Opinion: What people don’t understand about being bisexual

Editor’s note: Natalie Schriefer, MFA, is the Academic Research Editor. Her writings often focus on pop girlfriend culture, bisexuality, and coming of age. find her on x @schriefern1 or on her website www.natalieschriefer.com. The views expressed in this comment are her own.view further opinions On CNN.

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In the 2024 Netflix special “Have It All,” stand-up comedian Taylor Tomlinson talked a little about coming out as bisexual. Of telling his friends, Tomlinson said, “I’m scared just to say I’m bisexual, because then somebody’s always going to say, ‘Fuck, prove it.'” Tomlinson says. The joke was delivered as a laugh, but Tomlinson later added: I’m proactive about that. ”

This is a small but no less important segment of the show about dating apps, anxiety, and Hugh Jackman. Tomlinson talks about her experience with bisexuality, an identity that is sometimes overlooked.

This is often due to something called double erasure. The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, said that bisexual people are being criticized by both straight and queer communities for the assumption that they are “straight or gay based on the gender of the person they are currently dating.” This situation is characterized by facing exclusion. The Bisexual Resource Center similarly defines this as bi+ antagonism.

Tomlinson doesn’t mention these terms by name, but she talks about the pressure to prove that you’re attracted to women that you didn’t have to have when you dated men. It’s a common experience. It can ruin otherwise fun events like Pride Month in June or Bi Visibility Day in September. This can lead people to question whether they are bi enough to be “real” bisexual.

I was stuck in the closet for years trying to quantify this. I attended my first Pride event, from a campus event in 2014 to a local parade in 2019, pretending to be straight. Never mind that I was actively avoiding my bisexuality. I patted Rainbow and called myself an ally.

At that time, I had not yet thought about whether I belonged to the pride. I was able to personally acknowledge the truth. Yes, I was attracted to women. Yes, I was attracted to men too. In public, I feared exactly what Tomlinson was talking about: having to prove my sexuality if I came out. You need to have met a minimum number of queer crushes or slept with a certain number of people. I could never pinpoint what that number was. So I stayed in the closet and felt safer that way.

When I finally came out in 2021, coming out very publicly through my writing, I didn’t feel any better. Instead, I felt sick and had nausea that lasted for months. I found myself second-guessing myself and barely enjoying the Pride event. I walked through the crowd, stacking my body behind my friend. I stared at the lawn while the Connecticut Gay Men’s Choir sang on stage. I couldn’t even make eye contact with the vendors. I was waiting for someone to tell me I was fake.

At the time, I didn’t know how common this feeling of worthlessness was among bisexual people. When it came to what I was experiencing, the effects of bi erasure, I didn’t have any queer role models, let alone bi role models.

At the time, I didn’t have Tomlinson’s special to help me understand what bi erasure was. As one of Tomlinson’s more explicit jokes about Margot Robbie suggests, the expression shows how trying to “prove” one’s sexuality on demand, even in the shortest form of a few minutes, is You can make people realize how ridiculous it is. Now, almost a decade after my first queer crush, I know that.

One helpful definition I found before Tomlinson comes from bi.org, a project of the Bisexuality Institute of America, a nonprofit organization that promotes research and education on bisexuality in the United States. The definition states that bisexuality can include attraction and behavior. This “or” is important. That’s the part I missed from early Pride events. At the time, I was busy quantifying my actions and believing that I had failed. Actually, there is no quota. Whether a bi man has kissed 10 men or zero, he’s still bi. Similarly, bi women who date men do not choose to be straight. She chose a partner. She is also bi.

In either scenario, bi people do not have to “prove” their bisexuality. Give people self-awareness. Don’t ask them questions or try to explain away their labels. Take them at their word. They understand their own sexuality better than outsiders, no matter how outwardly straight, lesbian, gay, etc.

Tomlinson’s feature is particularly poignant in the context of Gallup’s release of 2023 LGBTQ+ self-identification data in March. A survey of nearly 12,000 American adults found that “bisexual adults make up the largest proportion of the LGBTQ+ population, accounting for 4.4% of U.S. adults and 57.3% of LGBTQ+ adults.” Additionally, “bi” was the largest identity category among LGBTQ+ adults in her three age groups: Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X.

These numbers represent an increase from previous years, including 2022 data from last spring. It stands to reason that as more people come out as bi, more people will continue to experience the same old biphobia unless we do something about it.

Change can start small. The erasure of bisexuality is based on assumptions, and there are a lot of stereotypes about bisexuality. Bi people don’t have to choose sides. They haven’t gone through stages. And there is no minimum quota of homosexual experiences to qualify someone as a “real” bisexual.

Understanding this has helped me feel more comfortable in my skin. It helped me publicly add my sexuality to my writing career, and it also helped me privately hang a mini bi flag in my home office. It made me feel a little less invisible, not just during Pride but every day.