Can we talk about bisexuality?

[Pluvia]

Just that really. I'm a lesbian, one of a number seeking to rebuild new lesbian and LGB networks after our established communities and events and hang-outs and culture have been trashed by the TQIA+ brigade.

Lesbians and gay men are feeling really beleaguered. We've seen almost every sphere of gay and lesbian life infiltrated by 'queer', trans and spicy straight people all using the events and groups we've founded for their own purposes — mainly of validation. Pride has been taken over by the T. Our cafes, pubs, bars, all gone.

I think a significant number of gay and lesbian activists are finding it increasingly difficult to work out where bisexuality fits into all this. I'm in a number of different LGB groups and this issue has started to crop up in them. People who join describing themselves as bisexual and wanting to get involved in helping rebuild their local LGB communities turn out to be in long-term, stable heterosexual relationships. Some of them for 20+ years. Some bi people in such relationships want to involve their straight partners on the basis that although the partner is straight, they are in relationship with a bi person who isn't — but who, to the outside world, looks straight.

Does it matter? Well, if you're in a heterosexual relationship you're unlikely to experience the everyday (usually minor) moments that most of us who are out still encounter. Things like the need to come out regularly to people who assume that we're in straight relationships, the slight but still palpable 'othering' that sometimes comes when people realise they're talking to someone who isn't just like them. Sometimes it's much more pointed. And if we hold, say, an LGB club night, so that LGB people can associate without the straight gaze, should we allow bisexuals to bring their straight partners? Doesn't that negate the intention of the event?

Bisexual people who are living in a heterosexual relationship have the security of being undercover. They may not see it like that, of course, but they pass as straight. I'm pretty sure that one of the bi women who's involved in one of the groups I'm in is a straight woman who bases her bisexual identity on the fact that she had a relationship with a woman while at university, many years ago.

I don't know if there's a solution to this. I think lesbians and gay men are much more cautious around the dangers of self-ID and identity politics than they ever were. How are other groups handling this?

The LGB Alliance have made clear several times that they don’t particularly want to support Bi people.

@JoyousGreyOrca

"Use whatever label you want. But at least be brave enough to not be in the closet"

Speaking as a lesbian who has been out for 47yrs, that's a rather unfair and unkind thing to say.

No has to come out if they don't want to - isn't a requirement. There are also a multitude of reasons why someone might choose to remain under the radar that have absolutely nothing to do with 'not being brave enough'.

The LGB Alliance have made clear several times that they don’t particularly want to support Bi people.

I wasn't aware of that, but I'm not very involved with them. What evidence do you base your statement on? I've met several Bi people at the LGBA conferences I've been to. It strikes me, having read the responses to this thread, that it's high time bisexuals got together to raised their profile.

And nor should they be the same thing. When it comes to matters of sex, intimate relationships and simply getting on together, everyone should be allowed to draw their own boundaries. Again I hear echoes of the transgender interlopers who say that any lesbian who refuses to contemplate sex with a person with a penis is behaving like a racist.

What makes you say that? That's exactly how I saw my DP - a bisexual man in a heterosexual relationship. A person can be bisexual but a relationship can't, well not unless you're doing polyamory and ain't nobody got time for that.

But i can empathise that it must be interminably frustrating to meet this trope constantly and see that bisexual women who have relationships with men seem to validate it in the eyes of nbheads who have no capacity for nuance or understanding*

Yes, I can empathise too. Rather as I can with people from other minorities or individuals having a hard time. I can empathise but I can't understand in any depth and I certainly wouldn't suggest that I could represent them or advocate for them. And that's the point I'm trying to make. Unless Bi people get together and advocate for themselves, lesbian and gay people are left to fight not only for their own rights (and hell, it's been a horrible, exhausting fight in recent years) but for those of a group they can't fully get their heads around and whose main stance appears to be, judging by responses on here, that whatever we do we're biphobic and can't understand!

