I spent my whole life held back by bi-erasure. It kept me down, resting on my laurels, before I came out of the closet.
Bi-erasure, or bisexual erasure, is the tendency for society to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality.
In its most extreme form, it denies that bisexuality exists and damns the idea of personal, sexual identification.
Only 28% of bi or pan people ever feel safe enough to come out to their friends and family, according to a LGBT survey by the US-based Pew Research Center.
And bisexual women are almost twice as likely as straight women to experience abuse by a partner, according to a report from the Office for National Statistics.
Plus, bisexual and questioning females are at a higher risk of depression or suicide than any other sexual denomination, according to a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Struggling with others’ reactions to bisexuality is something I know all too well.
Throughout my formative years, I was unable to explore part of my chemical make-up that I felt no one – on TV or in school – shared. The part of me that meant I had an emotional and physical attraction to both sexes.
When the media passed comment on bisexuality, it seemed to say three things: that bisexuality isn’t real (it’s just greed, or indecisiveness); that women only kiss women to turn men on, and that coming out is a privilege reserved for the 100% homosexual.
It prompted me to experience decades of unshakable guilt.
Every unconscious impulse of same-sex seduction felt like a betrayal to the straight woman I hoped I would become after the ‘phase’ wore off.
There was the girl that used to spoon me at sleepovers.
The friend who drank half a bottle of vodka before confessing she wanted to break up with her boyfriend for me.
There was the questioning classmate who called me a lesbian when I said I thought Natalie Portman was wife material.
After each of these experiences, guilt would wash over me.
Like every teenager struggling to define their place in the world, I didn’t know exactly who I was. But I did know society wouldn’t take the person I might be seriously.
The arrival of pop duo t.A.T.u. was my first conscious experience of bi-erasure.
2002’s All The Things She Said took a song about two teenage girls becoming attracted to each other (fronted by singers Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina, then 17 and 18, respectively) and turned it into writhing, soft core porn.
School uniforms, wet T-shirts and all.
Did the content itself offend me? Of course not. Seeing girls kiss affirmed many desires.
The trouble is, the duo – plucked from normality by advertising guru Ivan Shapovalov – capitalised on the sexualisation of women being intimate with other women.
Truth be told, turning the frat boy, faux-lesbian trope into a profitable pop act was Mad Men manoeuvring at its finest.
That, and bi-erasure.
When Yulia went on to confirm her bisexuality in an interview years later, it seemed no-one really cared. And that confused me.
Until I realised bisexuality wasn’t queer enough to warrant headlines. Even if it concerned the sexuality of a woman who had spent years as a show-headlining, faux LGBTQ+ icon.
Last year, I felt like I was at a bisexual boiling point, so I decided to ‘come out’ on International Women’s Day.
I did it on YouTube – an impersonal choice to numb the anxiety – and made awkward jokes as I choked out the truth.
As soon as I hit publish, I anticipated the wrath of unsuspecting loved ones and switched my phone to airplane mode.
When I found the nerve to check my messages, I saw the video received surprisingly positive feedback.
That, and some unfortunate examples of bi-erasure.
Some people said they ‘knew’. Some people said they ‘experimented, too’. Some people said I was simply stopping on the way to Gaytown (thanks for that offensively enduring quip, Carrie Bradshaw).
Few seemed to understand that bisexuality is simply a person’s romantic and/or sexual interest in more than one gender. Nothing more, nothing less.
The reaction of a ex was the biggest surprise. He challenged both the announcement and my integrity entirely.
He said I had lied to him about my sexual preferences, despite the fact that I’d made a point to tell him about my previous sexual experiences with – and attraction to – both sexes at the beginning of our relationship.
For the purpose of proud retaliation, I decided it was time to embrace one half of my sexuality like never before and visit my first lesbian bar.
In the Hollywood version of my life, I dreamed it would be a place where people accepted me, where a group of girls would talk to me about coming to terms with their own sexuality. Where a double-chromosome stranger might even end up being the person I spent a future with.
It was the last place I expected bi-erasure to rear its bigoted head.
But when an exceedingly pretty dancer bought me a drink, it took less than five minutes for flirtation to transform into another form of bi-erasure.
She asked: ‘So, have you been here before?’
‘No,’ I laughed, realising how bizarre the next sentence would sound as a woman approaching her 30s. ‘I actually just came out, so thought I’d celebrate it here.’
‘Really? I knew I was a lesbian when I was really young,’ she replied.
Something unfamiliar flipped upside down in my stomach. I came out in an effort to embrace, and no longer deny, my sexuality. Whether it was for the duration of a drink or a lifetime together, I couldn’t brush my truth under the table.
‘I’m actually bisexual.’
‘Oh,’ she raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not really what this bar is about, babe.’
I made a joke I barely remember about being an incognito lesbian and excused myself to the bathroom.
Two things played on my mind for some time after our conversation.
Firstly, my compulsion to explain my sexuality. Secondly, the notion that bisexuals may not be welcome by members of a community who have struggled for centuries to be accepted.
Sidonie Bertrand Shelton, head of education programmes at Stonewall UK, says: ‘Bi people are often the forgotten part of the LGBT acronym and can face abuse from not only straight people, but also from lesbian and gay people. Biphobia takes many forms, including offensive myths, stereotyping and bi-erasure.
‘Coming out as bi can be extremely difficult. Stonewall research shows that nearly 38% of bi people aren’t out to anyone at work.
‘Bi young people also often don’t see themselves in schools or in popular culture and this has a serious impact.
‘We can all help support bi people by learning more about their experiences and challenges they face, and calling out biphobia. There is still so much to do to ensure that all bi people are accepted without exception both within and outside of the LGBT community.’
Stonewall recently launched a guide to bi inclusion for secondary schools to stop the damaging bi-erasure and biphobia.
A year after I posted my YouTube video, I am attempting to combat bi-erasure every day: each time people ask if I’m ‘straight again’, because I have a boyfriend; each time someone says ‘but gay marriage doesn’t really affect you, you can choose a man’; each time monogamous girls kiss their friends in front of me and say it’s not cheating; each time someone tells me that I ‘must like one [gender] more’.
My hope is that one day people will understand that dismissing any minority group is hurtful – bisexuality exists, live and let live.
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