Bisexuality: Part 1

Anney and Samantha sit down with a panel of advocates, lawyers and researchers to discuss what it means to be bisexual, the issues facing the community, and what we can do about them.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Danny and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
I've never told to your protection of I heart radio
and how stuff works. So trigger warning right off the
bat for this one. Um, we're talking about bisexuality to day,

(00:26):
and along with that, we are going to talk about
some some aspects of sexual assaults, suicidality, mental health issues,
and domestic violence. Right and um, of course it's now
no longer Pride Month, but I'm going to go ahead
and celebrate Pride Year. Can we do that? There we go? Um,
so happy Pride Year everyone anyway, UM, just coming in.

(00:49):
So in our last episode on sexuality, I incorrectly stated
from a source the binary definition, which brought on several
reactions on both our emails of leave and our social
media and I wanted to make sure that we came
back and addressed it because I do not want to
be a part of the biphobic culture and I want

(01:10):
to celebrate everything that has to do with loving two people.
That's just kind of the end of statement. And I
was horrified. I was like, I don't, I don't know
what I just did. Um. And of course we have
had in past hosts do episodes and they were very good.
They were very good, and I came and kind of
like kind of pounced on that in one sentence, and
so I was like, Annie, we gotta make it clear

(01:31):
that we want to make sure we educate because I
don't want to be part of the problem. And I
also want to say on air that I apologize for
the incorrect statement. Um. And so we came together, and
I've had so many different reactions, like I said on
social media, and UM, I wanted to make sure that
I got to talk to them. And with that I
didn't meet or actually, I'll say, meat is that meat

(01:53):
if I don't make a really long discussion about this
other day, because the meat feels kind of not real.
But I want to be like friends with everybody, Like
I've talked to you now and we've bonded over a
few things. So I was gonna say, I feel like
it's real. I just it also has an I think
it's dismissed. It sounds funny when I type thanks to

(02:14):
meet you, hemate you. UM, So I'll just say I
E met yes, um, several people that had responded to
that episode, and we have a few people that I
did talk with on this episode and we interviewed several
people who specialize in a specific field that includes the

(02:36):
LGBTQ community, as specifically to buy community. UM and so
from the very beginning, I want you to know this
is my man culpa to that statement. Yes and I, um,
I'm also sorry because I was bad co host. I
should have caught it and I didn't. Um and yeah,
just I apologize for any damage or confusion we've caused.

(03:00):
But there's already a lot out there. We don't want
to add to it. Um. So I'm really thrilled that
we have everyone that we got to talk to you
to day. Sometimes I'm always I'm amazed that people agreed
to talk to her. We were so cool, all right.
I think several of our episodes like can we be friends? Yes? Yes?
Um so yeah, this has been this episode has been

(03:23):
a long time coming. Um. We did touch on it
in the episode Bridget and I did on pan sexuality
and Kristin Caroline pasco host, they did an episode on it.
Um and yeah, we had so many good conversations. This
is going to be a two parter. Everybody was delightful. Yeah,
it's too much. We couldn't say. I just couldn't say no,
I want to keep you and you and you keep

(03:45):
going and um. One of our interviewees, uh Dr TAngelo Roberts. UM,
she used a term that I've never heard before, called
me search and she's going to go into that later.
But sometimes I feel like I'm doing that on this show,
like right, oh, this is me, sir, because UM, for
people who don't know, for a long time, I did
identify as bisexual. UM, and now thanks to this podcast,

(04:09):
I believe I have arrived at by romantic a sexual.
So thanks to everybody who wrote in about it, really
appreciate you. Feel like being able to define it gives
you a little more I don't know what the word is.
Do you feel more complete or how do you feel
about defining to have an actual definition of it. I

(04:29):
feel more clarity around things that I have done in
my life and less confusion, and especially looking back around
conversations I had with friends when I was in high
school and college and everybody was so like into wanting
to have sex or having sex and I just was
pretending like going along with it and didn't feel it.

(04:50):
But at the same time I did experience some kind
of like attraction UM to multiple genders, so I couldn't
figure it out. I us and for anyone who's UM wondering.
For very brief definition, romantic attraction usually involves an emotional
and or physical attraction UM, which is often tied to
sexual attraction but not always sexual attraction is a desire

(05:15):
for sexual contact and sexual relationship, and some people feel both,
some people feel neither, Some people feel one or the other.
It might vary based on the person, It might vary
based on what phasier and in your life. UM, so
it is I feel mostly clarity and a story I
brought up in a lot of these interviews, and I
was asking questions is how a friend and I UM

(05:37):
a couple of weeks ago were talking about how we
didn't know by was a thing when we were growing up,
and we were just confused that we liked both Molder
and Scully on the show The X Files, and almost
everyone we interviewed was like, yes, it made my nerd
heart grow ten sizes. UM. There just wasn't awareness around it,
and in a lot of ways that is still problem.

(05:59):
Right as I got older and I realized I was
attracted to more than one gender, I didn't want to
stay it out loud because I felt like I could
pass as straight, and then I had access to heterosexual privilege,
and I had no right saying that I was in
any way a part of the LGBTQ plus community. And
this is something I still struggle with, and I have
definitely just kind of been strugged off before as either

(06:19):
you're being experimental or one day you'll realize you're a
lesbian or something. Right, um And I'm not aloning that,
and we'll get into that more later as well. Um
And I will say when I was in high school,
I was I was well liked, but I was seeing
as weird. There were a lot of rumors about me.
Um So when I started displaying attraction to more than
one gender, people would sort of be like, well, that's

(06:39):
so Danny being Annie. She's a little strange. Um, she's
like that voice, she's that's because that's how they are
in my head that I like to remember them. She's
just looking for a thrill, she's just trying to be interesting.
And I did internalize a lot of that. Um So,
that is something that in my own honestly very limited

(07:02):
experience growing up in a small town, I did see.
So uh, but that's enough about never and us, thank you.
You can have a lot of ground to cover, right,
So let's get into our interviews and we'll start with
some intros and let them talk about some of the
badass stuff they're doing. Him. My name is Dr TAngelo Roberts.