Can you see how circular this is? All the bi women saying they've never participated in Pride because they didn't feel it was for them (handy hint: it's mainly for straight and trans people these days, most L and Gs no longer go) and that LGB Alliance isn't representing them, but not motivated to do anything constructive to rectify the situation. It's looks as if it's easier to blame the Ls and Gs for not understanding and being horrible than it is to do something.

I actually think it would be a good idea to set up our own groups. I also think that if the B felt more welcome in the LGB spaces they're supposedly welcome in to begin with and weren't treated with suspicion they might be able to attend meetings and contribute on behalf of the B, I certainly don't want the gay community doing all the work for me that would defeat the point. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Again, we're not asking to be accepted into LG only spaces, we're asking to be fully accepted into the spaces we're already supposed to be welcome and currently aren't.

Not everyone is going to accept everyone else that's normal and human but equally if you're going to advertise yourselves as being welcoming to the B, then actually make sure how you treat them reflects that. (I'm using 'you' generally, not specifically aimed at anyone)

The irony of a post to talk about bisexuality and those who are actually bi talking about their experiences being told to shut up and stop complaining is not lost on me.

That's unfair, IMO. I don't have the time to go through and count up how many bi women haven't complained about feeling outsiders in LGB events but there have been a few. In my, fairly long, fairly varied, experience in LGB-land no one asks any questions of each others' sexuality on the basis that if you're there you must be LGB. Unless, of course, you say things that come across as homophobic or you want to talk about your husband when you attend an L+B women's group.

I don't think people are telling others to shut up. I think a number of us are surprised by what some women have revealed here. As I've said ad infinitum now, it's become really clear that if bisexual people want to be properly represented they need to represent themselves.

Going to get flamed but I think a woman who has a long term relationship with a man, gets married, has kids, buys a house etc and then announces at 50yo actually I'm a lesbian." Bye." is very narcissistic. This exact thing happened to a friend of my family. They had a shared business, house and children.All blown up. I know every divorce is bad but it's the extra level of I was only with you because it was appropriate and now they are teenagers I'm off. It doesn't sit well with me.
The DH tried to kill himself. Sounds pathetic but it made him feel that the last 20 years of his life had been a sham. She didn't leave him for another man, she left because she preferred women and always had. Her adult DS won't speak to her and the DD has just abandoned them and moved away. House had to be sold. Business kaput. She declares herself bi.
A sad story of a lovely family ruined really. If she had said she was a lesbian when she was young ( I know it was harder but nobody put a gun to her head to marry this man - it was voluntary) I'm sure she'd be happily married to the love of her life now, finally..
I know of 3 other women who have done this, and it the sexes were reversed people would think it was outrageous ( and that's 4 in a little suburb)

I think a woman who has a long term relationship with a man, gets married, has kids, buys a house etc and then announces at 50yo actually I'm a lesbian." Bye." is very narcissistic.

It may be in individual cases, but I think that many women reassess their lives when children are becoming more independent and they are in perimenopause, and discover their lives aren't all they want.

Bisexual / Pensexual here - I struggle to be involved in any sort of LGBTQ+ events as I feel I'm not valid enough to do so. I have been with both men and women and I have friends from every background but because I'm not with a woman and have to then explain I'm Bi / Pan I feel like an intruder.

My workplace is actually doing a bit of a deep dive into bisexuals in the company as they did a piece of work recently involving the whole community and the bisexual staff were marked the lowest supported and had the worst mental health so they are trying to find out why and what is needed to be done to help said staff.

I'm sure that every woman who leaves her husband in her late 40s or 50s has her own set of reasons, including those who leave for a woman. There are a lot of older lesbians who have done that — often leaving abusive or unrewarding marriages in order to explore their sexuality and few strike me as narcissistic. In many cases they're women whose communities (working class, rural, minority ethnic, churchy) meant that they didn't even know there was such a thing as a lesbian until well after they were married and had children. Why shouldn't they, once they've raised their children in a stable household, start to think about themselves? Do you think no woman should ever leave her husband in case he kills himself? Do you always think men's happiness is more important than a woman's happiness?

