Study supports bisexuals
A greater level of acceptance from the gay and lesbian community could help alleviate the level of mental anguish and discrimination faced by bisexuals, a report in the Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology review has shown.
The Silences and Stereotypes study, conducted by Kirsten McLean, a sociology lecturer at Monash University, has outlined the challenges faced by bisexual-identifying people who suffer discrimination from both straight and gay sides of society.
-œDespite a movement towards greater acceptance of homosexuality in society, bisexual men and women still struggle for the same acceptance, McLean wrote in her conclusion.
Based on interviews with 60 Australian bi men and women, the paper points out the higher levels of mental health issues experienced by bi people as a result of not having their sexual identity recognised.
-œIn the first couple of years, some lesbians told me bisexuality was a phase and that I was in the process of finding my true identity, one study subject is quoted as saying.
-œI’ve always felt comfortable being in the middle of the Kinsey scale but always felt there was a decision to be made.
The paper cites other examples of bi men and women who had turned to drugs and suicidal thoughts as a result of this enforced pressure to -œpick a side.
McLean also attributes this pressure to a lack of positive bi role models.
-œThe heterosexual/homosexual binary is reflected in popular understandings that people are either -˜straight or gay’. For example, celebrities who begin same-sex relationships are assumed to have -˜turned gay’, McLean wrote, citing the examples of Lindsay Lohan and Cynthia Nixon and explaining how negative stereotypes of promiscuous, spreaders of HIV become the most publicised.
-œIf the conditions for developing a positive, healthy bisexual identity include recognition, validation and support, then it is clear there is some way to go for the many bisexual men and women living in Australia, she concluded.
Aaah Bobby…
I’ve got a funny feeling I have a t-shirt with you name on it, wore it to Mardi Gras last year, when I marched with the Bi float.
Robin – Proudly Bi, Proudly out.
I take it Bobby that you’re gay or straight… and that you believe the world is divided into black and white. I’m bisexual. I am attracted to both males and females, I don’t think I’ve chosen the easy way out at all, given how many people seem to want to deny my sexuality.
After the years of persecution gay and lesbian people faced and the fight they went through for social recognition and acceptance, why must bisexuals face the same within the queer community?
Wait on… homosexuals have been trying for many years to be recognised by the mainstream, and to assure heterosexuals that their existence does not threaten them… and yet here we have a frightened homosexual who seems to feel threatened by the existence and acceptance of bisexuals.
How ironic.
Please don’t continue the political correct stance that bisexuality is a valid sexuality choice…
All we are doing is denying the existance of gay sexuality with an easy way out for individuals to say i am bisexual without admiting to themselves that they are in fact gay.
It’s very encouraging to see a study of this kind. Many of my bi friends are at least discouraged by evidence of the cavilier or dismissive attitude towards them in
the gay community.
Bi people often know in the depths of their beings that it is not “just a phase”. As a group I have found bi people to be extremely responsible in their attitudes to safer sex, and about how they manage their relationships. However, time and time again the same old stereotypes get trotted out, as much or more by the gay community as by anyone else – bis are cheating, untrustworthy, spread disease by their behaviour, and most of all are undecided fence-sitters with regards to their sexuality.
I acknowledge that there are moments of genuine acceptance from the gay community also, but these seem painfully few.
We’ve seen throughout history that the oppressed can easily turn and become oppressors in their turn. I want the gay community to show us that they are better than that.