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We're living through the best time in history to be LGBT. In the United States, same-sex marriage is legal, legislatively and judicially bolstered, and supported by a cool 68% of society. Around the globe, nearly 40 countries have legalized same-sex marriage, with more joining the club every year. LGBT representation in pop culture is soaring, and the percentage of young people who now feel comfortable coming out, particularly as bisexual, has reached levels many have trouble believing. The haters are still out there, but it’s nothing like it once was. Society has unquestioningly become far more enlightened and progressive. But one frontier that has yet to undergo such a shift is the way the LGBT community itself treats its largest subgroup: bi people.

It turns out that for bi folks, it’s more than just sexual attractions that swing both ways. For generations, bi people have experienced what researchers call “double discrimination” from straight as well as gay and lesbian circles. Despite comprising around 60% of all LGBT people, bi people take flak from both directions for simultaneously being “too gay” to be straight and “too straight” to be gay. As one 21-year-old bi woman told researchers in a 2018 study:

“As a bisexual individual, it is difficult to find a community that will accept you. You are viewed as gay by the majority of the heterosexual community, and yet not accepted within much of the gay/lesbian community due to the fact that you aren’t ‘actuall[y] gay’. People don’t view bisexuality as something legitimate and it’s a distressing reality to face.”

Study participants also described being excluded from LGBT events or spaces as well as “being rejected by gay or lesbian potential romantic partners when their bisexual identity was known, often being told they were ‘tainted’, ‘likely to cheat in a relationship’, or ‘just experimenting.’” In the words of a 27-year-old bi woman:

“To [lesbian and gay] people, I have always been treated as an ‘experimenting’ straight person, that bi is not a real identity, just a phase young women go through. I was treated as dirty or tainted by some lesbians for having had sex with men.”

These accounts are emblematic of a wider trend. A 2024 study found that 81.8% of bi respondents reported being discriminated against by gay or lesbian people. LGBT organizations are aware enough of this problem to publish reports with titles like “Bisexual Invisibility: Impacts and Recommendations”, and yet the issue remains pervasive and largely uncorrected.

Even as LGBT people become an accepted and integrated facet of mainstream society, distorted stereotypes surrounding bisexuality persist. One study found that respondents rated bi people higher on every listed stereotypical trait compared to non-bisexuals, including being “confused” or “indecisive”, “untrustworthy”, “unable to maintain long-term relationships”, and having had a greater number of past relationships or partners. Bisexuality is also associated, both in the public mind and within LGBT spaces, with hypersexuality. It’s certainly true that bi people can be sluts. At QM, we had a long-running column and even ran an entire Slut Issue celebrating just that. But the belief that all, most, or even many bi folks are uncontrollably promiscuous, serially cheating, STI-riddled party animals is untrue and pernicious.

Perhaps the most damaging misconception, disconcertingly prevalent among gay men and lesbians, is that bisexuality is an illegitimate sexual orientation altogether — an attitude long remarked upon by bisexual people themselves and neatly expressed in the misguided demand to “pick a side.” In my own experience, I’ve noticed that bi erasure manifests as a kind of homosexual/heterosexual “one-drop rule”, depending on whether the bi person in question is a man or a woman. For men, any level of same-sex attraction or behavior tends to be seen as straightforward homosexuality — to call oneself bi is seen as a denial or a fear of coming “all the way” out of the closet. For women, by contrast, no amount of same-sex attraction or behavior, short of full and exclusive lesbianism, seems sufficient to dissuade many from declaring them straight women just going through a “phase.” Bi men are rounded up to gay, and bi women are rounded down to straight, and both are seen as being confused about themselves.

As a straight person, these were attitudes I once held myself. In the days before I entered journalism and began covering LGBT and bi issues, the belief that I and virtually everyone I knew held was that bisexuality narrowly existed among people whose attractions and sex lives reflected an even 50/50 split between men and women. Anything short of Oberyn Martell from Game of Thrones having regular bisexual threesomes out in the open, and you were straight or gay. This is simply incorrect. For as long as bisexuality has been a formal concept in sex research and the study of human psychology, it has only ever referred to people who have both heterosexual and homosexual attractions, regardless of sexual behavior or degree of same-sex attraction. But the binary — and for some gay men and lesbians, tribal — view of sexuality as being “one or the other” has become a source of both misunderstanding and exclusion.

The ramifications of biphobia, double discrimination, and bi erasure are well documented, particularly when it comes to physical and mental health. In the UK, the Office of National Statistics found that bi people score higher in anxiety and 40% lower in self-reported happiness compared to straight or gay people. Equally concerning is that healthcare professionals and therapists often believe many of the same negative bi stereotypes discussed here. Multiple studies have found that bisexual patients report encountering therapists who regard bisexuality as a “transitory stage in the identity formation of lesbian women and gay men, associated with identity confusion and internalized homophobia.” In a 2009 study involving 108 psychotherapist participants, researchers found that “clinical issues related to bisexual stereotypes were rated as most salient to the case when the client was portrayed as bisexual rather than when the client was portrayed as heterosexual or gay.”

Perhaps worst of all, double discrimination creates a “double closet”, with bi people being the most closeted group within the LGBT community. According to Pew Research, 75% of gay men or lesbians are out to “all of most of the important people in their life.” For bi folks, that number is just 19%. All of this creates a dynamic in which bi people whose attractions fall closer to the heterosexual end identify as straight, and bi people whose attractions fall nearer the homosexual end identify as gay. In this way, bi erasure leads to self-erasure and creates a negative feedback loop in which bi people are everywhere, and often surrounded by other bi people, and yet they remain isolated like ships passing in the night.

The good news is that people are coming out as bi in unprecedented droves. According to a recent study by Clearer Thinking, first published in these pages, 23% of Gen Z identify as bisexual, and an eye-opening 59% reported having bisexual attractions. Lest you think this is just a youth phenomenon, this figure is a staggering 39% among older generations. It’s reasonable to surmise that even though the percentage of society that’s openly bi is currently at an all-time high, we’re probably nowhere close to the ceiling.

Given how long biphobia and bi erasure have persisted, even while prejudices of virtually all other varieties have declined, I admit to being pessimistic about the power of awareness-raising or education to do more than just slightly move the needle here. What may end up solving the problem is the plain fact that in the not-too-distant future, bi people are likely to numerically outgrow their dependence on gay or lesbian communities. We’re already beginning to see this with the rise of groups like amBi, a bi social club with 40 chapters around the world and counting. If you’re bi, it may still feel like you’re alone on an island, but we now know this isn’t true as a matter of pure statistical probability — most bi folks are just still in the closet. But that’s changing. In our lifetimes, we may very well see the percentage of openly bi adults reach 15%, 20%, or beyond. And at those numbers, bi people will become simply unerasable.

Published June 24, 2025