That sounds good @tinseltitss - my workplace doesn't even have bisexual on the staff monitoring system, I had to put myself down as "other", which has probably given HR something to talk about 😂

My workplace is actually doing a bit of a deep dive into bisexuals in the company as they did a piece of work recently involving the whole community and the bisexual staff were marked the lowest supported and had the worst mental health so they are trying to find out why and what is needed to be done to help said staff.

That sounds interesting. Is there any likelihood of the research being published? It could be a useful pushing-off point for a new bisexual movement.

@pluvia
Unfortunately not, its a wellbeing survey for staff and the focus was on mental health and inclusivity. They are putting together a steering group to look at why the figures were so different for our group.

Sounds like a good employer. I imagine it'll take a fair length of time before they come to any conclusions and remedies, but it would be really interesting to know what transpires.

I'm involved in a couple of long-running lesbian groups and trying to work out how we can support other groups to grow and recreate something like the lesbian community of old. In the last few years there have been so many more lesbians, older and younger, 'coming out' as autistic. So at the moment we're paused for a bit while we consult and research and work out what needs to be done differently to accommodate and support a higher than average proportion of ND women.

I have some of the situations that created the lesbian community of old just gone though @Pluvia? When I think about my community in Hackney in the 1980s/90s most of us were at least partly estranged from our families of origin, the section 28, it wasn't illegal to discriminate against us, lesbians were having their kids taken away, the majority of people thought same-sex relationships were wrong, there was much more overt homophobia, there was AIDS, things are just a lot better in the wider society (notwithstanding the trans issue, but that's more divisive than uniting).

The autism thing is interesting though, if I look back, I can see quite a lot of trauma in my old lesbian community, though that could've been because I was hanging around mostly with women involved in fighting against male violence against women, but not so much ND.

That was absolutely not the impression I got as a bi woman at the most recent LGB conference. I felt very included.

Again I hear echoes of the transgender interlopers who say that any lesbian who refuses to contemplate sex with a person with a penis is behaving like a racist.

I'm trying to make it clear that I recognise a difference between "I don't date bis, so no thanks" and open disgust that I've dared to set foot in a space that is allegedly for me.

I already don't go into lesbian spaces unless it's explicit that bi women are allowed there.

We already know that bi women face higher rates of DV (from men, I hasten to add) than both lesbians and straight women. This might be a causal factor.

Senior members and supporters on Twitter have posted around the idea that bi people are in denial/need to pick a team/are mostly spicy straight/trend following sheep.

Do you have a link/screenshot?

Can we see the evidence, please. A link?

I'm trying to make it clear that I recognise a difference between "I don't date bis, so no thanks" and open disgust that I've dared to set foot in a space that is allegedly for me.

Is this really happening? Open disgust? Open disapproval? When, where, who? Can you give concrete examples?

I've been mixing in lesbian, women's, feminist and LGB circles for 40 years. I've been to thousands of women's events. Yes, I've heard private conversations when lesbians have ended up hurt by bi women who've toyed with them and then gone back to a man and have had a rant about it. I've posted upthread about one of my own experiences. And yes, I've had to ask a bisexual woman who came regularly to one lesbian-bisexual women's group to leave because all she talked about was her husband. His name came up in every sentence. The other women started by listening and being understanding but eventually lost patience — because it was a women's group, a women-focused, female-centred group — and she continually made it about a man. I'm sure I've forgotten other incidents or perhaps they never registered. But open disgust? No, I've never witnessed that.

I don’t keep screenshots of hatred aimed towards me. That would be a surprising thing to do.
Bi-phobia is real. It is rampant on Mumsnet as well where bi people are continued told that they will obviously cheat.
The women who went on about her male partner was, I suspect, very tedious. And clearly not what the group was for. But that doesn’t seem to me like a reason to exclude all bi people. Merely a reason to exclude all tediously irritating people who can’t keep focused on the group aims. And I would totally support that.