Hastings Wyman
Southern Political Report, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
The public is generally aware of the issues espoused by gay men and lesbians, who have made their concerns widely known since the gay movement took shape after the Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969. There are, however, two other groups associated with the gay movement that are significant, bisexuals and transgender people, whose issues are less clear to the American people.
While gay men and lesbians are distinguished from the heterosexual majority by their sexual attraction to members of their own gender, bisexuals are attracted to both men and women. Transgenders are not defined by the objects of their sexual attraction; rather, they are people who, for physical or psychological reasons, identify as members of the sex opposite from the one in which they were raised.
In general, bisexuals are less active politically than transgenders, most likely because the goals of the movement center around acceptability to the community at large, both homosexual and heterosexual, and are less easily accomplished through changes in public policy. There are, however, some aspects of the bisexual movement that may be significant for public administrators and are covered at the end of this chapter.
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