Stereotypes bad for bi people

From the Academic Bi mailing list

Researchers publishing in the The Journal of Bisexuality say a variety of unfounded assumptions often driven by the media contribute to a culture of Biphobia that affects all bisexual people. The studies show that the Bisexual community is diverse and subject to discrimination from gay/lesbian and straight people alike, which negatively impacts the health and social lives of people who identify as bisexual.

Denise Penn, a director with the American Institute of Bisexuality (AIB), spoke with GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) about her thoughts on these recent studies, and how to end stereotypes about bi people in the media.

Penn, who says that bisexuality “is sometimes forgotten” by the public, is very pleased with the increasing diversity of LGBT characters in the media, but notes “there’s still a lot of progress to be made.” Often when a character is portrayed as bisexual, “the stereotype lingers that it’s a person who is confused, or someone who has a man and a woman on the side, or who has a woman and a man on the side.”

Read Full Article Here:
http://www.glaad.org/blog/study-shows-stereotypes-about-bisexuality-are-harmful

Lack of bisexual community leading to adverse mental health?

From The British Psychological Society:

Lack of bisexual community leading to adverse mental health?

The lack of a bisexual community could be negatively impacting the health of men attracted to both males and females. This is the suggestion of new research published in the Journal of Bisexuality, which showed guys believe a lack of such a group – that would enable them to be more involved with likeminded adults – significantly affects their wellbeing.

Brian Dodge, Associate Professor in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation and Associate Director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion, found the stigma bisexual people experience at the hands of both heterosexual and homosexual individuals plays a big part in making them feel isolated.

The investigation revealed this biphobia also contributed to the social stress felt by bisexual males in their everyday lives.

Mr Dodge stated: “Being bisexual, not having a community to be involved with, not having people they could disclose to, homosexual or heterosexual, was tied to their experiences of adverse mental health.

Meg comments: When we put together The Bisexuality Report early this year, we reviewed the evidence from a number of countries and found that bisexual people consistently experienced more mental health problems and distress than heterosexual, and lesbian and gay people. This concurs with Brian Dodge’s recent findings.

Video of The Bisexuality Report launch

We now have a video of the launch event of The Bisexuality Report – with subtitles (thanks Jen!) Great to see speakers from the Government Equalities Office, Stonewall, and the Metro Centre commenting on what the report means to them.

The Bisexuality Report: Out in Spanish!

Thanks to the wonderful Manuel Sebastia we now have a Spanish translation of The Bisexuality Report.

You can download El Informe sobre Bisexualidad, along with the original version of the report here.

You can also access Manuel’s translation of our guidelines for researching bisexuality here.

We hope that the translation proves useful and might prompt further discussion about the different situations of bisexual people and communities across the globe.

We also welcome further translations of the report which we’ll happily make available through the BiUK website.

Some people are bi

Today is international day against homophobia and transphobia but instead of the obvious post about the bi erasure going on in that title we’d like to celebrate a couple of bits of bi visibility that have happened this week.

First Stonewall introduced a facebook banner to add to their ‘some people are gay, get over it’ campaign. Good on you Stonewall!

Second, Amy Andre, the authors of Bisexual Health: An Introduction, is conducting a fascinating interview with researcher Lisa Diamond over at The Huffington Post.  Lisa is a committed bi ally and her work on sexual fluidity in women is really important for challenging fixed ideas about sexual ‘orientation’.

When Dr. Lisa Diamond gave a keynote speech at the recent BECAUSE conference, I just had to sit up and listen. As whipsmart as she is unapologetically outspoken, this University of Utah psychology professor has her finger on the pulse of human sexuality research — and the attention of homophobic and biphobic conservatives who try to twist her findings to further their own agenda. She’s the last person who’s going to take that lying down.

Dr. Diamond isn’t just the author of the groundbreaking book Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire. She’s also a lesbian, a self-identified ally to the bi community, and a social scientist who declares that bisexuals “represent the vast majority of individuals with same-sex attractions” and are the norm in the LGB (lesbian, gay, bi) population!

In this two-part interview I got a chance to learn more about Dr. Diamond’s research, her precedent-setting commitment to the truth about bisexual lives and lesbian desires, and how she stands up to bigots at the federal level. Here is part one:

Read more.

Bi men’s health

And, on the topic of bisexual men, from Either / And:

“Stonewall have a chunky new bi & gay men’s health report newly out, which seems to be the counterpart to the pale-blue bi & lesbian women’s report you may remember from about 4 years ago.

Mostly it combines bi and gay data together, however two snippets:

“In the last year, 27 per cent of gay men thought about taking their own life even if they would not do it. This increases to 38 per cent for bisexual men” (p9)

…

“One in five (21 per cent) gay and bisexual men aged 16 to 19 have deliberately harmed themselves in the last year. One in six (15 per cent) gay and bisexual men aged 16 to 24 have deliberately harmed themselves in the last year. Seven per cent of men in general aged 16 to 24 have ever deliberately harmed themselves.

“Rates of self-harm are also higher among bisexual men; eleven per cent of bisexual men have self-harmed in the last year.” (p11)”

Original post.

New UK bisexuality research

Caroline Harvey explains her new study:

Learning To Get Bi? Analysing Postmodern, Poststructuralist, Queer Theoretical, and Sexual Geographical Perspectives on the Construction of ‘Bisexuality’ and ‘Bisexual’ Sexual Identity. 

How is Bisexual Identity and ‘Reality’ Constructed Within the Straight/Gay Binary of the Modern Western World?”

Basically I’m attempting to analyse and construct a ‘basic’ understanding of how bisexual men and women are able to formulate and be confident and comfortable in their bisexuality when the majority of the Western world and subsequent policy, legislation and even general ‘common-sense’ understandings of sexuality tend to be very much dominated by and regulated within the binary of straight/gay and lesbian identity. Hopefully this work will highlight the impact of biphobia, bi-invisibility and the very real ignorance and avoidance that bisexual people encounter on a regular basis. The usual stereotypes which can be evidenced by both hetero-/homosexual communities can often be over looked or seen as acceptable in many sectors of society, and therefore this work intends to challenge and question why this is acceptable.

The dangerous and damaging consequences of biphobia and bisexual ‘avoidance’ cannot be ignored and the fact that despite Western society insists and promotes the gay/straight dichotomy, bisexual men and woman continue to live their lives as such, being proud and comfortable in doing so and I would asset proves that rather than (as at present) being deemed as an afterthought, bisexuality, queer identity, gender fluidity, gender fucking, pan sexuality, omnisexuality and any other of the myriad of explanations and representations that individuals choose to describe themselves as thus therefore needing to be awarded their proper and deserved place in society.

One point I find especially pertinent is that until 1967 ‘homosexual acts’ between 2 men was deemed illegal, whilst in 2005 civil partnerships between same sex couples came into force. Bisexuality seems to be in a similar position; whilst not criminally illegal or legislated against (although ostensibly morally so) how long will it take for bisexual identity to gain its rightful acceptance in society.

I am also aiming to use the blogs of bi men and women in order to gain insight into and trace if/when changes and transitions in attitudes occur and so if anyone knows of something/someone which could be of use in my research I would be extremely grateful and they can contact me on: caroline.harvey@research.sunderland.ac.uk

New guidelines for working with sexual & gender minorities

The British Psychological Society have just published guidelines for psychologists working with sexual and gender minority clients (also of relevance to therapists, counsellors and other practitioners). The guidelines are freely downloadable and available to all.

The document includes guideline statements covering:

• The socio-political context and attitudes towards sexual and gender minorities
• Key issues in sexual and gender minority work
• Children and young people
• Schools and families
• Education and training
• Professional development

Regarding bisexuality, the guidelines (which were produced before the recent Bisexuality Report) says the following:

“Bisexuality can often be completely overlooked as a potential sexual identity because Western culture is still prone to see gender and sexuality as ‘dichotomous’ (you are either a man or a woman, you are either attracted to a man or a woman, see also section on gender minorities below) (Barker, 2007).Therefore, many people feel pushed towards a gay/lesbian or straight identity rather than feeling that bisexuality is a legitimate sexual identity in itself.

Update on The Bisexuality Report

Things are going very well with The Bisexuality Report since its launch on February 15th.

The launch itself was a great success with attendees from many organisations, groups and political parties. The Metro Centre and Stonewall (who sponsored the event) gave great speeches about how useful the report would be, and the Government Equalities Office were extremely positive. We are now working with them (and BCN and The Bisexual Index) on five key recommendations to prioritise putting into practice.

So far there have been over 20,000 downloads of the report from the various places it is available online (here, on The Bisexual Index, and through the Open University)! Also, the American Institute of Bisexuality is keen to put the report on a free memory stick to give out at the various sexology conferences that are happening this year (along with the Stonewall report on bisexuality in the workplace and the San Francisco Bisexual Invisibility report). We hope to give the report out at BiReCon and the LGBT health summit as well.

The report also made it into various newspapers, magazines and radio programmes. We’re keeping a list of media reports here.

The Bisexuality Report out now!

February 15th 2012 saw the launch of The Bisexuality Report in London and the document going live online (see the Open University website link, or the page for the report on this website). This will be followed by a Manchester event and discussion of the report at BiReCon 2012, later in the year. Here we want to say a bit about how we came to write the report, what it is all about, and where we go to with it from here.

Background

The report happened for three main reasons:

The first was the publication, in 2010, of the Bisexual Invisibility report by the San Francisco human rights commission. That document brought together the research on bisexual invisibility and biphobia, and their impacts, and drew out recommendations from this for policy and practice in the area. As the first of its kind, the report had an impact far beyond the area it was intended for, as it was circulated in online fora and many of us in other countries began to use it as a key source of evidence.

