Tag Archives: Bisexuals

Over a Third of Bisexuals in the UK Have Been Sexually Harassed or Assaulted Because of their Sexuality

Wow – A psychotherapist told a woman that because she’s bisexual, it was her fault she had been raped. This is just one out of the many things bisexual respondents to a survey have reported.

A new report, launched by Scottish LGBTI charity Equality Network, has suggested that bisexuals are likely to be harassed on the assumption they are ‘promiscuous’ or ‘unfaithful’.

38% of the 515 people survey said they had experienced sexual harassment, while nearly half had experienced bi-phobia will accessing mainstream services across the UK.

Researchers found two thirds (66%) of respondents feel they have to pass as straight and 42% said they felt they needed to pass as gay or lesbian when accessing services.

Nearly a third (28%) also felt uncomfortable telling their doctor they are bisexual.

One respondent said:

A nurse refused to treat me due to being bisexual. My mother overheard him saying to the senior nurse, “I refuse to treat her, she’s not normal and just greedy, she needs to decide what gender she loves, it’s unnatural to love both”.”

However, it was not just mainstream services, a quarter said they had experienced prejudice when accessing services for the LGBTI community.

One respondent reported being told that bisexuals are ‘confused’ and not as good as ‘real gays’.

Tim Hopkins, director of the Equality Network said:

Unfortunately, as the report findings show, bisexual people are often misunderstood and discriminated against by many services.

This leaves them at high risk of not getting appropriate information and support. We hope that this report will help services to better understand and assist bisexual people.”

Sam Rankin, intersectional equalities coordinator and lead author of the report, said:

When explaining why bisexual equality is important and how people are discriminated against it is vital that we have robust data and real life examples to illustrate our points.

Now that we have these we, and others, will be better able to take more effective steps in providing appropriate, inclusive services.”

New Study Concludes That Stereotypes Make Coming Out Harder for Bisexuals

When US Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon came out as bisexual to her parents, they reportedly told her they wished she’d come out as a lesbian instead, because it would be easier to understand and accept.

Reactions like this are pretty common, and according to a new study co-authored by UNL sociologist Emily Kazyak, cultural perceptions and stereotypes have more impact on bisexuals’ coming-out experiences than those of gays and lesbians.

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Also read: Bisexual Women Myths Busted

Bisexual stereotypes are often pervasive, negative or over-sexualise individuals. Kazyak highlights that most research ignores bisexual identity or lumps it together with gay and lesbian sexual identity, so she and co-authors Kristin Scherrer of Metropolitan State University in Denver and Rachel Schmitz of UNL looked at how people who identified as bisexual might have different experiences when coming out.

We know that there are certain stereotypes about bisexual identity that are different from gay and lesbian sexuality. Our hunch was that bisexual people really have a distinct experience in coming out to family members, given those stereotypes attached to bisexual identity.”

Emily Kazyak

Researchers interviewed 45 people who identified as bisexual and found that perceptions of how family members viewed bisexuality caused the interviewees to react in one of three ways: to not come out at all; to come out as gay or lesbian; or to come out as bisexual.

Perceptions of bisexuality also affected to whom the person decided to come out, and how those family members responded.

Bisexual identity may be more difficult to accept because of mono-sexism, the belief that people can only be gay or straight, Kazyak said.

We really have this sense that sexual orientation is something that is black and white and that you’re either attracted to people of the opposite sex or you’re attracted to people of the same sex.”

Such beliefs often leave bisexual identity open to re-interpretation and misunderstanding.

Family members will say, ‘Oh, it’s just a phase,’ or, ‘You’re confused. That’s why a lot of people came out as gay or lesbian. They would say things like, ‘I think this will be easier for my family members to understand.’ They thought coming out as bisexual would be too confusing to their family.”

While Kazyak had hypothesized that the experience of coming out would be different for bisexuals, she was surprised at how much stereotypes and perceptions mattered.

We were struck by how much people really thought about this. People put a lot of thought and energy into how they were going to come out. It’s not necessarily easier or harder to come out as bisexual, but there’s a different set of negotiations that bisexual people have to go through.”

The study was published in March in the Journal of Marriage and Family.

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Iggy Azalea Calls Out ‘Fake Bisexuals’ in New Interview

The topic of celebrity sexuality has been a long debated one. Most of the time the conversation is dominated with the question ‘do celebrities have a right to privacy when it comes to their sexuality and do they have a right to be outed?’

However, with recent statements from formerly bisexual celebs who say that they are now straight (such as Lady Gaga and Jessie J who both came out as straight earlier this year) many are contemplating the topic of ‘fake bisexuals’. The fake bisexual is apparently a straight person who masquerades as queer for the sake of attention or to pander to a queer audience.

Now we don’t dispute that some people may just have a change of heart or sexuality (as one is wont to do) but faking it for personal gain seems a little iffy. One person who agrees with the idea that fake bisexuals are wrong is rapper Iggy Azalea and in a recent interview she has called them out.

Speaking to Pride Source on her new album, Iggy explained that:

“There was such a big trend of people being fake bisexuals. I don’t know what that was about. Like, “I’m such a bisexual woman,” and I’d be like, “But you had boyfriends your whole life; you’re not gay. Why are you pretending to be? What’s with that?”

While she is right that fake bisexuals suck, it’s uncomfortable rapper equates being bisexual to ‘pretending’ to be gay and she also invalidates bisexuality by suggesting that only having dated one gender means you aren’t attracted to another. However, given Iggy’s homophobic (and racist) outbursts in the past, it’s of little surprise.

Other choice (and rather offensive) quotes include Iggy saying that she’s the ‘mother hen’ of gay people, stating that she “always [calls herself] a drag queen” and explaining that her and gay people “have being ostracized in common” clearly failing to realise that she’s a privileged white woman making a dime off of the back of black culture. That’s certainly not my definition of being ‘ostracized’ anyway.

And furthermore, if there are still people out there looking to claim her as a member of the LGBT community due to comments she’s made in the past about how attractive women are, the rapper clarifies that she’s straight. Four times.

“I’m not gay. I love gay people, but I’m straight. I don’t wanna kiss girls. I’m not into girls. I appreciate women, and I like rapping about them, but in case you thought I was a lame person pretending to be gay, um, I’m not.”

The rest of this interview is at the source link below.

Source: Pride Source