As I said in May, I will be doing a series addressing stereotypes for LGBTQ+ people—talking about people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer, as well as people who are intersex and asexual. I look forward to continuing through this series.
As I have already talked about lesbian and gay stereotypes, I will talk about bisexual stereotypes today. But before talking about bisexual stereotypes, it must first be understood what it means to be bisexual.
A bisexual person is someone who is attracted to more than one sex and/or gender.[1] For example, a man attracted to both men and women is bisexual, and a woman attracted to both women and men is bisexual.
Now that readers who didn’t know about bisexuality now hopefully know what it means to be bisexual, here are a few stereotypes associated with being bisexual that has been brought to my attention from other people:
- Bisexual people are attracted to all genders and sexual identities. No, that’s not necessarily true, though the stereotype I just stated is closer to a description of what pansexuality is, as pansexuality involves attraction regardless of one’s sex or gender identity.
- A bisexual man is only attracted to men and women, and a bisexual woman is only attracted to women and men. For some bisexual people, that is what bisexuality looks like. However, as bisexuality involves attraction to more than one sex or gender, a person’s bisexuality may look different from that.
- Bisexual people are “confused.” Someone who is unsure or confused of their sexuality usually goes under a different label: questioning. “Bisexual” does not necessarily equal confused.
- Being bisexual is easy because you can “pass off as straight.” Yes, it is true that the majority of bisexual individuals end up in heterosexual marriages,[2] and that therefore one might be able to “pass off as straight.” As to whether this means that bisexual people have it “easy,” I think that this question is best answered by people who have the lived experience of being bisexual themselves.
These, of course, are just a few of the harmful stereotypes associated with being bisexual. If there are other stereotypes about bisexual people that should be discussed and/or if anyone wants to expand upon the bisexual stereotypes mentioned here, please feel free to post a comment below!
Previous posts in my series on LGBTQ+ stereotypes:
- Introducing a Series on LGBTQ+ Stereotypes
- Stereotypes Associated with People with Same-Sex Relationships
- Lesbian Stereotypes
- Gay Stereotypes
[1] I should note that not all people have the same definition of bisexuality, so my definition might not be exactly the same as someone else’s definition. That being said, it seems like a lot of bisexual people have accepted that definition, so this is the definition I will go with for the purposes of this piece: https://www.hrc.org/resources/bisexual-faq
[2] A Pew Research Survey from 2015 said that only 9% of bisexual people in the survey had same-sex partners while 84% were in heterosexual relationships: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/20/among-lgbt-americans-bisexuals-stand-out-when-it-comes-to-identity-acceptance/