UC Davis kicks off the first annual

Bisexual Awareness Week

San Francisco – Bisexual students at the University of California at Davis are raising the visibility bar for bisexuals with the first annual

Bisexual Awareness Week.

Twelve bi awareness building educational events are scheduled throughout the week on the university campus starting today, January 22 and ending Friday, January 25.

"There are a lot of stereotypes associated with bisexuality," said Angelique Tarazi, chair of the Associated Students of the University of California at Davis’s Gender and Sexuality Commission and biological sciences major, to The California Aggie Online, UCD’s campus newspaper. “This should be a really good week for exploring [and] explaining reasons for both positive and negative feelings."

Bisexual Awareness Week is presented by the Bi Visibility Project at UCD and co-sponsored by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center; Student Assistants to the Chancellor; La Familia; Women's Resources & Research Center and National Organization for Women, reported The California Aggie.

Forty-eight percent of 1,752 self-identified gay and bisexual colleges students surveyed in 2001 by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States became aware of their sexual preference in high school, while 26 percent found their true sexuality in college. Out of gay and bisexual ment, j20 percent reported, in the same report, they were aware of their sexual orientation in junior high school and 17 percent said they knew in grad school. For the girls, six percent of self-identified gay or bisexual women were aware of their same-sex attractions in junior high school, and 11 percent knew in grade school.

Bisexuality Awareness Week follows Lisa Diamond’s article debunking myths and stereotypes about bisexual women and Utah’s Bisexual Awareness Month.

For more information about Bisexual Awareness Week’s events, visit www.lgbtrc.ucdavis.edu.

Photo courtesy Biflag.com