Robyn Ochs (born 1958) is an American

bisexual Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...

activist, professional speaker, and workshop leader. Her primary fields of interest are gender, sexuality, identity, and coalition building. She is the editor of the ''Bisexual Resource Guide'' (published annually from 1990 to 2002), '' Bi Women Quarterly'', and the anthology '' Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World.'' Ochs, along with Professor Herukhuti, co-edited the anthology ''Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men''. Ochs has appeared on a number of television talk shows, including '' Donahue'', ''Rolanda'', ''

Maury Povich Maurice Richard Povich (born January 17, 1939) is an American former television personality, best known for hosting the tabloid talk show '' Maury'' which aired from 1991 to 2022. Povich began his career as a radio reporter, initially at WWDC an ...

'', ''Women Aloud'', ''Real Personal'', ''Hour Magazine'' and ''The Shirley Show'', to discuss issues relating to bisexuality. She has also been in '' Seventeen'' and ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

''. She describes herself as Jewish, but not religious.

Education

Ochs has a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

in Language and Culture, Latin American Studies from the

State University of New York, Purchase The State University of New York at Purchase, commonly referred to as Purchase College or SUNY Purchase, is a public liberal arts college in Purchase, New York. Established in 1967 by Governor Nelson Rockefeller, SUNY Purchase is one of 13 compr ...

. Additionally, she has a Certificate of Special Studies in Administration and Management and a Masters of Education from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Work in academia

Ochs teaches courses on topics including

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

history & politics in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, the politics of

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring personal pattern of romantic attraction or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. Patterns ar ...

, and the experiences of those who transgress the binary categories of gay/straight, masculine/feminine, black/white and/or male/female. She has taught at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

Johnson State College Johnson State College was a public liberal arts college in Johnson, Vermont. Founded in 1828 by John Chesamore, in 2018 Johnson State College was merged with the former Lyndon State College to create Northern Vermont University. In July 202 ...

, and

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

. Ochs worked as an administrator at

from 1983 until she retired in 2009. While there, she co-founded and co-chaired the LGBT Faculty and Staff Group, co-founded and facilitated the LGBTQ Lunches, a monthly lunch series for lesbian, bi, queer and trans women faculty and staff, and served as the faculty advisor for QSA, Harvard's undergraduate student LGBTQ organization.

Work as a bisexual activist

Ochs helped found the Boston Bisexual Network in 1983, and the Bisexual Resource Center in 1985. In 1987, The East Coast Bisexual Network established the first Bisexual History Archives with Ochs' initial collection; archivist Clare Morton hosted researchers. The group became the Bisexual Resource Center in 1993. In 2002 she delivered the first bi-focused keynote during the National Association of Lesbian and Gay Addiction Professionals. In 1998, 2004, and 2007, she keynoted the Midwest Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Campus Conference, the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender student conference in the United States. Ochs has served on the Board of Directors of MassEquality, Massachusetts's statewide equality organization, from 2004 to 2016. She has written frequently on bisexuality and LGBT rights and her writings have been published in numerous

women's studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on Feminism, feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining Social constructionism, social and cultural constructs of gender; ...

multicultural Multiculturalism is the coexistence of multiple cultures. The word is used in sociology, in political philosophy, and colloquially. In sociology and everyday usage, it is usually a synonym for ''ethnic'' or cultural pluralism in which various e ...

and LGBT

anthologies In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and ge ...

Awards and recognitions

In 1997, she received the Reinaldo dos Santos Memorial Award for Bisexual Activism. In 2009 at the

Creating Change Conference The National LGBTQ Task Force (formerly National Gay Task Force; National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) is an American social justice advocacy Non-profit organization, non-profit Community organizing, organizing the grassroots power of the lesbia ...