(07:28):
I used she her her pronouns. I am an assistant
professor of Child Prink Psychology at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. UM.
I have a background in child prink psychology. UM I
do research on LGBT population, specifically with bisexuality and LGBT

(07:49):
people of color, and clinical works similarly with LGBT population
and adolescence. So I'm Diana Adams and I have been
a bisexuality activist for years. I'm also an activist as
a polyamorous person. And I have a nonprofit of which
i'm executive director, Chosen Family Law Center, that supports people
who are LGBT q I as well as people who

(08:11):
are polyamorous and an alternative family structures such as platonic
co parenting. And I have a peak law firm UM
that serves private clients. UM based in New York City,
and I'm excited to be on to speak about some
of the issues of being bisexuality in the LGBTQ commit continuum.
I am Harry Greensmith. I am the senior Research analyst

(08:32):
of Political Research Associates, where I monitor the anti lgbt
Q I right here in the US and abroad. And
I'm also a volunteer because the attorney for bisexual and
tense sexual communities. So I have a personal label and
a community label. My personal label was queer because I

(08:53):
think UM identify and I've heard other folks identify UM
with using it as a way to say quickly to
someone I am not is this gender heterosexual person. You
may not know exactly how my queerness manifest but I'm
not assist straight person UM. And for me personally, queerness

(09:21):
as I struggle kind of to identify what exactly my
gender identity is UM, as I struggled to deal with
by phobia, internalized by phobia, Queer for me is a
way in my heart to maintain my connection to my
communities as my labels and my gender identity are influx UM.

(09:45):
On the other hand, bisexual is my community label because
those are the people who I march with in pride.
Those are the people who whose pins I wear. Those
are my best the this you know, most important and
powerful relationships in the queer community at large, the people

(10:09):
who might share the most experiences with of buy invisibility
and virat er um from game, lesbian and straight people. UM.
And so I will always be the community that I'm
allied with. But I don't if I as a queer
person UM. And I use that to mean I'm not

(10:30):
straight and stiff. I am Tanya Israel. I'm a professor
of tombling, clinical and school psychology at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, and I UM do a lot of work
around bisexuality. I've been doing research on how to best

(10:50):
help LGBTQ people UM to thrive and with their potential. UM.
I've been doing that for over twenty years now, UM,
and the b part of it was a piece of it,
but it hadn't been so much the focus until uh
three years ago. I was reading this book about public

(11:11):
speaking and it was about how to give a TED talk,
and I was like, Oh, I know what I would
want to give a TED talk about. And so that
led me down this path of actually giving a talk
at TED x C L a on bisexuality and beyond.
I had the full you know concept that that I
was that I was sharing. And but then once I
did that and it was up on YouTube, it was like, oh,

(11:35):
now I am Tanya Israel International Expert on bisexuality. Yeah.
So so suddenly, you know, people are asking me to
come and give talks and you know, do all these
things throughout bisexuality. I was like, this is great. I
love doing this. I you know, got invited to you know,
be part of a gathering of a bunch of researchers

(11:55):
about who are doing work on bisexual health. UM. I
got invited to um UH White House Bisexual Community Policy
Forum UM and there were two of those that happened
in the previous administration UM and UH and and then
recently I taught a course on bisexuality at UCSB and

(12:17):
so so it's just become much more of a focus
of what I'm doing, including my research, my teaching, my activism. UM.
When I started doing all of these things around bisexuality
all over the country, I was feeling in such by
community and then I was like, I have to bring
that back home. So then I I started a bisexual
discussion group in uh in Santa Barbara, where I live,

(12:39):
and that's been going on for a couple of years. Now.
I'm part of a statewide brant on lgbt Q mental
health where I'm specifically focusing on like supporting bisexual mental health.
So it's really exciting for me that I've been able
to uh to to do a lot more of this
because I feel like it's such an important um part

(13:00):
of the LGBTQ community, and also, by the way, I'm bisexual,
so it has a lot of personal meaning for me
as well. We tend to assume people are the sexual
orientation depending on the sex of whatever partner they are with,
if they're gay or a straight or lesbian. One article
I found on medium described being by as being Schrodinger's cat,

(13:21):
appearing either straight or gay when observed, but being both
at once when unobserved. Tanya and she said, we could
call her that even though she's a doctor, and if
I was a doctor, i'd doctor all the time. I
like to turn this, I will not call you anything
about doctor. She has found an amazing way of dealing
with this head on. So you know, one of the

(13:42):
things for people who are bisexual is that you have
to come out constantly, because you know, there's not a
way that people can tell you by the gender of
your partner or your history or anything like that you're
bisexual specifically. So I have these business cards that say
um Tanya israel Um biracial age American, bisexual, Jewish, Buddhist feminist.

(14:04):
So I become like like a professional bisexual. I would say,
like I am out there everywhere that I am, like,
I am representing bisexuality really loudly and loudly because part
of it is I feel fine being allowed and found
bisexual and not everybody does, and so I feel like
that's fine. I'm happy to do this and be out

(14:25):
there for all of us. Um. I think that the
bisexual community is really diverse, and and I embrace like,
like the whole bisexual communities, people who are out, people
who aren't out, people who are you know, in relationship
with people of whatever gender, people who aren't in relationship,
people who don't want to be activists and don't even

(14:47):
want to you know, people to know, like like they're
all part of bisexual community. And I'm like, Okay, my
my role in all of this is to just be
like the joyful um you know out there bisexual person.
So now you've met our amazing panels, let's get started
with a baseline definition. Pretty much all of our interviewees

(15:08):
brought up the definition of Robin Oaks. Here's heron I
use um Robin Oakes's definition. Robin is a form mother
of the community. She has been an advocate for forty years.
She runs the Boston by Women's Network here in Boston
and is also um the editor of the By Women's Quarterly,

(15:30):
which is a quarterly newsletter that comes out the only
news letter in the world focused on by women and
I encourage everyone to submit. Robin defines bi sexuality as
having the potential to be attracted to people of more
than one gender. UM. Doesn't matter, the degree doesn't matter,
the intensity doesn't matter, the time frame UM. It doesn't

(15:51):
matter if the attraction is romantic or sexual, or aesthetic
or um other variations on attraction. UM. As long as
you have the potential to be attracted to people into
more than one gender, UM, you are. You can call
yourself bisexual. There you go. For some folks, there is

(16:12):
a lot of anxiety around the buy in bisexual that
it supports the gender binary and along with that, some
confusion around the difference between pen and by, like we
were talking about earlier, we asked our interviewees about this.
I got linked with you through Twitter because of my
miss misstep and miss speaking in the previous podcasts of sexuality,

