Study explores link between bisexuality and poor mental health

[Duncan Grant]

Bisexuals face prejudice from straight and queer communities, lack bi-specific services

<snip>

The project identified multiple reasons why bisexuals' mental health might be negatively affected. Topping the list was the impact that myths about bisexuality had on participants' relationships with friends, lovers and family, as well as on participants' ability to access medical services and community support. Bisexuals, according to the results, experience discrimination from both straight and queer communities and services, and rarely have access to bi-specific resources.

"I found just regular mental health issues seem to be more complicated in that people always want to read it through the lens of my being bisexual," one participant told the researchers. "'You're depressed. Well, do you think it's because you're bisexual?'"

Other participants reported being told by service providers that they were confused about their sexuality after they identified as bisexual.

"I went to go see my first therapist and I was just coming out.... She was a lesbian and she was really happy that I was coming out as a lesbian," said one participant. "Then I was like 'Oh, but I don't identify that way,' and then she was kind of grumpy with me.

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More...

[xchrom]

1. recommend -- bi folk are part of the lgBtiq community --

lack of acceptance from the rest is unacceptable.

[amber_86]

2. Thank you for saying that

I feel love now LOL. And it shouldn't be anybody business about anybody sexuality.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

7. i love you xchrom.

[closeupready]

3. I've admitted before, and I'll admit to it again, that

I have hang-ups about bisexuals, and I try not to, because many of my friends and lovers are bi (or claim to be). I don't know quite why I feel that way, and I'm sorry about it.

[Mimosa]

4. Xchrom said: lack of acceptance from the rest is unacceptable.

I agree. Being bi is hard, nearly as tough as being transgendered.

[Lyric]

5. Being bisexual is tough.

I love my local gay and lesbian friends, but I get tired of being accused of "refusing to fully commit to your REAL sexuality" because "you're too scared to give up your privilege."

I am a poor, non-straight, Atheist woman who's been committed to my same-sex partner (and Out) for nearly ten years. The only "privilege" I have in the Really Real World is the white privilege I was born with, and if there were only some way to give that up, I would. I can't imagine what "privilege" these people are talking about. The vast majority of people who meet me or know me assume that I'm a lesbian because I'm everything-but-legally-married to a woman. We have a child. We have a home. We are painfully domestic--our Saturday nights are full of watching internet videos together and playing Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, or Monopoly.

I protest and participate in GLBT events. I gave up family members who refused to accept my same-sex partner, after suffering the same condemnation from them that my gay and lesbian peers often suffered from *their* families. Unless I am directly asked, nobody has any way of knowing that I'm Bi rather than Lesbian, because the everyday realities of my life are no different than those of lesbians who live with long-term partners. So how exactly do I have hetero privilege?

Because I am honest enough to admit (when asked) that I still theoretically find men attractive too, I am considering a coward by many of the gays and lesbians in my own community. It doesn't matter that I'm not actually SLEEPING with men. Just the ability to find a man attractive is apparently enough to make me "fake," frightened, and inherently untrustworthy.

I get really tired of this shit. I know for a fact that I sleep around FAR less than the vast majority of my 100% gay or lesbian friends in this town. I don't judge them for what they do, but they judge me for what I *AM*--and they think they're Right to do it, too. "It just makes me uncomfortable. It just squicks me out. It's all in your mind."

Yeah. Where have I heard THAT kind of talk before?

*sigh*

[DarkTirade]

6. I can't think of a damn thing to add to that. You covered every base I can think of right there.

:hug: