'As a bisexual, femme woman married to a cisgender man, I don’t always feel welcome at LGBTQ events.'
“What are you doing here?” The man who approached me was big. A good six inches taller than I am with burly, tattoo-wrapped arms and a chest wider than my hips strapped with a leather harness over a white ribbed tank top. He was scowling over his beer bottle like I’d moved in on his territory which, in his mind, I had.“Do you know where you are?” he asked, eyes narrowing.
I’d be remiss not to recognize that my position comes with a significant degree of privilege. I can “pass” as heterosexual at work and in the community. And unlike transgender or openly gay or lesbian people, my safety isn’t automatically threatened because of my identity. I’m like a queer ninja. Nobody has to know my identity until I explicitly share it.
While the “B” in LGBTQ has been part of the acronym since it was first coined around 1988, many bisexual people still feel invisible within queer community. According to by The Movement Advancement Project, bisexual people experience significant rates of invisibility, societal rejection, violence, discrimination, and poor physical and mental health—often at rates higher than their lesbian and gay peers.Biphobia or bisexual erasure—the still-pervasive attitude that bisexuality isn’t real or makes a person less LGBTQ than those who identify as gay or lesbian—can have a serious impact on my community’s health.
that bisexuals report higher rates of anxiety, depression, mental illness, suicidal thoughts, and self-harm, relative to gays and lesbians.
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