Bisexual Invisibility and Erasure

The following essay is part of CRUSH, a zine edited by Kat Pruss and published in September 2017 as part of Toronto’s inaugural Bi Arts Festival.

At least twice this year, a right-wing politician in North America has used the Queen song “We Are the Champions” to celebrate a victory—Donald Trump, when he won the U.S. presidency, and Andrew Scheer, when he was nominated leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. The irony was not lost on many. In both cases, people quickly took to social media to highlight the oddity of a conservative using a Queen song to celebrate his triumph. The faux pas, many argued, was owing to the fact that Queen’s frontman, the late Freddie Mercury, was gay. The problem with this is that Freddie Mercury never professed to be gay. He had relationships with both men and women. In fact, Mercury wrote the song “Love of My Life” about Mary Austin, a woman. For me, these reactions highlighted the problems of bisexual invisibility and bisexual erasure—that is, when bisexuality is ignored or dismissed because it is not seen as a real or valid sexual identity.

The fact that Freddie Mercury is known to have had relationships with men is sufficient for some people to define him as gay. But if Mercury himself never said that he was gay, why would we label him as such? It is important to note that Freddie Mercury was not very political, and he was not interested in discussing his sexual orientation with the press. That was his right, as it is everyone’s right to decide how to self-define and whether to share this information. Although he never came out as bisexual either, he did have romantic relationships with both men and women. Therefore, it is worthwhile reflecting on why so many of us assume that same-sex attraction strictly means homosexuality.

In the book Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution, Shiri Eisner (2013) suggests that among the many assumptions about bisexuality, the most popular one may be that it simply does not exist. Consequently, there is an “impression that bisexuality doesn’t appear in popular culture (or indeed anywhere) because it really doesn’t exist. This also causes people to ignore (erase) bisexuality where it does appear for that very same reason (What you know is what you see)” (p. 37). In other words, we tend to define a person’s sexuality on the basis of what we think we know about them. Not everyone who is bisexual, pansexual, or otherwise non-binary in their attractions (hereinafter bi+) comes out in the same way that people who are gay or lesbian do. And indeed, some simply cannot due to the risks involved. Ask anyone who has tried to tell people that they are bi+ and you will hear stories about being told some of the following:

“You’re just going through a phase.”

“Pick a side!”

“If you haven’t slept with a guy and a girl (or sometimes, if you haven’t had relationships with both guys and girls), how can you know?”

“You’re greedy!”

“I can’t trust you to be faithful to me.”

Just as it is for people who identify as gay and lesbian, coming out as bi+ can be difficult. As the examples above indicate, such a declaration can be met with doubt, denial, or suspicion. And once a bi+ person has relationships out in the open, their sexual orientation will usually be defined according to whom they are with—again, as Eisner (2013) states, “What you know is what you see.”

My observation is that bisexual invisibility and erasure are related to the phallocentrism inherent to patriarchy. In other words, one’s sexuality is defined according to one’s proximity to the penis. Consider the term “gold-star lesbian”—that is, a woman who identifies as a lesbian and has never slept with a man, as if that somehow makes her purer than a woman who has slept with one or multiple men. Accordingly, if a bisexual woman is dating a man, she will be defined as heterosexual. She may, however, be seen as someone who occasionally has sex with women, but probably as a performance she puts on to arouse heterosexual men. Furthermore, if a bisexual man is dating a man, he will be defined as gay, and any attraction he might have to women will be dismissed or ignored because others will look at him and see a gay man.

Besides being erased, bisexuality is sometimes demonized. The perceived threat of bisexuals is due to the fact that bisexuality is commonly equated with promiscuity. A popular assumption is that since bisexuals are attracted to more than one gender, they could never be faithful to one partner. While it is important to acknowledge that everyone has a right to sleep with as many or as few people as they want to, and to embrace or reject the idea of monogamy, it is insulting to be told that your ability to be attracted to people of multiple genders makes you untrustworthy. Yet many of us have heard someone nonchalantly admit, “I would never date a bisexual.”

The messaging in popular culture does not help. Entertainment is replete with examples of not just erasure but also outright bi-antagonism. The TV series The L Word (2004–2009) immediately comes to mind (“Bisexuality is gross”). Most commonly, there are the storylines about people leading double lives, as in the film Brokeback Mountain (2005), or leaving their spouse of many years to be with someone of the same sex, as in the Netflix show Grace and Frankie (2015– ). Such characters are always framed as gay—as if bisexuality does not exist.

Just this past Pride Month, there was an example of bisexual erasure. A popular joke arose on social media that the ‘B’ in LGBTQ+ stands for Babadook (a character from an Australian horror film). The joke started as a way to mock people who forget that bisexuality exists, especially considering that Pride was the culmination of work by bisexual and transgender activists, such as Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Brenda Howard. But this joke morphed as people began sharing memes of the Babadook in front of the rainbow flag. People soon began referring to him as a “gay icon” without making any reference to bisexuality. So, despite starting out as an attempt to promote bisexual visibility, this joke eventually erased bisexuality.

In addition, as part of a larger discussion on the appropriateness of heterosexual allies participating in Pride, there was some debate about the place of bi+ people at Pride if they planned to be accompanied by opposite-sex partners. This discussion was disappointing because it reinforced monosexism and cissexism (prejudice or discrimination against transgender people). Many overlooked trans people who may appear cisgender to others and assumed that bi+ women would necessarily be romantically involved with cisgender, heterosexual men. Notably, I saw no mention of the possibility of a bi+ man dating a woman—but this is pretty standard, since bi+ men are almost always erased and labelled as gay. While I agree with the argument that bringing straight people into LGBTQ+ spaces can cause problems, I was baffled that it seemed incomprehensible to those defending this safe space that that bi+ people of varying genders might be in relationships with each other.

The above examples suggest how pervasive bisexual invisibility and erasure are. No one dominant group should speak on behalf of LGBTQIA+ people. We come from innumerable backgrounds and have a diversity of lived experiences. Therefore, we have a responsibility to listen to each other, learn from each other, and work together to ensure that all marginalized and vulnerable people enjoy their rights. I believe every aspect of identity is political. Thus, my queerness is certainly political. Everyone has the right to define who they are for themselves and should be able to choose if and when to share that information. When it comes to sexuality, the desire to understand what people are is natural. The problem is that our understanding of what people can be is incredibly limited.