It’s been a few years since the Gay & Lesbian Times featured a cover story on the bisexual community. Whenever we do, we run into problems illustrating on our cover what it means to be bisexual. Committing a major faux pas, our last attempt pictured a man perched atop a fence with another man to his left and a woman to his right. Unintentionally labeling bisexuals as a bunch of fence-sitters did little to quell the bi community’s discontent with the greater GLBT community’s lack of understanding of bi issues. Yeah, we admit we were a little off the mark.

This week’s cover features a man, this time atop what is meant to be the Kinsey Scale. Created by famed human sexuality researcher Alfred Kinsey, the Kinsey Scale measures sexual orientation, from 0 (exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual). Our cover model weighs in somewhere in between. But this representation presents its own problems. Floating between heterosexual and homosexual implies that bisexuality is some sort of blend of straight and gay, which only serves to further marginalize the bi community.

Expanding on Kinsey’s limited 0 to 6 scale, psychiatrist, bisexual activist and San Diego resident Fritz Klein developed the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid. First published in 1978, the Klein Grid measures actual sexual experiences, but also sexual attractions, fantasies, emotional preference, social preference, lifestyle and self-identification as they relate to a person’s past, present and ideal future. Klein’s research showed that these factors can change over time for an individual, and vary not just between but also within groups of straight, gay and bisexual people. Klein concluded that sexual orientation is fluid and too complex to be broken into simple, well-defined categories.

Klein died this year on May 24 at the age of 73. He will be remembered for his tireless activism and pioneering research. Early in his career, he realized there was a void in knowledge about sexual orientation, specifically in the area of bisexuality. He placed an ad in the Village Voice for a meeting that resulted in the creation of the Bisexual Forum in New York, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. During this period, he wrote The Bisexual Option (1978) and co-authored Man, His Body, His Sex (1978).

After moving to San Diego, Klein founded the Bisexual Forum in this city in 1982, wrote several books, and founded and became editor of The Journal of Bisexuality. Klein founded the American Institute of Bisexuality, a public benefit charity, in 1998 to encourage, support and assist research and education about bisexuality, and served as chair of the board until his death.

With his death, there’s an unmistakable void in leadership in San Diego for this underrepresented, often overshadowed subgroup within the greater GLBT community. Like the transgender community, bisexuals struggle for visibility and suffer ignorance and intolerance within their own community. Gay, lesbian and transgender people must cast aside what we think we know and continue in our tradition as an affirming and diverse community.

But just as important, leadership and organization needs to come from within the bisexual community. As Vanessa Kranda, a member of San Diego’s bisexual community, puts it in this week’s feature: “If there’s not a community out there that’s specifically bisexual, I think it’s up to us to create it. I don’t really think it’s up to our gay brothers and sisters to make sure we have a space.”

Well, we almost agree, Vanessa. It is the responsibility of the greater community to make sure you have space.

For more information about San Diego’s bisexual community or the BiForum, contact The Center at (619) 692-2077.