TL;DR
- Bisexual erasure is when we overlook, ignore, and perpetuate negative stereotypes about people who are attracted to more than one gender.
- Bi erasure can intertwine with racism, ableism, transphobia, and other forms of marginalization.
- Combat bi erasure by practicing self-love and building healthy boundaries.
Bi Erasure Is Constant
Most bi folks have a story of coming out and feeling invalidated. This can take the form of being told โyouโre just asking for attention,โ says Marissa Tolero, a bi-identified psychotherapist and yoga instructor who works with women and queer clients. When Taylor came out to some loved ones, meanwhile, she was asked whether she was bi as a result of childhood trauma, and whether bisexual men really exist. (โThatโs like being like, โIs the sky real?โ Yes, itโs real,โ she says.)Discrimination of bisexual people is ultimately harmful to all queer people.Many bi people face the assumption that our sexualities are temporary. โPeople assume bisexual women are just experimenting, and theyโll ultimately realize that theyโre straight. And bisexual men are on the triain to being gay,โ says Nic Johnson, a Lehigh University professor who researches bi womenโs experiences of sexual violence. Of course, bi folksโ attractions can be fluid, and our labels can changeโbut thatโs not proof that our sexualities arenโt โreal.โ Similarly, bi folks are often judged according to the gender of their current partner, rather than their self-identified orientation. โA lot of people assume that once youโre married, youโve โpicked a sideโ,โ says Cora Eckert, a bi, nonbinary woman theater professional who moderates a Facebook group for bi people with long-term partners. (They use all pronouns, but opted for they/them pronouns for this piece.) โIโve had to tell them that even though Iโm married to my wife, that doesnโt make me a lesbian,โ they say. Tolero experiences the opposite pressure: Because sheโs in a relationship with a cisgender, heterosexual man, others often assume that sheโs straight. Queer people perpetuate anti-bi stigma, too. Tolero has been told by queer friends that, because of her relationship, sheโs โchosen menโ and is less queer. As a result of similar kinds of invalidation, Johnson says, โI feel more accepted in queer spaces if I donโt say that Iโm bi.โ This discrimination is ultimately harmful to all queer people. It increases our collective anxiety around identity, and decreases our ability to build community. The result, says Tolero, is a โdivide and conquerโ dynamic that ultimately benefits cis men. โThose who are oppressed are encouraged to divide and turn towards each other,โ says Tolero. โItโs a tactic of oppressing queer people in general.โ
Bi Erasure Hurts Our Health
Bi erasure enables harmful stereotypes and prevents accurate, empowering research on the bi community. Bisexual people experience higher rates of poverty than lesbian and gay people, at 30 percent. Weโre also more likely to experience interpersonal violence: 61 percent of bisexual women, and 37 percent of bisexual men, have experienced sexual or intimate partner violence, as compared to 44 percent of lesbians and 26 percent of gay men. There isnโt good data on how biphobia specifically effects trans and nonbinary people, but in general, 31 percent of trans people live in poverty, and 66 percent have experienced sexual violenceโa much higher rate than their cisgender counterparts.โYou donโt have to change yourself to please anyone. Embrace all of yourself.โMainstream culture hypersexualizes bi people, especially bi women and femmes, so our coming out may also be treated as a sexual invitation. That, says Johnson, can lead to others victimizing us. Eckert has felt this hypersexualization in their daily life. โFor some reason when you say bisexual, people really emphasize the word sexual in it,โ they say. Meanwhile, bi people of color are forced to navigate structural racism in addition to biphobia. For Taylor, this leads to a constant sense of in-betweenness. โI feel like Iโm not accepted by the straight people back home,โ says Taylor. But when she moved to a majority-white, gay Los Angeles neighborhood, โI felt that I couldnโt be Black.โ These intersecting oppressions contribute to bi folksโ higher rates of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.