(16:34):
which was obviously very outdated and very too like one
sided obviously, and you had reached out. It's saying, these
are the things that are incorrect, let's talk. And I
love that. And one of the things that we were
talking about you were kind of linking us to was
the fact that this is a misconception when I was
speaking about two genders, mainly because it obviously is bigger

(16:56):
than that. Also it was excluding let hands gender world
and people of community as well, and that was very
very telling. I was like, oh my goodness, she's right
and I want to know more about it. So if
you don't mind, can you speak to um what exactly
is the definition of bisexuality? And then just some of
the things all around that. Absolutely, and I really appreciate

(17:19):
you being willing to listen. I think these issues are
really complicated and the LGBTQ community is evolving really quickly,
which is exciting, but sometimes it can be hard for
people even in the community to keep up, so thank
you so much for being willing to listen. The current
definition of bisexuality for many people in the BUY community
is being sexually attracted and romantically attracted, not exclusively to

(17:43):
people of one gender. So allowing for the possibility of that,
the BUY is in binary being attracted to people UM
who are of your sexual gender and people of the
whole other set of potential sexism genders UM. And so
really it takes a way that male female binary UM
and allows attraction to people who are not just gender,

(18:06):
but people who are transgender as well. And that's an
identity and a definition which has evolved over time as
we've understood more and included an embrace the transgender community
more actively. And I think that it's really common in
the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community for a lot of
emphasis to be placed on same sex couples, and both

(18:28):
bisexual community and transgender community can sometimes feel a bit
left out of some of the conversations about UM these issues,
which often mostly focus on lesbian or gay couples. And
I think it's really important that as by people we
have solidarity with transgender people and there are some people
who identify as pan sexual, and people talk sometimes about

(18:50):
the definition of bisexuality versus pan sexuality, and pan sexuality
is explicitly trying to make very clear in its wording
with with the prefix pan that it includes multiple potential genders,
which would include people who are transgender, people who are
intersex potentially, and it's I think intended to make that

(19:11):
very clear. But I think it's actually really important for
us to hang onto the word bisexual as well. I
support people in choosing whichever word makes the most sense
to them, but bisexual feels important to me because that's
our legal and medical designation, and we need to really
hang onto that. I mean, I'll start with like, yeah,
there is the term by in the in the label bisexual. UM.

(19:39):
That's a very very like scientific term, right UM. And
that term and the definition that goes with that term
wasn't derived from the community, from bisexual community UM. And
so typically bisexual communities have definitions that they use. Don't

(20:00):
tend to like believe in like monolithic community. So I
don't think there's like one LGBT community or one bisexual community, UM.
But bisexual communities have definitions that they use to sort
of define the orientation. So it's like if someone were
to ask me how I identify my bisexuality, I usually
say that I'm attracted to similar and different genders, right,

(20:21):
So I identify as like a assist sim woman right,
So similar would be like any for me, any sim
expression from anyone that's similar, um and different Literally for
me is anything that's not a sim expression. So everything
else um so expression of masculinity, expressions of it, androgeny um.

(20:46):
And so that's sort of like how I identify it,
and for me that's been that's that's been inclusive of
a lot of things and a lot of people. Um,
not necessarily and definitely not dependent just on and like
biological sex or a science sex that worst, but more
so UM expression. But I've said some people hear me

(21:09):
when I say that definition and then say like, oh,
well you can. But I don't. I don't understand when,
especially among queer communities, I don't understand what it's ever
acceptable to identify someone for themselves as opposed to going
with that person's definition for themselves. But it seems like
with by places, with by people, it's okay, it's okay

(21:32):
to say how you're using this word is wrong. How
you're using this definition is wrong, and you need to
use something else. But outside of that, no one would
ever do that. No one would ever say, like your
definition of um, I don't know of trans or gender
queer or queer in general is wrong and you need
to use that. No one would ever ever do that.

(21:52):
It's however you identify as how you identify, and let's
just roll with it. But with by people it tends
to be a little bit different because they're all those
stereotypes and stigmas. So I had you heard this thing
about bisexuality, that the term is problematic because by means too.
So if you say you're bisexual, then does that mean

(22:13):
that you're attracted only to two genders and that there
are only two genders? And does that, um, you know,
reinforce this idea that gender is binary. And I was like,
oh no, I don't think gender is binary. I think
gender is really multidimensional and um and not dichotomous, you know,
so that there's lots, there's probably infinite genders. And so

(22:36):
I started questioning my use of this term bisexual, and
that's sort of what started me on this track board. Okay, well,
then what did I call myself because I, you know,
because I want to represent in some way that I
think that gender is non binary UM. But at the
same time, I was really kind of connected to this
bisexual identity UM. And And here's something I don't want

(23:00):
to say about the bisexual identity because a live times
when people have this heat, they're like, oh, you know, bisexuality,
it's it's um. You know, it's it's like a conservative
thing because it's saying that gender is um is binary.
But really, when you think about the history of UM
people embracing that term bisexuality, particularly, I would say, like

(23:22):
in the eighties and nineties when bisexual activism really started
to grow more, UM, it was a radical thing to
say that you could be attracted some more than one gender.
And it's you know, I think that this saying that
really is UM is a radical way of combating UM,

(23:44):
this idea of psychotomist gender, you know, binary gender. You know,
just saying the gender might not be the most important,
saying or genders aren't necessarily opposite, that you can actually
love more than one gender. I think it's radical. And
so oh I hated the idea of giving up these
kind of radical roots of the of of my bisexual identity. UM.

