Okay but why does representation matter?

Let's figure it out.

These days it is largely taken as a fact that Representation Matters™️. It’s a sentiment often expressed in hashtag form, usually accompanied by a photo of a marginalized child lovingly gazing at a person in power who looks like them, or proudly standing next to a movie poster featuring, again, someone who looks like them. The underlying implication is a simple one: to see oneself reflected in positions of power, or in the media, is to gain confidence in oneself.

There’s another meaning of #RepresentationMatters, of course: in this case “representation” is understood, not as seeing a variation on one’s own image in a notable place, but political representation. It matters when people who have had abortions are in the room when abortion laws are being drafted. It matters when people who have felt the effects of discrimination are empowered to rewrite the legal landscape in order to prevent future discrimination.

There’s documented evidence of both of these effects: Nichelle Nichols’s Uhura inspiring real life Black astronauts to take to the skies comes to mind as a particularly moving instance of the first, and there are too many instances of the second for me to pick just one (turns out having people who know what it’s like to live under discriminatory laws reshape the laws to be less discriminatory is very useful).

All of which brings me to my actual point: what does representation mean, what does it matter, to the bisexuals?

There are, of course, the various and sundry celebrity bisexuals — most of them cis, most of them women, a lot of them white — who I could discuss right now as examples of Bisexual Representation™️, as well as a handful of TV shows that have attempted to include thoughtful depictions of bi characters. But there’s really one specific person who comes to mind when I think about the question of bisexual representation, someone who embodies both meanings as a history making trailblazer and a bisexual voice in the political sphere.

Yep, I’m talking about Kyrsten Sinema.

There was a time, long long ago*, when Kyrsten Sinema was lauded as a sign that the bisexuals had arrived. In 2012, she became the first out bisexual elected to Congress**, six years later, she became the first out bisexual Senator. And when she burst onto the national stage, she was lauded as a fierce, boundary-pushing bisexual atheist; a woman who didn’t play by the rules, especially when it came to Congress’s staid take on fashion. Well into 2020, queers were excited about the way she used her clothes to “troll” Mike Pence. She was, at this point, bi femme politician as prankster, thumbing her nose at patriarchal authority, taking a stand for the weirdos by being weird.

And then she gave that thumbs down in mid-2021 and it all went to shit.

These days, Sinema is more likely to be spoken about as a wrench in the gears of progress, a selfish, self-absorbed turncoat who’s more interested in personal enrichment than serving her constituents. If she’s bisexual representation, it’s the bad kind: she’s a reminder of every nasty stereotype of bi people, and bi women in particular; she’s the dishonest, untrustworthy, and fundamentally unserious specter so many of us find ourselves running from. And as to whether she’s bringing a bisexual voice to legislation, well, her refusal to eliminate the filibuster insures that little of the legislation that matters to bisexual folks will actually come to pass, regardless of her stance on the issues themselves.

It’s not hard to see Sinema as an example of the limits of representation, a sort of “be careful what you wish for” tale, a warning that simply having a bisexual in office is not necessarily Good For The Bisexuals™️, the same way that having Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court isn’t particularly great for Black America.

And yes, that’s true. But I would offer that there is a third way to understand this idea that “representation matters,” one which includes Sinema’s monumental accomplishments (credit where it’s due!), without making the entirety of bisexual political representation rest on her shoulders. And that is this:

Current estimates suggest that a full 4% of Americans identify as bisexual. Four percent, or just over 13 million Americans. If we applied that ratio to Congress, that would make for about 21 bisexual members***: 17 in the House, and 4 in the Senate. And to be clear, that would be in every session of Congress, not just cumulatively over time. And yet, over the centuries that Congress has existed, as thousands of people have traipsed in and out of Capitol Hill, a mere two Congressmembers have ever been openly bi. Just two. Kyrsten Sinema, and Katie Hill, who served less than half a term before resigning after her nude photos were leaked.

If representation matters, perhaps it’s in the sense that being underrepresented in the halls of power is a sign that something is wrong. Why is it that even now, when record numbers of LGBTQ people are being elected to office, bisexuals still lag? It’s worth noting here that bisexual folks make up the majority of LGBTQ Americans, with a full 57% of folks who identify as LGBTQ identifying as bi, and yet our representation in Congress comes down to one solitary woman.

[NB: How does this compare to other members of the LGBTQ community? With seven openly gay men currently serving in Congress, gay men actually have roughly proportional representation (1.3% of Congress versus 1.5% of Americans), while lesbians are also underrepresented (0.6% of Congress versus 1% of Americans), they have far better rep than the bisexuals, who again, only make up 0.2% of the current Congress when we’re 4% of Americans. Trans people, of course, fare the worst, as there are 0 openly trans members of Congress. I’m not entirely sure how the recent election shakes up the numbers, though I believe that next year Congress will have 8 openly gay male members (1.5%!), 4 open lesbians (0.8%!), and … 1 open bisexual and 0 openly trans members (womp womp). (Edit note! My original count was off, there are currently 3 lesbians in Congress, soon to be 4.)]

It is, of course, possible that there are a number of closeted bisexuals currently serving in Congress, maybe even enough to reach that coveted 21 member benchmark. But that doesn’t really change my point. Because whether Sinema is the only bisexual on Capitol Hill, or whether she’s the only out bisexual, there’s still some barrier that’s preventing us from being able to proudly fill out a diverse roster of bisexual members of Congress. Maybe it’s that bisexuals aren’t running, maybe it’s that we are running but are terrified of doing so while out. (It’s also possible that out bisexuals are running and losing, but I feel like I’d have heard more about that phenomenon if it were occurring with any frequency.)

And to me, personally, this is what it means for bisexual representation to “matter.” It’s not about inspiring me, a bisexual, to believe I can be whatever I want; nor is it quite that I trust other bisexuals to automatically vote in my best interest. It’s that the absence of open bisexuals in the halls of power suggests something nefarious, something uncomfortable, about who is trusted with power and who is trusted to lead. It’s that the — often ignored! — paucity of bi politicians tells me that there’s still some barrier that bisexuals are hitting up against, a barrier that I, personally, would like to demolish once and for all.

* 2018 through mid-2021, roughly

** Prior to Sinema, there were two Republican congressmen who were revealed to be bisexual after their stay in office: Stewart McKinney, who was outed posthumously, and Michael Huffington (yes, the former Mr. Arianna Huffington), who came out after leaving office and failed to win reelection as an out bi man.

*** Technically 21.4