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.

Despite 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.

In 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.

I’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 pick a side.

McLean also attributes this pressure to a lack of positive bi role models.
The 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.

If 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.