(24:09):
But at the same time, I was like, I don't
want to do anything that that's not inclusive of people
with non binary gender because that's something that I, you know,
really UM want to support. So I started thinking about
it and realized that, you know, there's there's sometimes the
difference between how we how we understand gender and who
were attracted to so UM. So, I mean a lot

(24:32):
of people are only attracted to one gender, it seems,
and and it's funny how we don't say, well, if
you're heterosexual, lesbian, or gay, then you're reinforcing binary gender
because you're only attracted to one gender. Like how limiting
is that only being attracted to one gender? Like we're
not we're not sort of critiquing those other sexual orientations
in the same way that we're critiquing bisexuality. So I

(24:54):
was like, maybe we need a way to to describe
how we understand gender the different from how we describe
what our actual attractions are. UM. And so that sort
of led me in a conversation with with some of
my friends colleagues, UM, Roger Worthington and Rebecca for if
we're having this whole conversation about like what do we

(25:15):
do about this firm, you know, and they were sort
of providing the guides and Roger Woodland who said, well
what about you know, because I said I don't think
gender is just too I think it's more than two.
I think it's infinite, you know, and he's like, well,
then what about PI sexuality? And I would like PI sexuality.
That's exactly it. It's more than two. It's infinite. Although

(25:36):
all the mathematician people are gonna be like, it's not infinite,
it's irrational, and so that's a whole mathematic thing. Um,
I don't think bisexual people are irrational. Um, but I
went away for us, so like represent, Okay, maybe PI
sexuality is a way of saying I think gender is

(25:56):
non binary, and then you can be PI sexual and
then also describe your own attractions and relationships in whatever
way you want. So you could be a PI sexual bisexual,
which I describe myself as. You could be a PI sexual,
um gay man. You could be a bisexual like non binary, um,
a sexual person like you could be like there's all

(26:19):
kinds of like different things that you could be. But
a way of saying here's how I understand gender, and
then a different way of saying, here's my attraction. I
think I want to I want to talk a little
bit about anomalogy UM because I think that behind somewhat

(26:40):
of the pen and buy controversy is this reliance upon
etymology UM to just decide the ability of a sexual orientation.
And I just want to highlight that for the absolute
it is that non monifexual people, people who have the
potential to be attracted to more than one gender, are

(27:01):
the only ones who are asked to justify the etymology
of the label that they use. UM. So what I
mean by that is by people are told all the time,
but by these do PAN means all you should be PAN.
It's more inclusive. It doesn't UM reify the gender binary,

(27:23):
to which I say, yeah, gay means happy, lesbian means
from an island in Greece, and straight means level and even.
But I don't ask you to prove that you're happy
all the time that you're from Greece. So please don't

(27:45):
demand that I stand behind the etymology of the label
that people commonly use. Right now, for folks who are
attracted to more than one gender, it's absolute nonsense. But
if we want to talk about a sexual orientation reaffying
the gender binary, how about we talk about straight and

(28:08):
gain lesbian people who are either attracted to the opposite
the quote unquote opposite gender or the quote unquote same gender.
If anyone is reaffying the gender binary, it's straight and
gain lesbian people. But we don't accuse them of that
because we know that's a specious accusation. So let's please

(28:29):
not accuse non mono sexual people of reifying the gender binary.
I know so many trams bisexual people who are making
sick of being told that they are reaffying the gender binary,
especially non binary by people. It's just both. Now that

(28:50):
we have some definitions and some etymology, it's time to
look at some numbers. That First, we're going to pause
for a quick break or word from our sponsor, and

(29:11):
we're back, Thank you, sponsor. So what do statistics tell
us about the bisexual community? Here's herein again. So one
of the reasons I think it's so important to focus
not on, you know, whether someone identifies as by or
pan um, but focuses on what the disparities are feasting

(29:32):
the larger non monosexual community. Is that non monosexual folks
comprise the majority non monosexual identified people, that is, people
who identify as bisexual. And then in some surveys, people
who identify as bisexual or pan sexual comprise the majority
of lesbian, gay and by folks, they comprise over half

(29:53):
of lesbian, gay bisexual people. And then when you look
at people who have had sexual contact with people of
more than one gender, you're now up to, you know,
a couple of times more than people who have had
sexual contacts with only a gender similar to theirs. And
then finally, when you look at people who have experienced

(30:14):
sexual attraction to people of more than one gender, now
you're up In some studies even to like half of
youth have said that they have the possibility of attraction
to more than one gender. So we are we, meaning
non mono sexual people, are you know, more than half

(30:36):
of lesbian, gay, bisexual identified people. And then when you
start talking about possibility for attraction, you're up to maybe
half of youth. So we are an enormous part and
in fact of the majority of the LGB community. And
I should add here that trans people can be straight, gay,
left being or by to some studies that show that

(30:56):
trans people are more more likely to identify as buyer pans.
But you know, we don't have any dedicated services or programs.
We have no funded national groups. We have very few
dedicated programs or departments at any of the LGBT organizations.

(31:20):
I can't think of actually any. We have no paid
staff at any of your organizations, any of the bi
community organizations that do exist. UM. There is an absolute
dirf of funding. UM. And that lack of support, support
of services, supportive program combined with the bias that bisexual

(31:41):
and pense sexual people faith from gay lesty and den
strate people. I mean, we have disparities in really distinct areas.
I will highlight a couple with here. We have distinct
health disparities, and the one that always bolt me over
is our mental health disparities. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey
is an annual survey administered in nearly every state and

(32:04):
has an optional module that asks sexual orientation and sexual
attraction and sexual behavior among girls and apologies for the
very gendered language, but that's the language used in the
third guy among girls who identified as bisexual. In states
the administered the optional module in twenty I believe sixteen

(32:31):
one third of bisexual identified girls had attempted suicide in
the past twelve months. One third. That is a very
big number. It is justin when you think of how
many girls identify as bisexual. You know, some data shows

(32:54):
it's like up to ten or twenty of girls and bisexual.
You're looking at a public health crisis. And then when
you add the fact that there are not dedicated mental
health services for by you, you're looking that a mental
health crisis that is only going to worsen when people
look around and try and find supportive communities and don't

(33:17):
find anything, and then maybe they access to their gender
sexuality alliance at their school and they only face by
phobia or pan phobia. The second statistical talk about is
our the levels of intimate partner violence that buy people
of face. BY people face such intense levels of domestic

(33:42):
partner and intimate partner and sexual violence. But again it
is a public health crisis. I believe that dos Indeed,
I think maybe sixty percent of BY women have faced
violence from an intimate partner and fort percent of BY
women and have been raped in their lifetime. Half one

(34:04):
in two BY women has been raped. There's an organization
called and I think it's called the Northwest Network of
Intimate Partner Violence to the series of focus groups around
the country was by female survivors of violence and trans
and UH non binary UM and what they found from

(34:27):
these qualitative interviews with the survivors of violence female survivors
of violence is that the intimate partner violence faced by
by women does not conform sometimes to the cycle of
violence that service providers often looked to to help people
be safe. What they found instead was that instead of

