presentation, "Beyond the Binary."
The bi activist will speak about the landscape of sexual orientation and how we "map" out those experiences.
"No two people are exactly alike. Given that, how do we assign labels to our complicated and unique experiences?," Ochs writes on her website.
The talk is interactive and will ask the audience where they fall on the sexuality continuum and how they identify and label themselves. Ochs' will explore the different experiences of identity, the complexity of attraction and other topics.
Ochs has been a bi activist since 1985 and was a pioneer for bi individuals identifying as lesbians and gays who felt unable to come out as bisexual. She is an educator, speaker and an award-winning activist as well as the editor of a 42-country anthology called "Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the Wold" and the Bi Women newsletter.
Ochs' work focuses on increasing awareness and understanding of complex identities and mobilizing people to be more powerful allies to one another within and across identities and social norms.
Some of her other courses include topics such as History, Community, Politics: Emergence of Sexual Minority Voices in the US (A.K.A. The Gay Agenda), Transgressing Binaries: Sex, Gender, Race and Sexual Orientation, Beyond Bisexuality 101, Loosening the Gender Girdle: How Gender Affects You, Challenging Heterosexism and much more.
The presentation will begin at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 7 in Kochoff Hall C, located inside of the University Center Building at 4901 Evergreen Road, 2122 University Center, Dearborn. The event is free and open to the public.
