So last week my inbox was blowing up with headlines about a research paper that analyzed whether you can tell a man is bisexual just by the sound of his voice (which… who gives a shit). Now I’m overwhelmed by headlines about how bi people — and bi women in particular — have shitty health, both mental and physical.
As you may already be aware, I routinely bring up the fact that bisexual people, and bi women in particular, have shitty health. But hey, here’s another research paper that makes that clear.
And it’s good, I think, that we’re getting more research that confirms this point. Science is all about replication, right? The more studies that show that bisexuals are doing badly — probably because of biphobia — the more we can get people to believe that that's the actual, factual truth. Right? That is the goal, right?
Except — I don’t know, I’m kind of tired right now so maybe that’s swaying my opinion here, but I have to admit that there’s a part of me that feels like people should have figured this out by now? That we’ve had enough studies — and there have been a lot of studies to this effect! — and that part of why we have to keep doing them again and again is because, well, biphobia.
Because the very nature of biphobia is to insist that bi people can’t be doing that bad, that we’re only suffering to the extent that we’re impacted by homophobia, and that the mere suggestion that bi people are doing worse than other queers (let alone twice as bad!) is laughable. And so it feels like these studies just… fall into a black hole of sorts. I’ve seen so many studies like this, friends. I’ve referenced so many studies like this. It rarely seems to convince people that, no, really, bi people are doing badly.
Which is why the other thing that frustrates me is that all these studies about how bi people, and bi women in particular, have shitty health is that they… never seem to go beyond that. This one certainly doesn’t! They just say, “What do you know, bi people are doing badly, I guess it’s because of biphobia and minority stress” and leave it at that. There never seems to be an attempt to come up with strategies for how to alleviate this disparity, never seems to be any attempt at a solution. Just… observation.
What am I supposed to do with that?
I am fortunate enough to be a bisexual woman whose health (mental and physical, hell, even dental) is actually pretty good, in part because of the resources I have access to. But what if I wasn’t? What would these studies, lacking in any real analysis of the cause of my distress, actually do for me?
“Minority stress” is not really a helpful answer given that the solution is basically “stop being a minority.”
What I think — what I know given my experience as a bi woman navigating the healthcare system — is that it’s more than just “minority stress.” Biphobia is baked into a lot of psychological frameworks, at least in the sense that these frameworks are rarely designed with bi people and the bi experience in mind. Though it’s gotten better, GYN offices and anywhere that sexual history comes up can be a minefield for bi people — is it a shock that many of us might ultimately decide to avoid them? And don’t even get me started on how queer clinics often don’t feel totally comfortable for bi people, even when they put the B right in the name.
What I am saying, basically, is that there are some pretty obvious ways that the healthcare system could be adapted to alleviate bi people’s woes. It would be nice to see more studies addressing best practices for implementing improvements!
But, you know, failing that… I guess it is nice to get more studies that confirm that it sucks to be bi.
In conclusion: what the fuck is this caption on this photo from a Newsweek piece about the above mentioned study.
Thanks for posting this! I'm a member of Bi+ Organizing US and we actually have Adrian Shanker, Senior Advisor on LGBTQI+ Health Equity at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) joining our monthly call next week to discuss specific barriers to health and wellbeing for bi+ people, and policy and other HHS actions that could address the health needs of bi+ Americans. If you send me a DM on IG (the.traveling.snail) i can forward you the invite. We'd love to have your voice in the call.
I’m facilitating a workshop session on exactly this at BiCon soon in Nottingham. “Healthier, happier bisexuals: Working out how
Bisexuals have significantly worse health and happiness than others. We keep hearing this from research and personal stories. Let's talk together about what might help: What could we do for ourselves individually or in community? What do we want others in our lives or in the wider world to do more or less of or do differently?”
https://2023.bicon.org.uk/