Bisexual Invisibility: The LGBT Community's Dirty Little Secret

[Behind the Aegis]

A few weeks ago, Alex Anders of the YouTube channel Bisexual Real Talk uploaded a video saying it was time for his fellow bisexuals to leave the LGBT community. He cites two studies recently published in the Journal of Bisexuality that link the lack of support for bisexuals in the community to bisexuals having worse mental health than any other LGBT group. As Anders puts it:

Every time we tell young people who are bisexual to go and search the LGBT community, we are creating certain expectations in their mind. And what do you think does more damage: when a person who knows they are going to be discriminated in a certain group and then gets discriminated in that group, or when a person is told that they will be able to find solace in a group and they lower their guard and then they're discriminated against?

Indeed, bisexual invisibility and biphobia are the LGBT community's dirty little secrets. According to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission's 2011 report Bisexual Invisibility: Impacts and Recommendations, "self-identified bisexuals make up the largest single population within the LGBT community in the United States," yet the bisexual community is one of the least represented groups within LGBT organizations:

For many years, Funders for LGBTQ Issues has tracked data on grants made by U.S. foundations to LGBT organizations. Although LGBT funding has risen in terms of dollars, it still represents a tiny fraction of the total grantmaking, with bi issues among the least supported every year. In 2008, while total foundation giving to LGBT issues increased compared to the previous year (from $77 million in 2007 to $107 million in 2008) and the percentage of dollars increased (from 0.18% to 0.24%), funding for bi organizations or programs went down; it was the lowest of all two dozen demographic groups they tracked. In fact, during all of 2008, not a single grant in the entire country explicitly addressed bisexual issues.

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[Bohunk68]

1. A whole lotta truth there.

Probably the most surprising one is the large number of bi's. Over the years I have come to the conclusion that people are just plain sexual, or they are not. Sexuality is fluid. It can change or not, over time. A friend's son, the psychiatrist, and I have had many discussions about this. His doctorate study was done on the update of the Kinsey report. Fascinating stuff, that. He and his wife, who is also a Psych, concur on that. I have known him since he was a young child, all of us thought he was gay then. He once gave me a full lip kiss in the middle of a crowd in full daylight at a outdoor concert at Falcon Ridge when he was an adult. We both popped wood. Oh MY. He is now married, quite happily and I think bi-ness is quite real and should be taken off any hate lists.

[closeupready]

2. I prefer the company of gay men, not bisexual men. There is a difference.

That doesn't mean I hate bisexual men (or gay women, or anyone NOT a gay man), it just means given a choice, I choose gay men.

That said, nobody should be put down because of who they are, or who they love.

[MariaThinks]

5. As a bisexual woman, i hate being told to make a choice

I like what I like and when I like it. I'm not not loving someone because they don't have the 'right' sex.

[closeupready]

6. Thank you. In the past here, we've had people admit that

they've dated both men and women, depending upon where they were in life, and what did it for them, at that time. Who are any of us to deny others their personal experience of romantic feelings for someone who is the wrong gender or the wrong religion or the wrong race? (Wrong in parentheses, of course.)

[Maraya1969]

7. What is the difference? I feel like the bi guy in your example. Full out Lesbians

often don't want me around or some say the would never date a bi women because they would be afraid she would cheat on them with another man!

How fucking stupid. You are either monogamous or you are not. Cheating is not determined by gender. There are plenty other reasons people cheat but feeling the need to "feed my bisexuality by hooking up with a guy" if not one of them.

I'd like to add that your post is exactly what this is all about and shows how bi's are discriminated against

[closeupready]

8. I'm struggling to explain it in a way that won't hair-trigger people here

to shout me down - that doesn't happen much in this forum, but still, I don't want to deliberately piss anyone off.

If I had to forward a generalization about which I feel rock solid convinced, it's that American men are uniquely homophobic, and that most ALL American men (straight, bi, and gay) subscribe to the idea that "gay = Liberace," and NOT "gay = the lead characters in Brokeback Mountain," NOT "gay = Billy Budd", NOT even "gay = Rock Hudson." I guess the gay version of Halle Berry's 'one-drop rule', which is her idea that one drop of black blood makes someone 100% black; similarly, I think Americans hold fast to the idea that even one fantasy about a same-sex blowjob, and that's it - you are a screaming, screeching Liberace queen, forever and EVER!!!!

I see it all the fucking time. An opposite-gender couple fondling each other in public in the center of the subway car making glances with other riders while seeking approval, and the gay couple discreetly keeping cool, off to the side, minding their own business. Yeah, there's definitely resentment. It is what it is.

Hope that makes some kind of sense. Peace.

[Maraya1969]

9. OK I kind of get it. When I moved to FL I looked into an all lesbian housing community and while

to some women it might me a dream, it wasn't for me because too many of them were WAY gay. Back in my 30's I thought I was just gay and those women were the ones I was attracted too.

Things change I guess.

Thank you for your kind reply and I apologize it I hurt anyone's feelings

[closeupready]

11. ...

No worries.

[nightscanner59]

3. Ouch. This cactus does have a lot of pricklies.

Yet I will rebut this runs two directions: there are also a lot of closeted bi's around who do great damage to LGBT causes. Let's take one of my ex-boyfriends: now heterosexually married, the obvious result of his parent's phobias. He's burned all his bridges behind him, highly unstable in relationships and I have very little doubt he cheats with other males on the sly behind his spouse's back. In just two years that I knew him, 9 "knew him biblically", and 7 of those were males. Our ties were largely cut beyond a carefully protracted friendship (on his part to keep me hidden from his parents).
I de-friended him on Facebook right after the 2008 elections. I could no longer bear the hypocrisy of his hateful RW and anti-LGBT re-posts there.
I'm gay. I embrace all support from any who know better. I'd even respect this ex's decision to get married if he hadn't turned into a hateful hypocrite at the same time. I wonder sometimes but not curious enough to find out if that decision lasted.
I've seen a few gay men who have said some reprehensible things towards heterosexuals, even some who are supportive (obviously, or they wouldn't be shopping the Castro, now would they?) and I've given the likes a tongue lashing for it.
However, I've never seen or heard of gays who want to put their discrimination into actual legislative actions unless they are "gays" with something to hide! Certainly the term "gay republican" has become all that much more a contradiction in terms than ever. I do blame society's past discriminations about LGBT for placing a lot of older gay men into the mindset that they can never have any sort of normal or lasting relationship. I'm sad for young guys who may be adopting this attitude at the age they probably should be looking to "settle down". Those my age (50 something) who are still just f***ing around make me a little queasy.
I love, love, love the millennial bi set these days! They finally "get it": that sexuality is naturally fluid. They finally are growing up in a world where our president actually said "It gets better". There seems to be far fewer of those convinced by any RW garbage, thank you Jeebus.

[Plappergeist]

4. Just a little reminder folks.

To our very real enemies, all sexual minorities are lumped together in a single category.

[LostOne4Ever]

10. +infinity nt