Bisexual Health Awareness Month/#BHAM /#BiHealthMonth is an annual public health appeal from North American and UK #Bi+ activists and volunteer organizations.
In 2021 Larker Anthology amplified #BiHealthMonth messaging on the Twitter platform with a micro-campaign of nine images designed to highlight the personal agency and resilience of people in Bisexual+ communities. Signal boosting the needs of Bi+ communities is important because Bi+ people continuously show dire mental health statistics.
The campaign centered a series of photographs communicating senses of growth cycles, emerging into openness, and blooming into being. The text highlighted individual agency, self-love, and trust of self.
In 2021 Larker Anthology amplified #BiHealthMonth messaging on the Twitter platform with a micro-campaign of nine images designed to highlight the personal agency and resilience of people in Bisexual+ communities. Signal boosting the needs of Bi+ communities is important because Bi+ people continuously show dire mental health statistics.
The campaign centered a series of photographs communicating senses of growth cycles, emerging into openness, and blooming into being. The text highlighted individual agency, self-love, and trust of self.
GOAL
Address the mental health needs of Bi+ communities during a global pandemic with a trauma-informed concept showing the power of choice and growth that is accessible to all, despite social class, racialization, disability, gender identity, and faith practice.
Address the mental health needs of Bi+ communities during a global pandemic with a trauma-informed concept showing the power of choice and growth that is accessible to all, despite social class, racialization, disability, gender identity, and faith practice.
MAIN CHALLENGE
How to raise awareness of stigmas without retraumatizing those who are affected by the same stigmas?
Develop a visual language that doesn't trigger negative emotions, doesn't reinforce harmful stereotypes and stigmas about: bi+ communities, queer people, mental health, and trauma. Develop a tone, a messaging voice, that doesn't pathologize gender fluidity in addition to orientation fluidity.
How to raise awareness of stigmas without retraumatizing those who are affected by the same stigmas?
Develop a visual language that doesn't trigger negative emotions, doesn't reinforce harmful stereotypes and stigmas about: bi+ communities, queer people, mental health, and trauma. Develop a tone, a messaging voice, that doesn't pathologize gender fluidity in addition to orientation fluidity.
A SOLUTION
To not re-traumatize individuals experiencing multiple forms of distress and existing oppression, the messaging did not adopt a gendered tone and, true to bisexual and pansexual models of attraction, the images did not rely on gendered representations to express sexuality.
Although the campaign was directed at Bi+ communities, its core messaging remains applicable to all people experiencing mental health stress. With this refusal to "pick an orientation," this micro-campaign took an insult that all bisexuals and pansexuals receive ("pick a side") and turned the insult into a visual affirmation of the human ability to grow and bloom through difficulty.
To not re-traumatize individuals experiencing multiple forms of distress and existing oppression, the messaging did not adopt a gendered tone and, true to bisexual and pansexual models of attraction, the images did not rely on gendered representations to express sexuality.
Although the campaign was directed at Bi+ communities, its core messaging remains applicable to all people experiencing mental health stress. With this refusal to "pick an orientation," this micro-campaign took an insult that all bisexuals and pansexuals receive ("pick a side") and turned the insult into a visual affirmation of the human ability to grow and bloom through difficulty.