Then there was a UK bi activist meeting in the summer of 2011 which many of the BiUK research group attended. As we were throwing around ideas about where the most valuable place to put our energies would be, Jen Yockney suggested a report similar to the San Francisco one, but with a specifically UK focus (two other main ideas to come out of the meeting and be acted upon since were addressing race in the UK bi community, and coming up with guidelines for researchers working on bisexuality). We realised that many of us were frequently responding to policy ideas, or media representations, or practices, by pointing out the implications for bisexual people. It would be much easier if we all had a document to point to which summarised why these things were important and what could be done about it.

The final reason the report happened was that there is now a big enough group, with just about enough time and expertise between us, to put something like this together. We had the members of BiUK, together with Marcus from The Bisexual Index, and Jen from Bi Community News, so between us we had knowledge about the academic literature on different aspects of bisexuality, and the specifics of UK bi activism, community and experience. I knocked up a first draft, based on the topics we’d come up with at the weekend, and we passed that around the group, all adding the areas we knew about. On some of the areas we knew less about we got help from other experts (like Ian Watters and Surya Monro), or spent some time reading up the literature.

The Report

The report itself is similar to the San Francisco report in focusing on the key areas of biphobia, bisexual invisibility, and the impact on health. However, we’ve managed to include specifically UK examples in all of these areas as well as international research. For example, we’ve included an updated version of our analysis of UK media depictions and how these often erase bisexuality by suggesting that people can only be gay or straight.

We also spend some time in the report fleshing out the different groups who can fall under the ‘bisexual umbrella’. Diversity is a big theme in the report as we consider how issues may be different for different groups who may define (or be defined as) bisexual, and we also have a section specifically on intersections between bisexuality and other aspects of identity, background and practice (including race, gender, age, geographical location and several other aspects). A major argument of the report is that ‘B’ should not be always be lumped in with ‘LGBT’ because there are aspects of experience that are specific to bisexuality. But we are also saying that the ‘B’ itself doesn’t present one unified experience.

Another couple of things that are unique about the report are that it gives a sense of the bisexual communities in the UK – which are likely both similar and different to the communities in other contexts – and we also emphasise (at the end of the document) the positive aspects of bisexual experience. Despite the many challenges of being bisexual in a culture which generally doesn’t recognise bisexuality and which discriminates, being bisexual obviously brings rewards as well as difficulties. We were very lucky that a research study had recently been carried out on exactly this topic, including participants from the UK who we quote in the report.

Once the report was written we ensured that there were plenty of brief accounts of bisexual experiences throughout, to bring the issues being covered to life for the reader. We also pulled out a set of recommendations for different areas (such as media, education, healthcare, and the workplace). And we wrote a summary at the start of the report to cover the main points.

We were very fortunate that the Open University, once they heard about the project from the three members of BiUK who work there, offered to publish the report and to help us to publicise it. Once we had a final version we were happy with, Amandine Scherrer from the CCIG group at the OU, sorted out the beautiful design that we now have, and getting nice printed hard copies, as well as a pdf to make freely available online. Sarah Batt helped us to book accommodation and food for the launch, and several different groups within the OU provided financial support for all of this.

Whilst this was happening, the authors approached various organisations we were in touch with to see whether anybody would be interested in endorsing the report. The results were amazing, and we are stoked that all of the following groups came on board as endorsers: Stonewall, the Psychology of Sexualities section of the British Psychological Society, The College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists, Pink Therapy, the Metro Centre, the Lesbian and Gay Foundation, and Hertfordshire Foundation NHS Trust.

The final stage is the launch on February 15th, which the OU, Stonewall and the Metro Centre are kindly sponsoring. After that we will hopefully continue to promote to report online, and at various events, throughout the year.

Where next?

The Government Equalities Office will be attending the launch, and BCN, The Bisexual Index, and BiUK have already been speaking with them about how we can work together towards better bisexual inclusion in UK policy and practice. Hopefully we’ll be meeting twice a year from now on to develop some key practical goals which we can work towards in relation to this.

It would also be great to provide more training once the report is out around these issues. Hopefully the report will be a good basis for bi community members to use for training in their local areas.

It would also be great if other countries developed similar reports, drawing on what we’ve done with our report, and the San Francisco one. We’ve already been talking with some of the international bisexual community about a possible report for the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexuality, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) to develop a report on bisexuality that was written for them, but not published, some years back.

Obviously The Bisexuality Report will not be perfect. It was an attempt to produce something useful from the knowledge and expertise of the people who had the time and energy in summer 2011 to work together on this. There will inevitably be some areas which could be usefully developed or where we weren’t aware of all the evidence that is out there. Also, as politics and situations change over time, there’ll be a need to update the report to reflect the shifts in bisexual community and experience.

As an online document it will be possible to update the bisexuality report every few years (as long as we have some funds for the design). So it would be great if people with expertise would volunteer to edit the relevant sections when we get to that point. Meanwhile, if there are sections of the report that people would like to elaborate on, it will be possible to put extra documents up on the BiUK website which go into more detail on various points. We would welcome any evidence-based input along those lines, and any responses to the report which we can put up on the website.