5 things you (probably) don’t know about the ‘word’s largest sexual minority’

Dr Julia Shaw set up the bisexual research group after coming out (Picture: Boris Breuer)

I always knew I was Bi, but I only came out more widely – on social media – when I was 32. With the moment carefully chosen as Bi visibility day, and a post I had agonised over for hours, I hit the virtual ground running.

Unexpectedly my Tweet had gone viral, and waiting for me online was a flood of open hearts and loving replies. What I found, and hadn’t realised until then that I was missing, was a Bi community.

It triggered an avalanche of curiosity in me. What else had I been missing?

So, I started a bisexual research group, organised a bisexuality conference, and went back to university to do a master’s degree in queer history. Then I wrote a book about everything I found: Bi: The hidden culture, history, and science of bisexuality.

Here are five things I learned about bisexuality that, even as a Bi woman, surprised me:

1. The ‘Bi’ in bisexual doesn’t stand for men and women

Bisexuality is an umbrella term that describes people who are sexually and/or romantically attracted to multiple genders. Since its inception as a term in the late 1800s, the ‘Bi’ in bisexual has meant both homosexual (same-sex) and heterosexual (other-sex) attractions.

In the past decade, you may have heard people using the term Pansexual, used to denote sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction to all genders. Sometimes people use the term ‘pansexual’ because of the misconception that the ‘Bi’ in bisexual reinforces a gender binary, but it doesn’t!

Of course, if you prefer the term pansexual, you do you. Research has found that the terms bisexual and pansexual are typically synonyms, and their use is a matter of individual preference.

2. You don’t need to have had sex with multiple genders to call yourself bisexual

I recently spoke with a friend who identified as Bi-curious because she hadn’t yet had sex with a woman. She knew she found men and women attractive, but she felt the need to prove – to herself and perhaps to others – that she was really Bi. This self-doubt is a form of internalised biphobia, the derision and avoidance of bisexuality.

I have yet to meet a person who needs to prove their heterosexuality or their homosexuality, and bisexuals don’t need to prove anything either. You know you are attracted to multiple genders… because you know.

3. People who’ve had sex with multiple genders sometimes shy away from the term Bi

Very few people identify as bisexual, even if they have had sexual encounters with multiple genders – but they will open up if you ask them about their sexuality in a more nuanced way that leaves out the labels.

When the UK Census 2021 asked people to select their sexual orientation label, just 1.51% identified as bisexual or pansexual. But in a 2019 YouGov survey, participants didn’t have to use any label. Instead they put themselves on the Kinsey Scale – categorising sexual preferences from 0 (entirely heterosexual) to 6 (entirely homosexual).

A quarter (24%) were between 1 and 5, indicating at least some attraction to more than one gender. These two surveys differ in other important ways – including average age, sample size, and sampling method.

However, we know from many different studies that people are way more likely to place themselves somewhere in the middle of a scale than call themselves Bi – perhaps even more than 10 times more likely.

A whole book of knowledge (Picture: Supplied)

4. Bi people experience ‘double-discrimination’

Bisexuality is often treated as a lesser sexuality than hetero-, or homosexuality. Even I, still, sometimes use the broader term queer instead of Bi. I’m worried about the discrimination that comes from the heterosexual community when I say I’m Bi, where I’m more likely to be seen as attention-seeking, hypersexual, and unfaithful. And I’m worried about the stigma from the homosexual community, where some see me as not queer enough, a tourist on the queer scene who is just going to go back to a heterosexual life after my visit to gay town.

The negative comments and discriminatory behaviours that bisexual people face from both the heterosexual and the homosexual community is called double-discrimination. It leaves many bisexual people stripped of community, which makes them more vulnerable to the negative effects of biphobia.

It is also tangled up with the fact that very few bisexual people are out. In Stonewall’s 2020 Bi Report, Bi people were less than half as likely to be out as the gay or lesbian people in the study. The majority (80%) of bisexual people in their sample were not out to all of their family members, and 64% were not out to their friends.

5. Bisexuality is still often seen as a ‘choice’, including in asylum decisions

Yes, you read that correctly, A study on refugee claims on the grounds of sexuality in the US, Canada, and Australia concluded that decision-makers often assumed that bisexual people can just choose to live heterosexual lives, others were told they were lying about being Bi.

It meant that bisexual people were significantly less likely to obtain refugee status than other sexual minority groups.

And if you slip up and out yourself later down the line? In many parts of the world that can have catastrophic consequences.

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I came out as Bi, then realised how little I knew.