“I think she thinks I’m just confused.”

For Maddie, a young woman from Brighton, coming out to her mum as bisexual was met with disbelief. She explains that if she was only into women then she thinks her mum would be more supportive, but she struggles to see bisexuality as a real identity.

This experience isn’t unusual. For many bisexual people, it can be an immense challenge for their identity to be recognised.

We live in a culture that seeks clarity, a definitive coming out moment along with a label that neatly fits. Society wants people to be option A or B, but bisexuality doesn’t fit within these rigid categories, and other people can find that difficult to understand.

Despite being the largest group under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, bisexuals are often misunderstood and face mistrust. This is illustrated by the fact that in one 2019 study, 85% of bisexual participants reported experiencing identity invalidation, including being labelled “confused” or accused of “faking it.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7539694/

Bisexuality is still treated as something temporary rather than a legitimate identity, but why is that?

The either or…

Society seeks the either or, and finds comfort in it. Monosexuality, the attraction to only one gender, can act as a safety blanket providing a predictable narrative that people outside the LGBTQ community can comprehend: gay or straight. Bisexuality reveals a fluidity people find exhausting to categorise. This is highlighted by the fact that Pew research centre found that bisexual adults are far less likely to be “out” to those who are important in their lives in contrast to gay men and lesbians. This conveys the idea that bisexual people find it difficult to explain their identity and don’t want to risk the confusion. (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/18/bisexual-adults-are-far-less-likely-than-gay-men-and-lesbians-to-be-out-to-the-people-in-their-lives/).

Professor Carrie Paetcher, an expert in gender and identity from Nottingham Trent university, suggests that skepticism is rooted in a generational divide. She explains “I think it’s partly that older people struggle with the idea of fluidity. When I was young, society was really binary, so people felt they were crossing a binary divide by coming out as gay, so being bisexual was a sort of way to hedge your bets.” This creates a narrative that bisexuality is a layover, rather than the actual destination. 

This can immensely hinder the way bisexual people navigate their identity, and cause serious self doubt. Professor Paetcher notes that this binary way of thinking still is particularly prevalent in the way that society socialises children. “Society is still teaching young children they can only be heterosexual.” When education systems only recognise heterosexuality as the only path, it makes deviation into a middle ground appear as a detour rather than the overall destination. “It takes longer to figure out who you are.”

Maddie, a 21 year old bisexual student, highlights her own experience in navigating her identity, noting that being straight is just the “obvious thing.”

Without patterns to follow, young people are left in the dark, leading to individuals doubting their own thoughts. “Am I attracted to women, or do I just want to be them? I question that all the time. I know deep down I am attracted to them,” Maddie voices that uncertainty.

Who are you kissing for?

“Sometimes a straight girl will try to kiss me, just to be funny.”

Jess, a young bisexual woman from Cambridgeshire, recalls her experience, revealing a harmful trope that bisexuality is often just a performance designed to provoke a laugh, a reaction, or even male attention.

Professor Paetcher references this idea of performing for the male gaze, highlighting a trend of “young women getting off with other young women at parties, partly for the titillation of young men.” Psychology Today’s article on “girls kissing girls” further reinforces this, their research finding that 56% of women kissing girls at parties in college did it in hopes of male attention. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/power-and-prejudice/201207/girls-kissing-girls

This proves that this is not an isolated event, but instead a repeated mockery and sexualization of bisexuality. Jess says “It has happened to me quite a few times, I think it comes off as a joke to some people and I hate that.”

The validity of genuine bisexuals is harmed by these performative acts used to get male attention, and can easily manifest into the lives of real people, as shown in Jess’ experience. She further emphasised this point by revealing how it affected her dating life, “I told a man I was bisexual, and he just asked me really inappropriate questions about what me and my ex girlfriend had done. It wasn’t to be educated, it was to sexualise it, and that was insulting.”

Passing tax

How bisexuality is perceived is often dependent on their current relationship and the gender of their partner. In same-sex relationships it can be fetishised, but in opposite-sex relationships, its easy for the entire identity to be erased.

