BIPHOBIA IN 2019: AN "UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATION"

Following the tragic death of Lyra McKee, the Irish journalist and gay rights activist, I began to research the many notable achievements of her short but exceptional life. I came across a TED talk that she gave in 2017 about the Orlando nightclub shooting. In the talk, she proposed that the only way to decrease prejudice against the LGBT+ community, is to talk about the discrimination that its members face, even when that may seem awkward; “uncomfortable conversations can save lives”.

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In honour of Lyra then, I am here to start a conversation that may feel uncomfortable.

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Biphobia - the dislike of, or prejudice against bisexual people - often seems to be swept under the rug. From simply perceiving bisexuality to be experimentation rather than a valid orientation, to shunning bisexual people for “attention seeking”, the issue rarely seems to be drawn attention to. Perhaps, that is because it is felt that those who are bisexual could simply choose to romantically and sexually interact with the opposite gender. Or, perhaps, it is rooted in the fact that often, neither the gay nor straight communities welcome these people as their own.

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Whatever the cause may be, bisexual people often feel invisible in their struggle to accept their sexuality. After discussing this with friends who have come out as bisexual, my sense of these difficulties was intensified. In some cases, their anxieties about coming out to their parents or worries that their friends would assume that they were attracted to them seemed typical of any non-heterosexual orientation. But they also described the way that being in heterosexual relationships often made them feel as if they were not truly bisexual, or made them wonder if they were “faking it”. Similarly, having had less sexual and romantic experience with people of the same gender made them feel as if their sexuality was somehow not valid.

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We also discussed the intersection between biphobia and misogyny – after telling men that you are bisexual, the standard reply is often “that’s hot”, or worse proposing a threesome. Indeed after setting your tinder preference to women and men, you can expect to be inundated with profiles offering participation in threesomes with women and their male partners.

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Having said this, writing this article gave me a new appreciation for just how bright our future may be. When I told my fourteen year old sister that I was writing an article about bisexuality, she didn’t wrinkle her nose or giggle awkwardly. Instead, she blinked knowingly and said “Oh yeah, we learnt about that in PCSHE.”