Bisexuality Today

LGBT+ issues have been heavily discussed in many countries, including the UK, particularly over the past few years. However, nuanced and inclusive discussion about bisexuality has often been absent from the larger conversation about sexuality, and this has resulted in the continued invisibility and stereotyping of the bisexual community. Building on existing research on bisexuality which shows high rates of bi-phobia, bi-erasure, and elevated problems with mental and physical health, the proposed research seeks to investigate current bisexual, pansexual, and other plurisexual (collectively known as “bi+”) experiences and attitudes.

By connecting multi-disciplinary researchers, this study will involve a holistic approach to researching bi+ experiences. Stage one of the project has already begun. As part of a community building effort, 20 members of the bi+ research community have described the issues they consider to be most urgent and important for the bi+ community today. Most of these responses have been published on the public facing research group website (www.bisexualresearch.com). These responses will be anonymised and aggregated, and a thematic analysis will be used to examine what bi researchers think are pressing bi+ issues. The purpose of this is to help us formulate questions to be posed in a wide-scale survey to the general public and members of the bi+ community in stage two of the research. This two stage approach aims to help us answer the main question: what do people think about bisexuality in 2021?

The findings of this research will be of interest to anyone who works with the queer community, to those who want to better understand this sexual minority experience, and to those who want to promote the visibility and inclusion of bisexual people.