Bisexual erasure
Bisexual erasure, also called bisexual invisibility, is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources. Bisexual erasure happens in both heterosexual and LGBTQ+ communities and bisexual identities are often described as just "phases" or "confusion". Bisexual erasure happens when bisexual people are ignored, dismissed, or downplayed. The lack of recognition towards bisexuality affects bisexual individuals mainly how they see themselves and how others see them. This then can influence bisexual's mental health, identity, and visibility in social, political, and legal spaces.
In its most extreme form, bisexual erasure can include the belief that bisexuality itself does not exist, and that individuals who identify as bisexual are either heterosexual or homosexual. People who believe that bisexuality does not exist typically claim that bisexuals are simply confused, or in denial, about their own sexuality. In the case of bisexual men, this commonly manifests in a stereotype that bisexual men are simply closeted gay men. Bisexual individuals are also sometimes dismissed or stereotyped as hypersexual.
Bisexual erasure is often a manifestation of biphobia, although it does not necessarily involve overt antagonism. Erasure frequently results in bisexual-identifying individuals experiencing a variety of adverse social encounters, as they not only have to struggle with finding acceptance within general society but also within the LGBTQ community. Bisexual erasure is a form of stigma and leads to adverse mental health consequences for people who identify as bisexual, or similar.
There is increasing inclusion and visibility of bisexuals, particularly in the LGBTQ community.
Motivations
General
According to scholar Kenji Yoshino, there are three main investments that motivate both self-identified homosexuals and heterosexuals to erase bisexuality from LGBT culture. The first of these motivations is sexual orientation stabilization, which is argued to relieve people from the anxiety of possibly having their sexual orientation questioned. This motivation reinforces the belief that bisexuals are simply undecided about their bisexuality and are fundamentally either homosexual or heterosexual, and it isolates, marginalizes, and makes bisexuals invisible within the LGBT community. The second motivation is the maintenance of the importance of gender, which is seen as erotically essential to homosexuals and heterosexuals whereas bisexuality appears to challenge this notion. The third motivation is the maintenance of monogamy since a pair or bond is preferred by mainstream culture. However, bisexuals are typically assumed by homosexuals and heterosexuals to be "intrinsically" non-monogamous. Juana María Rodríguez adds to Yoshino's argument and posits bisexuality breaks down traditional understandings of sexuality and the gender binary. Thus, individuals both in the dominant culture and in the queer community resist bisexuality.In a 2010 article written for the 10th anniversary of Yoshino's piece, Heron Greenesmith argues bisexuality is inherently invisible in the law, even beyond the reach of deliberate erasure. Firstly, she says it is because bisexuality is legally irrelevant to plaintiffs who are presumed to be heterosexual or homosexual unless outed, and secondly when bisexuality is legally relevant, it is erased within the legal culture because it complicates legal arguments that depend on a gender binary nature of sexuality.
American psychologist Beth Firestone writes that since she wrote her first book on bisexuality, in 1996, "bisexuality has gained visibility, although progress is uneven and awareness of bisexuality is still minimal or absent in many of the more remote regions of our country and internationally".
Male motivations
, an academic psychiatrist who specializes in the psychodynamics of homosexuality, writes in his essay "Denial in the Development of Homosexual Men" that many gay men have experienced sexual fantasies about women or engaged in sex with women and that many straight men have experienced sexual fantasies about men or engaged in sex with men. Despite being bisexual in fantasy and activity, these men identify as "gay" or "straight" rather than as bisexual. This erasure of bisexuality is sometimes caused by denying the significance of an erotic encounter to maintain a person's sexual identity and sense of community; a man might downplay having had sexual fantasies or encounters with a woman to maintain his identity as a "gay man" and his membership in the gay community, or a man might downplay having had sexual fantasies or encounters with a man to maintain his status as a heterosexual man in a heteronormative society.Writing for Bisexual.org, author and columnist Zachary Zane cites a study showing 20.7% of straight-identified men watched gay pornography and 7.5% reported having sex with a man in the past six months, while 55% of gay-identified men had watched heterosexual pornography and 0.7% reported having sex with a woman in the past six months. He argues some of the straight-identified men are actually gay or bisexual but are erasing their bisexuality due to internalized biphobia and denial to claim a straight identity label. Pointing out the majority of gay-identified men watched heterosexual pornography but few had recent heterosexual sex, he suggests many self-identified gay men have sexual fantasies about women and in an ideal world would be openly bisexual and freely explore sex with women, but society pressures gay men to "pick a side" so those men "subsequently have picked being gay".
