March is Bisexual Health Month and although it’s an awareness period that is predominantly marked in the US, we see it as another great opportunity to talk about physical and mental health and wellbeing in the community.
The theme set by the Bisexual Resource Centre for 2021 is equity – calling for the recognition of the specific social, educational and health care needs of the bisexual+ community.
It’s widely reported that LGBT+ people are at higher risk of mental health issues, compared to straight people, but a lot of early research didn’t analyse the impact on bisexual people specifically. More recently, though, this has begun to change and studies have found that bisexuals have a higher risk of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, suicide and substance use, compared both to the general population, and to lesbian or gay individuals.
Discrimination against the bisexual community has a significant impact on the mental health of individuals who identify under the bi+ umbrella – which includes but is not limited to those who experience sexual, emotional, and romantic attraction to more than one gender, e.g. pansexual, fluid, queer and omnisexual.
Bisexual erasure, bisexual privilege and biphobia lead to discrimination and common stereotypes, such as bi people being sexually greedy and/or promiscuous, untrustworthy or traitors to the LGBT+ community, because they can take advantage of “heterosexual privilege” or being too afraid to fully “come out” and therefore are “really just gay.”
These harmful stereotypes isolate bisexuals from both hetrosexual and LGBT+ communities, making it far more difficult for them to be open and positive about their sexuality, which contributes to the higher instances of anxiety, depression and self-harm.
The bi+ community also includes a wide variety of intersections and identities, many of who experience further discrimination, such as BIPOC, transgender and disabled members of the bi+ community.
Connecting with supportive communities that celebrate the bisexual community, who can direct to peer support groups and bi-postive services are vital to the LCR bi+ community. Below are some useful UK and internationally-based resources.
Bi Pride UK – biprideuk.org
Unicorn – unicornzine.com
Biphoria – biphoria.org.uk
Bi Community News – bicommunitynews.co.uk
Liverpool Bi+ Group – facebook.com/liverpoolbis
Biscuit – twitter.com/we_are_biscuit
Bisexual Research – www.bisexualresearch.com
Bisexual Resource Centre – biresource.org
Diva Mag – divamag.co.uk
