by Anthony Glassman

Cleveland--Author and bisexual activist Robyn Ochs blew through northeast Ohio like an education cyclone on March 25 and 26.

Ochs presented four workshops and readings throughout the city, from the campus of Case Western Reserve University on the east side to the Cleveland LGBT Center and Suspect Thoughts Books on the west.

She first rose to prominence in 1983 as one of the founders of the Boston Bisexual Network, and three years later helped found the Seattle Bisexual Network.

Since her first appearance on the advocacy stage, she has spent 25 years appearing on television shows, writing books, essays and articles championing a worldview that challenges a gay-or-straight binary system that ignores or diminishes the bisexual identity.

She is also the editor of the Bisexual Resource Center�s Bisexual Resource Guide, which collects the efforts of 150 writers from around the world to present a comprehensive guide to the internet, movies, support groups and other resources across 49 countries.

Ochs was brought to Cleveland by the combined efforts of CWRU�s LGBT Provost Committee, its counseling department and the social work graduate school�s Allies gay-straight alliance, along with the Cleveland LGBT Center and Suspect Thoughts.

Her first appearance was on Tuesday night at Case, where she gave a presentation of her workshop �Beyond Binaries: Identity and the Sexuality Spectrum� to a group comprised mostly of graduate students.

The next day, she presented a two-hour workshop for social service professionals at the Cleveland LGBT Center at 10 am, followed by a special session of �Beyond Binaries� aimed at youth aged 14-24, also at the center.

She wrapped up the visit with a trip to Suspect Thoughts, an LGBT and alternative bookstore on Clark Avenue, where she read from Getting Bi: Bisexual Voices from Around the World and signed copies of the book.