(34:54):
there being like a ramping up of control that may
precede moments of physical violence, that often these survivors talked
about violence being preceded by a moment of coming out
as by or a partner realizing that their partner was bisexual,

(35:15):
and that being the flash point. And again they're not
being conversation about that, They're not being open conversations about
how biophobia leads to violence, about how biophobia can lead
to corrective rape, but how partners can view the partners
bisexuality to isolate them from their friends and family, to

(35:36):
control them, to say that, you know, to use it
as a weapon. UM. And given the the number of
women who identify as by Again, you have a public
health crisis. And then the finals that I'll mention is
economic insecurity UM and I think it's again of by

(36:02):
women UM live at or below. I think it's thirty
thousand dollars a year for a household UM. And you know,
together you have a picture of BY people who face
bias at work, who face bias at school, who are

(36:23):
being turned out by their family, of homeless you identify
as bisexual twenty percent. You have youth who are being
removed from their families by their parents, who are facing
violence in foster and adoptive placements, and who are turning

(36:46):
to the streets. Then when they look for supportive communities,
they don't find by supportive communities, they find m violence
with partners whom they may have to turn to for
housing or for food. You have a lack of economic security,

(37:07):
and you have isolation, erasure, and invisibility. And this is
not to say that BI folks aren't resilient. We have
an incredibly rising, beautiful community full of artists and musicians
and lawyers like myself and UM activists and advocates. But
what we also have is a crisis of erasier and

(37:29):
invisibility that is leading to directly to yes. So that
was very sobering for me. The lack of community and
the level of bias bisexuals face on all sides leads
to all sorts of negative outcomes. I'm I'm a data geek.
There's been some emerging research, um, you know from Dr Roberts,

(37:51):
who I extented you with and then uh with Brian
Dodge and Wendy Bostick. Um. But doctor Dodge has been
doing some incredible research and to buy it a thing
bisexual people and actually has developed a a metric to
measure it, and his emergent research is showing that by

(38:12):
people face intense levels of bias and erasure and discrimination
from gay, unless bean and straight people. They face quantitatively
slightly more discrimination from straight people, which is unsurprising just
given the fact that probably more gay and lesbian identified

(38:35):
people know a by person prarly for like proximities to
stake being in queer community um, whereas straight people may
not know a by person or out by person, either
because out by people don't feel safe to be out
around a straight person or because they don't have a
one in their friend or family circle. More likely that
people don't feel safe to come out around them because
we are everywhere. UM. But what Dr Dodges research has

(39:01):
shown is that bias and errature from gay and lesbian
people hurt by people so much more deeply. And I
believe that's because we are taught that we are supposed
to be part of the same community, right the queer community,

(39:22):
LGBTQ community. We're supposed to have community centers together and
do a pride together. And when you face bias within
our supposed community and being hurt out in San Francisco, UM,
I believe it was a by group, although I can

(39:43):
clarify that looked at the mental health of women moving
into the day area from rural for suburban areas around
the cities Oakland and sanmiss going Berkeley, UM and found
something really interesting and what you'll find this now unsurprising.

(40:05):
So both lesbians and by women in rural more rural
areas reported lower levels of UH mental health, well being,
mental well being. And when the lesbian women moved into
the city, what do you suspect their mental well being did?

(40:29):
We're staring at each other, like, who's going to answer this?
I would think that it had increased obviously with a
little more access for them specifically. Factually, yeah, they found community.
More specifically, they found places with like minded people, people
who had similar life experiences. They found programs and services
that supported them um and that improved their their mental health.

(40:53):
What about the by women went down? I was gonna
say you that went down or stay the same in
the sense of yeah, it went down, it went down,
and I suspect that it went down because of their
level of expectation and then disappointment. You're like, I'm gonna

(41:13):
move to the city. I'm gonna find people like me,
I'm going to finally be supported. I'm gonna find mental
health services. I'm going to find a community group and
it's like a chat group and we can go to
dinner and then a there aren't those things, and then
be When you try and find community with other LGBTQ women,

(41:40):
you face bias intead and people say that you're not
queer enough to be part of their community. People interrogate
how many relationships you've had with people of specistic genders,
and it can have an incredibly negative impact on your
mental health. It turns out bisexual people's face a lot

(42:02):
of challenges related to mental health. And so so I'll
talk a little bit about that, and then I can
talk a little bit about why that is to in
terms of sexual orientation of you know, if you're looking
at lesbian, gay, bisexual, and by the way, when I
say bisexual, UM, you know, I sort of think about
that as the by plus category of UM all non

(42:24):
monosexual people. So people might identify as hand sexual, or
some people identify as queer UM or polysexual. There's a
lot of different terms that people are going to use, UM.
But so when I say bisexual, it's a little bit
sorcand but but I'm thinking of it very exclusively. Bisexual people,
UM are the most vulnerable sexual orientation in terms of

(42:47):
a lot of mental health issues. And some of these,
you know, very a little bit depending on what's gender
of the bisexual person you're talking about. But there are
things like suicidality and iety depressions, UM, you know, really
serious things um uh, alcohol and other drug use. You

(43:07):
know that there there are mental health UM diagnoses and
issues that bisexual people's faith more severely and more often
than other sexual orientations do. And people are sometimes surprised
to hear that because they say, well, but I thought
bisexual people like, uh, they've got heterosexual privilege, and so

(43:32):
you know they can pass and so and and it's
easier than being lessian or gay and so it's this
is why it's important that we like disaggregate the data,
that we pull out the data about the bisexual people
so we can really understand things, because it turns out
that a lot of the mental health vulnerabilities that we've
talked about applying to less being gained bisexual people, really

(43:53):
the bisexual people in those samples are are the ones
who are experienced, um, that pattern that we've been attributing
to all sexual minority people. Okay, so there there's a
couple of things that are unique stressors for bisexual people,
um that that aren't the same for lesbian and gay

(44:16):
people or heterosexual people. Um. But bisexuality people don't even
believe that it exists, you know that. That's a lot
of times people will um say, oh, well, bisexuality, that's
really just you're on your way to being lesbian or gay,
or you're lying, or you're confused, or you don't understand.
There's lots of different ways of of erasing bisexuality and

