Trigger Warning: This article discusses prejudices surrounding sexuality.
Since 1999, Bi Visibility Day has been celebrated on 23rd September. This date also falls in Bisexual Awareness Week, which recognises and celebrates the stories, experiences and incredible individuals who identify as bisexual. The celebration also aims to raise awareness of the resilience of those in the bisexual community need to develop to deal with bi-erasure and biphobia from both inside and outside of the LGBTQ+ community.
What is Bisexuality?
To be bisexual is to be attracted to two or more genders. However, if you were to ask people what being bisexual means to them then you are likely to receive a variety of answers. Some people describe being bisexual as being attracted to men and women; whereas others will use ‘bisexual’ as an umbrella term to explain their attraction to any person, regardless of their gender identity, and find that this label is what they are most comfortable with or attached to.
Damaging Stereotypes of Bisexual People
If there’s any stereotypes of bisexual women that spring to mind, then you can guarantee that I’ve heard them all too (and not in kind ways either). Talking about my sexuality with both men and women before has resulted in the end of a relationship, which I know is because there is a misconception that bisexual women are ‘more confused’ and ‘more promiscuous’. By presenting bisexuals as disloyal, greedy, disingenuous, confused and attention seeking people plays the largest part in delegitimising their identity and can often lead to putting bisexual people in quite dangerous positions within relationships or unsupportive households.
Virtual dating, even in the pandemic, seems to have further encouraged these stereotypes and beliefs to be enforced too – with “threesome?” being a very common Tinder line, and the increasing presence of ‘couple accounts’ on similar apps looking for a bi person for a casual hook-up. Although folks may be interested in the above, it is the assumption that all bisexual people are looking for this that is damaging. These stereotypes can lower the self esteem of single bisexual folks immeasurably. Is that all I am? A third piece to someone else’s relationship jigsaw? I don’t think so.
Biphobia and bi-erasure are both actions that stem from these (often very derogatory) stereotypes. Biphobia is a dislike of, or prejudice or aversion towards bisexual people, whereas bi-erasure is the act of ignoring, falsifying or attempting to remove bisexual people as someone believes that being bi as a sexuality doesn’t exist or is invalid. Sometimes, bi-erasure even comes from within the LGBTQ+ community.
The most common form of bi-erasure is the ‘casual’ discussions of how bisexual women are just ‘going through an experimenting phase’ and bisexual men are ‘secretly gay but too scared to come out yet’. President of the amBI US network, Ian Lawrence-Tourinho, discussed how “bi erasure (the opposite of bi visibility) is one of our community’s biggest challenges – people erasing us from dialog, news stories, history, films/TV, and everywhere else,” with this leading to the also ever-present belief that our sexuality relies on the gender of our partner. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard, “oh, you’re straight again now?” when seeing men instead of women; or, my personal aggravating favourite, “are you a lesbian today?” – nope, still bi.
How does Bi Visibility Day Raise Awareness of Biphobia?
By encouraging campaigners, musicians or influencers in the bisexual community to use their public platforms and social media pages for the day to speak about their sexuality and the importance of raising awareness to biphobia and bi-erasure. It has gone severely unnoticed how serious a problem these hateful opinions have caused in the bisexual community. Only with people sharing their stories and being brave and resilient can we educate people of different sexual orientations (be that within or outside of the LGBTQ+ community).
Campaigns on social media, and stories shared on platforms during Bisexual Awareness Week could do wonders, and could maybe help a young bisexual person feel less alone; leading to a discussion of mental health difficulties within the community caused by stereotypes and hate speech; or even lead to a fair treatment of bisexual people in the media. If the media and entertainment industries begin to portray bisexual people more frequently as valid human beings that do not align with damaging stereotypes, then it is the community’s hope that others will become more accepting and not ignore bisexual people anymore.
To find events around the world celebrating Bi Visibility Day you can follow – https://bivisibilityday.com/
If you are struggling with your sexuality then you can access help at the following –
- https://www.supportline.org.uk/problems/sexuality/
- https://helplines.org/helpline-topic/lesbians-gay-men-and-bisexuals/
- https://switchboard.lgbt/help/
Caitlin Parr
Featured image courtesy of @mrs80z via Unsplash. Image license can be found here. No changes were made to this image.
Caitlin Parr
Caitlin is an MA student at Cardiff University's School of Journalism, Media and Culture alongside distance learning with the NCTJ. Outside of Empoword, she works in local news and radio in Cardiff, whilst also working with/writing for organisations such as Cardiff Women's Aid, Girlguiding and Change Grow Live. In her spare time she's a musician!