“That just looks like you’re straight. People can find that very, very difficult because it completely hides a part of your identity.” Professor Paetcher emphasises this sense of invisibility, illustrating how not being visibly queer can make it difficult for bisexual people to feel connected to the LGBTQ community and feel comfortable in queer spaces. In a survey by HER, they found 40% of bisexuals actually feel excluded from these queer spaces. https://www.scenemag.co.uk/survey-finds-40-of-bisexuals-dont-feel-accepted-by-the-lgbtq-community/

Queer spaces and celebrations, like pride, are designed to uplift and recognise all identities, Professor Paetches notes how this may be more difficult to achieve when people are presenting as stereotypically heterosexual. “Two bisexuals in an opposite-gendered couple will look like they don’t fit in at pride, but they do, and that is problematic.” This could make it difficult for bisexual people to navigate their identity, as they may feel a disconnect with their queerness and their link to the wider community.

Jess conveys the toll it can take on bisexual people, explaining her internal turmoil: “I do think there is usually this level of am I queer enough?” Especially having a boyfriend as a bisexual woman, “feeling too straight is usually the feeling I get.”

Bisexuality is a recognised identity, established in the LGBTQ+ community, yet many people identifying this way still feel as though they do not fit in and feel they are “too straight” for queer spaces.

A bisexual who gets into an opposite-gendered relationship can often be disregarded as someone who was just in an experimental phase of their life, but would have always ended up in a heterosexual relationship. Jess reveals that this narrative can cause insecurities in relationships, as it can create a sense of mistrust.

“I remember vividly when we’d joke about breaking up, she said I would end up with a man. I don’t know if she was insecure, because obviously I’m bisexual, but it definitely did come off that way.” She goes on to emphasise that this is an untrue narrative and plays into stereotypes about bisexual people that they are “just confused.”

Importance of community

The shift from self-doubt to self-assurance can be as easy as surrounding yourself with a community of support. Maddie found that once she started associating with a different peer group, in which many were also bisexual, she began to feel more at peace with her own identity. “I feel like if I was out to any of my other friends at the time, because we were quite young, I would have been judged and kind of was, but as soon as I became friends with this group, I became way more comfortable, it opened my eyes to the wider world.”

Being around like-minded people can make the pressure to prove your identity lessen significantly, Maddie recalls the relief in finding this: “everyone was just talking about it very openly, I felt like I could talk about myself and no one batted an eyelid.” 

However, a physical community like that may not always be as accessible, depending on where you live, the people around you, or even if you are not comfortable being out yet. This could make it more difficult to discover yourself and fully realise your identity, but in the digital age, there are now other ways to learn. Professor Paetcher reinforces this, saying “the internet has its problems, clearly, but it’s a very good source for young queer people who want to know more about the world.”

Everyone deserves access to queer education, to have the opportunity to learn about identities they might not know were an option. It can be immensely challenging to navigate a queer identity when you haven’t been taught they ever exist. “For young queer people it’s harder, because you’ve got fewer patterns, and schools aren’t terribly helpful,” Paetcher says, also noting that schools “find it very difficult to deal with.”

Social media platforms, especially TikTok, help expand opportunities for queer education. These platforms have millions of users interacting with LGBTQ content creators like Dylan Mulvaney, Bretman Rock, or Chis Olsen. “I think tiktok helps a lot, a lot of bisexual people are on the app and they’ll talk about it, and that breaks the stigma a little bit.” Jess says, illustrating that having open conversations about bisexuality can help stop the misconceptions, and the internet is definitely helping with that.

Despite stigmas and skepticism around bisexuality, people like Maddie and Jess found themselves and a sense of comfort in their identity. It can be easy for bisexuals to feel a sense of internal turmoil, Jess reflects on her own journey with this after now establishing her own validity “fortunately now, especially at this point in my life, I’m so comfortable in my sexuality that I’m like, yeah, I have a boyfriend and I can be bisexual.” Bisexuality isn’t about picking a side, society just needs to get used to things outside of the binary.