(44:38):
saying it doesn't really exist, um, But but in truth,
you know, it's true, like some people do identify as bisexual, um,
and then later identify as lesbian or gay, But some
people also identify as lesbian and gay and then later
identify as bisexual, or some people just identify as bisexual
from the start and say that way. So there's a
lot of variation in that that that, um, but that's

(45:00):
not a reason to um, to dismiss the existence of bisexuality.
The other thing is that, um, there's so little bisexual visibility,
both in media representations of bisexuality but also in communities,
you know, so we don't often see, um, you know,

(45:20):
Pride to coming up this weekend in a bunch of
cities that already happened in other places, and bisexuality does
you know, isn't that visible despite the fact that there
are more bisexual people than lesbians and gay men put together.
Like you would think that in the in the Pride parades,
over half the people in there should be bisexual and

(45:42):
we should be seeing like pink and blue and purple
all over the place during Pride, but that's not what happens.
And so so that visibility is really important for people
to feel like, you know, that that they feel legitimate,
that they feel like they can find their community, they
can see people like them, and that's important for for

(46:04):
mental health as well. And then that last thing is
just the feeling of community and and connection to other people. So, um,
it's great that there's you know, strong lesbian and gay
community and a lot of places that you know, decades
ago didn't exist, you know, fifty years ago before Stone Wall,
we didn't have that. So it's great that we have that.
But often lesbian and gay communities are not very welcoming

(46:26):
of bisexual people. And so there's there's a lot of
by people like hiding out in lesbian and gay communities,
you know, who don't feel like they can be open
about it. And then there are people who are bisexual
who can keep saying that they're bisexual, but people keep
forgetting or dismissing it or not believing it or whatever.
So so it's really hard to feel um validated and

(46:48):
accepted and supported when when you don't have that. So
I'll tell you that there's been some research on um
bisexual people and therapy and and so, and let me
talk about young bisexual women because there's there's a study
that came out in by Slanders um and and colleagues,
UM that that specifically about young bisexual women's perceptions of

(47:11):
their mental health and um, so and and women like
there's there's even a higher percentage of women who are
bisexual than than men who are and so it's it's
important for us to understand what's going on here, although
we really need representation of them too, so UM. But
but in this particular study, UM, they said, UM, the
women said that health care providers seem to not know

(47:32):
much about bisexuality, and they became exhausted from having to
explain their identity to other people and especially mental health providers,
and it just seemed like there weren't a lot of
by inclusive resources. So that's something important to know, is
that that mental health providers are not meeting the needs

(47:54):
of bisexual people, like there's this there's this highly vulnerable population,
and that mental health providers like don't know how to
affirm and how to assist. So that's something important, UM
in terms of what we can actually do for bisexual people.
Like one thing is sometimes when mental health providers are

(48:16):
trying to be affirming of lesbian and gay people, they
sometimes forget about bisexuality. So I think that the first
thing is to remember that your clients might be bisexual.
So if they're talking about same gender attractions, then not
to assume that they're lesbian or gay and like helps
them along this path to an affirming lesbian or gay identity,

(48:38):
but really UM to hold a space for the complexity
of sexual orientation, whatever people end up doing with their
identities and whatnot, just trying to UM allow people to
UM to have that complexity of sexual orientations. One of
the things that I think is a really useful tool
in working with bisexual clients is the Client Sexual Orientation

(49:00):
Guide UM, because it's UM acknowledges that there's many dimensions
of sexual orientation. UM there's you know, sexual attraction, there's
sexual behavior, there's identity, there's who your community is. So
there's all of these different things, and each of those
can really be thought about on a continuum, and they

(49:22):
can also be thought about in terms of where you
are now, where you've been in the past, and you
might have like where you see yourself in the future,
or maybe an ideal of where you'd like to be
with that. And the nice thing about that is that
it allows for there to be differences like people might say, Okay,
well I have you know, I fantasize about these kinds

(49:44):
of people, but you know, but I've only had relationships
with these kinds of people, and you know, and so
so those those things that might be seen as discrepancies
in in other situations can actually all be held in
one space and say, you know what, sexual orientation is
just really complex and um and we need to understand that.
So so I think that that that can be a

(50:05):
really helpful tool. We need to have visibility lesbians and
you know, gay men need to um, need to welcome
by sexual people. Not to think because that would be nice,
I'm saying, it's because there's a serious bits to not
doing it like we are. We are abandoning some of
the most vulnerable people in our community if we're not,

(50:29):
you know, stepping up and providing that support. A term
you've heard as use is mono sexism. We asked Dr Roberts,
who hasn't met President Obama, by the way, and she
has also done some research around mono sexism, to expound
on it. But before we get into that, we have
one more quick break forward from our sponsors, we're back,

(51:03):
thank you. Here's Dr Affords. So monosexism, Um, there's this
idea that you have monosexual orientations and those are individuals
that are just attracted to one sex or one general presentation. UM.
So people who are heterosexual are monosexual as well. UM. Similarly,

(51:25):
people who are lesbian or gay are MONOSEEXUA because there's
texis to multiple expressions just that one. UM. So that's
what mono sexual is. And then you have um non
monosexual identities, including bisexual including just like general player including
a sexual UM. And those are just individuals who are

(51:47):
attracted to more than one UM gender identity and or
sexual um sexual identity. So mono sexism then is like
this idea that if you're are attracted to more than one,
that's wrong. You have to take a side. And so
it's theories that buy people get um interestingly enough from

(52:10):
both sides phone quote, and that straight people saying like, oh,
you're not straight enough because you still have this other attraction,
and was being engaged people saying the same thing, like
you're not gay enough because you still have this other attraction.
So model sextis images this idea that if you have
this additional attraction, then there's gonna be some discrimination. Because

(52:32):
one of the reasons we wanted to speak with you
is UM, you wrote UM or you were part of
a paper between a gain in a straight place by
sexual individuals experiences with mono sexism. UM. Could you go
into the work that you did with that? Oh yeah,
so that's that. That was one of my academic babies,

(52:55):
is I like to call it UM. So that initially
was my master's thesis when I was at the University
of Wisconsin, Madison, and part of that study, I collected
data on oh gosh UM over twelve hundred or so

(53:15):
UM bisexual identified people and I UM. It was like
online survey, so I asked questions about their experiences with
discrimination UM, both from heterosexual people and from LGBC communities,
because I wanted to see UM based on my own experience,

