Happy 30th birthday, Bisexuality! Today marks three glorious decades since we sprang into existence from nothing, fully formed. Or at least that’s what you might think if you saw the July 17, 1995 cover of Newsweek. You would think that before that moment, we were little more than a myth, a rumour, a phase between the “real” identities of gay and straight. But with one magazine cover, bisexuality was declared a new sexual identity, complete with dramatic lighting and blank stares.

Of course, the absurdity of that framing is plain. Bisexual people have always been here. We have lived, loved, created, and struggled in every generation. While representation was much needed, Newsweek treated us like a novelty to be explained or dissected. The article leaned on tropes of confusion and experimentation, offering others’ theories about us instead of our own voices. What should have been a moment of visibility felt more like a microscope slide. We were not introduced so much as pathologized, and the message was clear: we might be real, but we were still a problem.

In truth, bisexuality was not born that day. What was born was a cultural moment, one that revealed how uncomfortable mainstream society still was with anything that defied binary expectations. We are not new. We are not confused. We are not going away. From ancient poets to modern activists, we have been shaping history all along. That cover is a strange part of our legacy, but it is not the beginning. We carry something far older and far richer than headlines can capture.

Thirty years later, we are still here and still writing our own story.