Bisexual erasure
Erasure frequently results in bisexual-identifying individuals experiencing a variety of adverse social encounters, as they not only have to struggle with finding acceptance within general society but also within the LGBTQ community.
According to scholar Kenji Yoshino, there are three main investments that motivate both self-identified homosexuals and heterosexuals to erase bisexuality from LGBT culture.
[12] The second motivation is the maintenance of the importance of gender, which is seen as erotically essential to homosexuals and heterosexuals whereas bisexuality appears to challenge this notion.
[15] Juana María Rodríguez adds to Yoshino's argument and posits bisexuality breaks down traditional understandings of sexuality and the gender binary.
[6] In a 2010 article written for the 10th anniversary of Yoshino's piece, Heron Greenesmith argues bisexuality is inherently invisible in the law, even beyond the reach of deliberate erasure.
[18] Writing for Bisexual.org, author and columnist Zachary Zane cites a study showing 20.7% of straight-identified men watched gay pornography and 7.5% reported having sex with a man in the past six months, while 55% of gay-identified men had watched heterosexual pornography and 0.7% reported having sex with a woman in the past six months.
Ten of these people reported they claimed the label of bisexuality first, and later came out again as lesbian, gay, or queer.
The theory that emerged in this study introduced the concept of the "queer apologetic", in which one attempts to reconcile their same-gender attraction with the social norm of heterosexuality.
For example, one of the first people to take part in a same-sex marriage in the United States, Robyn Ochs, was widely referred to in the media as a lesbian, despite identifying herself in interviews as bisexual.
[34] Modern biographers of Lord Byron, a Romantic poet and volunteer for the Greek War of Independence, generally agree that he was bisexual.
In May 1824, one month after Byron's death, the publisher burned his memoirs to conceal evidence of his bisexuality, and continued to deny it into the 1950s.
[39][38] Marie Mulholland, author of the book The Politics and Relationships of Kathleen Lynn, said that after O'Brien died, "her family ensured that all [of] her personal papers were destroyed, which is always an indication that something is being hidden.
Viewpoints like Wilde's have been applied by scholars such as Laura Erickson-Schroth and Jennifer Mitchell[41] to pieces of pop-culture and literature; Steven Angelides also produced a book on the place of bisexuality in research and societal awareness throughout history, using a similar framework.
[43] Erickson-Schroth and Mitchell's 2009 article in the Journal of Bisexuality performs a similar analysis of Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson and Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall; the assertion behind these scholars' work is the bisexual experience has existed throughout the history of humanity, and while it has only recently been acknowledged even in queer and LGBT circles, it is in no way an exclusively modern phenomenon.
Linda K. Hughes' analysis of Alexander Smith's A Life-Drama contends the atypical nature of the heterosexual courtship in the poem stands in place of the romance between the main character's "intimate friendship" with another man.
[50][51] Melissa Smith and Elizabethe Payne state there are several instances where faculty have been silent when it comes to bullying of LGBTQ students.
Ani DiFranco's 1998 marriage to Andrew Gilchrist was portrayed in both gay and mainstream media as renouncing lesbianism, even though she had been out as bisexual since the very beginning of her career.
[6] Bisexual women are over-represented in pornography, reality television, and music videos as part of the male gaze.
On December 30, 2009, MTV premiered their 23rd season of the show The Real World,[66] featuring two bisexual participants,[67][68] Emily Schromm[69] and Mike Manning.
[73][74] In 2016, popular sitcom The Good Place aired on NBC starring Kristen Bell as bisexual Eleanor Shellstrop.
However, many were disappointed in the show's portrayal of Eleanor's sexuality as a joke which was never taken any further than occasional passing comments about her attractions to women, and therefore devaluing the validity of bisexuality on the television screen.
Pedro Pascal, who plays Oberyn, claims that his character "does not discriminate in his pleasures...to limit yourself in terms of experience doesn't make any sense to him.
[76] In ABC's Grey's Anatomy,[77] Callie Torres went through many relationships spanning her eleven seasons with both men and women.
This led to a three-person co-parenting style and accusations like this is Callie's “Bi-dream come true” because she has both a man and woman in her life.
[78] A survey of relevant terminology in LGBT-rights cases found, excluding a brief period in U.S. Supreme Court history when bisexuals were mentioned alongside gays and lesbians,[79] bisexuality has not been mentioned in Supreme Court opinions or briefs in major LGBT rights cases, which often describe gays and lesbians as being exclusively affected by sexual orientation discrimination.
This is due to a common assumption within the legal community a person can only be legitimately attracted to one gender; therefore, a bisexual asylum-seeker is more likely to be considered a fraud.
[81] A study of the labor market conducted in Canada in 2019 found that bisexual men and women do not fare as well as their peers in the workplace.
[83] Though bisexual people make up over 50 percent of the LGBTQ+ community, it is very common for these individuals to feel invisible or that they do not belong.
One example of this is when a bisexual youth show higher incidents of risk and risky behavior due to the discrimination they face from family and friends.
[medical citation needed] It has been suggested that there are four ways to help reduce and eventually eliminate the imposter syndrome: 1) skepticism 2) humility 3) grounding 4) self-compassion.