Bisexual author and activist Robyn Ochs has argued gay men are less possessive of their "gay" label than lesbians are of their label. She argues there is less hostility to bisexual men who identify as gay than bisexual women who identify as lesbian, there is a great deal of sexual fluidity between gay men and bisexual men, and that consequently more gay-identified men openly admit to being attracted to and having sex with women. However, Ochs also argues many bisexual men identify as gay to politically align themselves with the gay community. She says since coming out is so difficult for gay men, many do not want to come out a second time as bisexual; the existence of male bisexuality can be threatening to some gay men because it raises the possibility they themselves might be bisexual.
Gay male activist Carl Wittman, writing in his "Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto", argued gay men should identify as "gay" rather than as "bisexual", even if they sleep with women. Stating gay men should only become bisexual once society accepts homosexuality, he wrote that:
In heterosexual and LGBTQ communities
Heterosexual and gay people who engage in bisexual erasure may claim that bisexuals are either exclusively homosexual or exclusively heterosexual, closeted gay or lesbian people who wish to appear heterosexual, or are heterosexuals who are experimenting with their sexuality. A common manifestation of bisexual erasure is a tendency for bisexuals to be referred to as heterosexual when they are intimately involved with people of the opposite sex and to be labeled as homosexual when they are involved with people of the same sex.Bisexual erasure may stem from a belief that the bisexual community does not deserve equal status or inclusion within gay and lesbian communities. This can take the form of omitting the word bisexual in the name of an organization or event that serves the whole LGBT community, including it as "bi-sexual", implying there are only two authentic sexual orientations, or treating the subject of bisexuality in a derogatory way.
Historically, bisexual women have had their sexuality labeled by lesbian feminist circles as an "apolitical cop-out". Bisexual women have been seen as "not radical enough" because of their attraction to cisgender men. Rodriguez asserts bisexuality was regarded as anti-feminist by many lesbians because of the implied "desires for penetration, sexual dominance, and submission", and similar lines of thinking about bisexual women continue to result in exclusion and erasure in the present day.
In 2013, a study published in the Journal of Bisexuality surveyed thirty people who identified as part of the lesbian, gay, queer or bisexual communities and their individual experiences with coming out. Ten of these people reported they claimed the label of bisexuality first, and later came out again as lesbian, gay, or queer. The theory that emerged in this study introduced the concept of the "queer apologetic", in which one attempts to reconcile their same-gender attraction with the social norm of heterosexuality.
Bisexuals have been overlooked in the same-sex marriage debate: Where same-sex marriage is illegal, those campaigning for it have failed to highlight the inconsistencies of marriage laws concerning bisexuals, whose right to marry depends solely on the gender of their partner. Secondly, when same-sex marriage is available, a bisexual partner will generally be referred to as lesbian or gay. For example, one of the first people to take part in a same-sex marriage in the United States, Robyn Ochs, was widely referred to in the media as a lesbian, despite identifying herself in interviews as bisexual.
For many years, the Lambda Literary Awards did not have a category for bisexual literary works, which was finally established in 2006 after lobbying by BiNet USA. Although some bisexuality-related works, such as the anthology Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out, were nominated for the awards before the creation of bisexual categories, they competed in gay or lesbian categories. For instance, June Jordan, who self-identified as bisexual in her writing, was posthumously given a Lambda Award for lesbian poetry.