(53:37):
whether or not there was a difference and like the
discrimination and unfortunate biphobia that by people get from both communities.
So I end up finding that there there was a
difference in the amount of black phobia that by people
experienced from gay and straight communities, but realistically, like that
difference was so so, so so small. And I want

(54:00):
to say, like it's like you're in a room and
you have two people yelling at you and one person
like the straight group is yelling at you like two
decibel tires, then the gay group. They're both still yelling
at you. At some point you can barely tell the
difference between like the volume, but there is like a
statistically significant difference. So there was like a significant difference,

(54:22):
but there is still extreme about the Laoba experience UM
by bi sexual people from so Heterosexual and listening AG.
I personally have known UM other friends that I know
who are by who who are married to SIS men,

(54:44):
and they're like, oh, I'm by I'm part of the community.
I want to go to this like drag show or
I want to go to this Pride event, and they've
been accosted at the event, like they've had people come up.
Like one of my really close friends, she says that
she has someone come up to her table and said,
what are you doing here? You straight girl? And she's like,
I'm not. I'm not a straight girl, Like this is
my community too, So it really is just like feeling

(55:07):
like you don't belong UM. I've had individuals in my
life who were identified as some I'm sort of where, um,
I want to challenge me on my definition of bisexuality
and like assuming that I sort of perpetuate the binary

(55:28):
and that I'm like anti trans, which is completely not
the issue at all, um. But it's more so like
they have this definition of bisexual in their heads, um
they've been taught or learned or heard from other other communities.
There aren't by communities, and so they aren't really listening

(55:49):
to definitions of bifexuality that come from by community, um.
And so there seems to be in this clash that's
there lately. Now, Like I said, it's a lot of
like I didn't know you were insert person who's perpetuating
the binary and doesn't like trans people. And even if
I say, like that's not that's actually that's not how

(56:10):
I identify my sexual orientation, it doesn't matter. And so
that that's that that happened within a middlesecond at like
the first introduction to someone you know. And so if
that's sort of like your community level introduction that you're
trying to build communities, there can be you know, there
might be some some sticky situations with that, um for
people who might already have the negative image or negative

(56:34):
perception of life sexualities. Um and in the workplace because
people don't people don't talk about by anything, right, So
like you think like LGBT community for people forget that
like to be actually stands for something if you're at
an accepting workplace. UM, I still think coming out it's

(56:56):
by like that's sort of a second coming coming out
that you have to do it come out woman to
say like, hey, I'm not straight, and then everyone's like, okay,
you're lesbian or you're gay, and then you have to
come up come out again and say I'm not either
those either, I'm bye um, and then there's either going
to be like blank stares or like internal gas or

(57:17):
for me, it's not just like Okay, I don't fit
in with this community. That stucks. I feel lonely. Um
Like that's one thing, and loneliness conferred depression and a
lot of mental health outcomes. But when you're looking specifically
at bisexual people compared to non bisexual queer quote unquote,
I thinkify people so lesbian, m gay, um, just other

(57:42):
non by people. They're like our distinct health separities. Like
bisexual people are have higher rates of over bixexual women
have higher rates of ovarian cancer. And it's purely because
doctors are hearing the sexual organization and not giving certain tests.

(58:03):
So if I'm a by, I'm a bise this woman,
and if I'm in a relationship with another UM with
a person who has a uterus, uh, and I tell
my doctor that I'm in a relationship with someone who
has a uterus and that's what my sex life is
for doctors will not give certain tests that they do
with women who are in relationship with people about penises,

(58:25):
and because of that is higher race of blevarian cancer,
which I think is absolutely ridiculous, Like there's no way
that my sexual orientation should have any correlation to hire
race of cancers because I'm not getting checks for things,
you know, And it's just like some of the physical
health things. Anytime you're you're adding more minority identity is

(58:47):
just like the level of trauma is like exponential, Like
I'm I'm a black bisexual woman, UM like this woman UM.
But still like so I'm you know, I experienced mysel
we experience racism, I experienced sexism, and I experienced the
intersection of all of those. Really really hard, you know, yeah,

(59:13):
because it's like you look at all of the statistics
comm of the research on the impact of racism and
the specifically own black people and everything out there says
that there's so I mean, yeah, there's a lot of
research that it's looking at, UM sort of help promote
of behaviors and resiliency. But if you're looking at the resources,

(59:35):
there's like from the negative impact in terms of like
physical health, looking at high blood pressure, looking at diabetes,
looking at sort of like this generational transmission of trauma,
and then you add to that the sexual orientation and
general identity peat from top to that, and you just
you have these really complex and layered systems of oppression UM.

(01:00:00):
And it's it's it's surprising that people I mean I
talked about I'm talking about this was my partner all
the time. My partner identifies digioner is non binary. So
we get a lot of bisexual non binary conversations and
a lot of times we're just like, how do we
get up in the boarding. I don't know, but we
have to, so we do it. I have personally encountered

(01:00:25):
a lot of misconceptions and bias around bisexuality, and I
made a quick list of just ones that I thought
of off the top of my head. The first one
it doesn't exist, uh, the second one it's a phase.
And then also like you can't make up your mind.

(01:00:47):
You're greedy, you're trader, you're oppressed, homosexual, your insert mental
health problem here, You're overly sexual, always want sex, are aggressive,
are promiscuous, less oil less, monogamous, and these misconceptions have
a huge impact individual too systemic. We asked our interviewees

(01:01:10):
about all of these misconceptions and about bi phobia and
bi ray. Sure, so biphon them and internally by negative
really are really really similar. One is your sort of
like an external and one is an internal. So biphobia
would be all of the um negative interaction, uh, terrified
stigma that by people experienced from the non by people. UM.