, the National Gay & Lesbian 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." Also in 2009, Ochs received the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus's Lifetime Achievement Award for advocacy on the Harvard University Campus. Ochs received the 2011 Brenda Howard Award at the Queens NYC PFLAG chapter's annual awards luncheon on February 5, 2012. On June 13, 2015, Ochs received the City of Cambridge's GLBT Commission's annual recognition award for her work as an educator and activist. On July 22, 2017, Ochs received Campus Pride’s Voice & Action National Leadership Award. On October 16, 2024, Ochs was recognized as an LGBT History Month Icon.

Personal life

On May 17, 2004, the first day it became legal for same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts, Ochs and her long-time partner Peg Preble (a self-identified

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

), were among the first same-sex couples to legally marry. When early news reports spoke of the marriage as a "lesbian wedding", Ochs objected strongly to being classified as a lesbian rather than a bisexual. In follow-up news coverage, Ochs publicly denounced this as an example of exactly the type of

bisexual erasure Bisexual erasure (or bi erasure), also called bisexual invisibility, is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality (or similar identities, such as pansexuality) in history, academia, the news media, and othe ...

she has been calling attention to for much of her life. She is the daughter of

music producer A record producer or music producer is a music creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions; ensu ...

and

radio host A radio personality is a person who has an on-air position in radio broadcasting. A radio personality who hosts a radio show is also known as a radio host (North American English), radio presenter (British English) or radio jockey. Radio personali ...

Sonny Ochs and niece of

folk singer Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

Phil Ochs Philip David Ochs (; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter, protest song, protest singer (or, as he preferred, "topical singer"), and Political Activist, political activist. Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic h ...

Selected bibliography

Books

* '' Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World'', co-edited with Sarah E. Rowley (2005; second ed., 2009) ()
''Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men – An Anthology''
co-edited with H. Sharif "Herukhuti" Williams (2014) ()

Anthologies (as a contributor)

* "From the Closet to the Stage," i
''Bi Any Other Name: Bisexuals Speak Out''
( Lani Kaʻahumanu & Loraine Hutchins, ed.) (1991) () * "Bisexuality, Feminism, Men and Me," i
''Closer to Home: Bisexuality & Feminism'' (Weise, ed.)
(1992) () * "Moving Beyond Binary Thinking," (co-written with Marcia Deihl) i
''Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price'' (Blumenfeld, ed.)
(1992) () * "Biphobia," i
''Bisexuality: The Psychology and Politics of an Invisible Minority'' (Firestein, ed.)
(1996) ()
''Encyclopedia of Lesbian Histories and Cultures, Volume 1'' (Zimmerman, ed.)
(1999) () * "What's in a Name? Why Women Embrace or Resist Bisexual Identity," i
''Becoming Visible: Counseling Bisexuals Across the Lifespan'' (Firestein, ed.)
(2007) () * "Bisexuality, Feminism, Men and Me," i
''Women: Images and Realities: A Multicultural Anthology'' (Kesselman, McNair, & Schniedewind, eds.)
(2011) () * "Beyond Binaries: Seeing Sexual Diversity in the Classroom," i
''Activities for Teaching Gender and Sexuality in the University Classroom'' (Murphy & Ribarsky, eds.)
(2013) () * “LGBTQ politics after marriage: a panel discussion with Gabriel Foster, Paulina Hehn-Hernandez, Robyn Ochs, Steven William Thrasher, Urvashi Vaid, and Hari Ziyad,” i
Queer Activism After Marriage Equality (DeFilippis, Yarbrough, & Jones)
(2018) () *“Without Wincing of Clenching: Bisexual People’s Experiences with Health Care Professionals,” i
Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health'', (''Shanker, Kendell, & Levine)
2020)()

References

External links

Robyn Ochs' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ochs, Robyn 1958 births 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American LGBTQ people Activists from New York (state) American women non-fiction writers Bisexual academics American LGBTQ rights activists Bisexual feminists Bisexual rights activists Bisexual women writers Harvard Graduate School of Education alumni Harvard University staff Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish American feminists American feminists Jewish women writers LGBTQ people from Texas Living people Activists from Queens, New York State University of New York at Purchase Bisexual Jews American secular Jews American bisexual writers Jewish LGBTQ women