Robyn Ochs ’80
Robyn Ochs ’80 (Language and Culture) is an educator, speaker, grassroots activist, and editor of Bi Women Quarterly and two anthologies: the 42-country collection Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World and RECOGNIZE: The Voices of Bisexual Men.
An advocate for the rights of people of ALL orientations and genders to live safely, openly, and with full access and opportunity, Ochs’ work focuses on increasing awareness and understanding of complex identities and mobilizing people to be powerful allies to one another within and across identities and social movements, with special interest in bi+ health, the experiences of bi+ people in the workplace, the global bi+ movement, and bi and LGBTQIA+ youth.
Ochs was named by Teen Vogue as one of “9 Bisexual Women Who are Making History.”
An activist for 50 years (so far), she is in it for the long haul.
More About Robyn Ochs
Ochs’ writings have been published in numerous bi, women’s studies, multicultural, and LGBTQ+ anthologies, and she has taught courses on LGBTQ+ history and politics in the United States and Canada.
Among other things, she crafted the definition of bisexuality that is used by many bi+ activists around the world:
“I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge in myself the potential to be attracted—romantically and/or sexually—to people of more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, in the same way, or to the same degree.”
She lives in Massachusetts and on May 17, 2004, the first day it was legal to do so, Ochs married Peg Preble. She was chosen to represent Massachusetts on the Advocate‘s “50 States, 50 Heroes” list.
Ochs served for 12 years on the Board of Directors of MassEquality, Massachusetts’ statewide equality organization and for three years on the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth.
Ochs is deeply committed to intersectional and sustainable activism, to working with others to build coalitions across identities and across social movements, to supporting emerging leaders, and to learning and growing.
She is particularly interested in bi+ health, the experiences of bi+ people in the workplace, the global bi+ movement, and bi and LGBTQIA+ youth.
She is the recipient of numerous awards, most recently Campus Pride’s Voice & Action Award, the Bisexual Resource Center’s Community Leadership Award, PFLAG’s Brenda Howard Award, the National LGBT Task Force’s Susan J. Hyde Activism Award and the Harvard Gender & Sexuality Caucus’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2009 at the Creating Change Conference the National LGBTQ Task Force awarded Ochs the Susan J. Hyde Activism Award for Longevity in the Movement.
As she presented the award, Creating Change Director Sue Hyde told Ochs:
“We hear your clear voice, we see your staunch advocacy and we respond to your loving insistence that our movement includes all of us.”