(01:01:34):
So if I go out in community and say like, hey,
I'm by I have this partner, and someone says, oh,
your partner is massicuin beginning you're not allowed in this
um in our like prize celebration because we only want
gay people here. Like that's an example of how I
would experience by phobia and then internalized by negativity. Is

(01:01:55):
what happens when people sort of take all of that
negativity and they turn it in on themselves. And so
that would be me wondering like if I'm buying enough,
or um, maybe I am what these people say by
people are maybe I am just sort of like untrustworthy
and sort of like questioning my phone models because the
voices of everyone else has kind of gotten game a

(01:02:19):
lot of the stigma. The types are ones that by
people are untrustworthy, they're shady. Um, they're always gonna leave
you for like the quote unquote other. Right, so like
the other gender expression or the other sects, they're always
going to just leave you for the other. Um, so
you can't trust them anyway. Um. And there's also this

(01:02:42):
really I just think disgusting sort of stereotypes that I
personally have heard and been told in my life that
by people, because there's multiple attractions, that by people are
the ones who are spreading HIV and AIDS among queer communities.
We're not We're not talking about like how queer people

(01:03:06):
don't really have a lot of conversations about safe for
sex anyway. We're not talking about any of that. We're
just looking for a scapegoat. You see you know this
age crisis, and you see like physical health disparities and
queer communities, and you're not attracted. You're not attributing it
to all of the issues that we have in terms
of just healthcare in this country. You want a scapegoat,

(01:03:28):
and I can I understand that, because it's something that's
really horrible that's happening, and everyone wants to attach it
to someone else, So you want a scapegoat. But I
don't think you know people who are also in that shuggle,
who are experiencing all of those same health disparities, who
are in the stick of it. I don't think that

(01:03:48):
we that we need to be the scapegoat. And bisexuality
is very stigmatized in many ways. Often in the lesbian
and a community. Sometimes bisexual people are thought of as
not having the courage to come out of the closet
all the way, or we're on we're on the way
to coming out, or confused, and many lesbian and gay

(01:04:11):
people don't want to date us or don't want to
engage with us because there's this thought that we're just
experimenting and don't really know what we want. And then
in the straight community, I think we're often perceived as
just being floody and once again just experimenting. And I
have been bisexual and aware of it and out about
it for twenty years. I'm not experimenting. I know who
I am, and I really am attracted to people of

(01:04:33):
multiple genders UM, and I think it's really useful for
me as an attorney. I feel a strong identification with
the word bisexual because, as I said, that has legal
and political meaning, and so when we're trying to include
other classes of people in for example, UM, much of

(01:04:54):
the federal court litigation about same sex marriages UM sometimes
speaks about the possibility only of people being in same
sex couples or UM. It frames the debate about issues
such a same sex marriage around only having the option
to marry people who are same sex UM as opposed
to being bisexual and just choosing that. You know, this

(01:05:15):
is the person I love and I want to I'm
not under duress because I could potentially be married to
a man, but I would rather marry a woman, as
a bisexual woman perhaps UM. So I think sometimes in
a lot of that debate, bisexuality is left out, and
it's important for the legal continuity to be able to
use the word that is going to continue on and

(01:05:37):
I'm concerned about, you know, creating new words and identities
over time, which I think may work socially and culturally,
but in terms of legal activism, I feel like it's
important to hang on to that stigmatized bisexual label and
re embrace it. I think it's important that in these
kinds of situations we recognize that having been in different

(01:05:58):
sex relationships does not mean that you are not legitimately
a queer person, that you're not legitimately a bisexual person
if that's how you identify yourself, and that those people
can face to us as much stigma. There's a massive
rate of homelessness, UM and oppression among bisexual people, particularly
young bisexual people, and it's the largest proportion of the

(01:06:19):
LGBTQ community, and yet sometimes the least heard of. We
sometimes call that bio rature because UM, many people feel
like they don't have the right to fully claim the
mantle of being an lgbt Q person UM, and yet
we often face a lot of stigma in both the

(01:06:40):
gay lesbian world as well as in um the straight world,
and so I think it's really important for us to
band together. And I feel particularly passionate about sharing my
pride as a bisexual person because it took me a
long time to get there, and I know that for
a lot of people they still feel really stigmatized. I
already shared this spatistic about how they're more bisexual people

(01:07:02):
than lesbians and game I put together. Now that is
shocking for a lot of people. Um, But there's this
there's this other thing that that also surprising, um, which
is the percented of bisexual people who are coupled, you know,
who are in relationships, who are in mixed gender relationships.
And if you're bisexual and you know you could have

(01:07:24):
a relationship with somebody of any gender, then then you're
just more likely, like statistically, to end up in a
relationship with somebody in another gender. It's just you know,
so so it's not even necessarily like that people are
trying to be positible. Okay, I'm not going to keep
your insets. I'll tell you the ins that eighty four
per cent of coupled bisexual people are in mixed gender relationship.

(01:07:50):
I think that's that's you know, when people think about
bisexual people, when people think about any sexual minority, but
even by sexual people. They're thinking about people who are
connect it with bisexual community who are probably in the
same gender relationship, like they've got a certain view of it.
So there are like the vast majority of bisexual people

(01:08:11):
are in mixed general relationships and and so people might
not recognize them as being a sexual minority person, let
alone bisexual. So that's really important I think for people
to understand who are like organizers and service providers that
if you are only like reaching out to people through

(01:08:31):
LGBT networks and you know, um uh, same sex coupled
kinds of things, then you are missing most bisexual people.
So I'm always saying to people, if you want to
reach bisexual people, like for our bisexual discussion group, we
should advertise in the local paper, like in an online
on on like calendar events. But I also recommend that

(01:08:53):
people like reach out through parenting groups and stuff, because
bisexual people are more likely to be parents the lisians
and gay men are so um so just when we
think about how do we reach bisexual people, and also
I just want to make sure that all those people
who all those bisexual people who are in mixed general relationships,

(01:09:14):
like if you're listening to this. I want you to
feel seen and known because you might feel really isolated.
And we want to say to anyone listening who does
feel isolated, you are not alone. Um. And that is
some advice. But we will have more because, as we said,
this is just part one, right, yes, stay tuned for

(01:09:37):
part two, where we dive more into biratire and by negativity,
personal experiences and Hikui who's bisexual Hiku also known as Biku.
I love this so much too and resources. In the meantime,
we would love to hear from you listeners. You can
email us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeart Media

(01:09:59):
dot um. You can find us on Instagram at stuff Mom,
Never Told You and on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
Thank you, thank you, Thank you to all of our
Interviewee you'll hear again, Yes you will. Thanks as always
to our super producer Andrew Howard. Thanks Andrew, and thanks
to you for listening. Thank you, Steph. I'm Never Told
You's a protection of iharradias. How stuff works. For more

(01:10:22):
podcasts from Ihear Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
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