Introduction to the Special Issue: Improving the Health of a Local Bisexual Community through the Creation of a Citywide Task Force

Introduction

Bisexual community activists have a long history of fighting for visibility, respect, and equitable access to healthcare and social services (Burleson, 2005; Holthaus, 2015; Movement Advancement Project, 2016). Despite mounting evidence that bisexual people are disproportionately affected by numerous negative health outcomes (e.g., depression, anxiety, suicidality, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections; Feinstein & Dodge, 2020; Friedman et al., 2014; Ross et al., 2018; Salway et al., 2019), researchers and healthcare providers have been slow to recognize bisexual people’s unique needs and concerns. Recently, scholars have called for interventions at multiple levels to reduce the health disparities affecting bisexual people (e.g., individual-level interventions to help them cope with discrimination and population-level interventions to improve societal attitudes toward them; Feinstein et al., 2019). The success of these interventions will likely require diverse stakeholders (e.g., researchers, healthcare providers, community members) to leverage their collective knowledge, skills, and resources in the interest of a common goal, but differences in values, priorities, and funds can present challenges to doing so. In 2017, a group comprised of researchers, healthcare and social service providers, and bisexual community members and allies set out to overcome these challenges and to create a citywide task force to address the needs of the bisexual community in Chicago, Illinois. The result of that effort—the Chicago Bisexual Health Task Force (CBHTF)—is the subject of this special issue. Specifically, the goal of this special issue is to showcase the work of CBHTF members and affiliates as examples of how researchers, healthcare and social service providers, and community members and allies can join together to address the needs of an underserved community. In doing so, I hope to inspire similar academic-community partnerships to improve the health of bisexual communities nationally and beyond.

A brief history of the Chicago Bisexual Health Task Force

The origins of the Chicago Bisexual Health Task Force (CBHTF) trace back to 2013. As a result of long-term bisexual community activism, bisexual community leaders were invited to the White House for the first of three convenings focused on acknowledging and addressing bisexual people’s unique needs. Inspired by these convenings, Dr. Lauren Beach and her colleague, Khafre Kujichagulia Abif, began giving national presentations on the topics of bisexuality, health equity, and HIV. In March 2017, Jim Pickett (Senior Director of Prevention Advocacy and Gay Men’s Health at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago [AFC]), attended one of their presentations at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and, inspired by their work, invited them to present at AFC. Then, in November 2017, AFC hosted a one-day conference on bisexual health and equity (co-sponsored by the Evaluation, Data Integration, and Technical Assistance [EDIT] Program at the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing [ISGMH] at Northwestern University). The conference convened community members, healthcare providers, and researchers in Chicago to begin a dialogue about HIV in the bisexual community, barriers to care that bisexual people face, and the need for social services and healthcare to be affirming of bisexuality. By the end of the day, multiple attendees had expressed an interest in building on the momentum that had been generated by the conference and continuing to work toward addressing the health-related needs of the bisexual community in Chicago.

Following the conference, the group that founded CBHTF began to hold planning meetings every other month. These meetings were initially attended by a few of the people who had organized the aforementioned conference and a few additional people who had professional relationships with the organizers. During these first meetings, attendees brainstormed ideas for the group’s mission, vision, and priorities; discussed the structure of the group (e.g., Dr. Lauren Beach and I were elected as the founding co-chairs and three additional people were elected as the founding steering committee members to help guide the group); and discussed how to center the needs of the bisexual community in all of CBHTF’s efforts. To that end, CBHTF’s first action items were to survey key stakeholders in the local bisexual community and to host a “town hall” style meeting where the creation of CBHTF was announced and CBHTF leadership solicited community members’ perspectives about the most pressing issues facing the community. These activities culminated in formalizing CBHTF’s vision (“a thriving diverse bisexual+¹ community in the Chicagoland area that is visible, vibrant, and healthy”) and mission (“to improve the lives of bisexual + individuals in the Chicagoland area by mobilizing communities, engaging in research, advocacy, and education, and supporting the development and implementation of policies and programs”). CBHTF also set the group’s initial priorities, which were to increase bisexual visibility in Chicago, to educate people about the unique needs of the local bisexual community, and to create opportunities for members of the local bisexual community to celebrate their identities.

Since the first meeting of CBHTF, the task force has participated in various initiatives guided by the needs of the local bisexual community, the interests of CBHTF members, and opportunities for collaboration led by CBHTF's partner organizations. One of the greatest successes of CBHTF tied to the group’s first priority of promoting visibility was sponsoring the development of a proclamation issued by the Mayor of Chicago (first by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2018 and again by Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2019) naming September 23^rd the International Day of Bisexual Visibility in Chicago. Chicago is among the first large metropolitan areas in the United States where a government official publicly recognized the bisexual community in this way. In addition, given that CBTHF serves the greater Chicagoland area and not just the Chicago metropolitan area, CBHTF participated in a local suburb’s pride parade in 2019 in an effort to extend bisexual visibility beyond the city limits. With regard to education, CBHTF hosted a half-day pre-conference symposium (“the Bisexual Health Summit”) prior to the National Sexual Health Conference in Chicago in 2019. The symposium was free of charge and open to both conference attendees and non-attendees. It featured community members discussing the challenges of accessing affirming healthcare, social service and healthcare providers discussing their approaches to providing affirming services, and researchers sharing their latest findings related to bisexual health. In addition, in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month (October) in 2019, CBHTF collaborated with a local nonprofit organization, Bisexual Queer Alliance Chicago, to host a panel discussion focused on addressing domestic violence within the bisexual community. Finally, merging our efforts to increase bisexual visibility and to educate people about the unique needs of the bisexual community, CBHTF participated in a social media campaign during Bisexual Health Awareness Month (March) in 2019, where we disseminated information about bisexual people’s health through our social media accounts for the duration of the month. In all of CBHTF’s efforts, the task force has strived to create opportunities for members of the local bisexual community (including members of CBHTF) to come together to celebrate their identities in affirming spaces.

Summary of the special issue contents

In an effort to showcase the work of members and affiliates of CBHTF, this special issue includes a collection of articles highlighting the unique roles of diverse stakeholders in efforts to improve the health of the local bisexual community. The articles are divided into two sections: (1) commentaries from our members and affiliates describing their personal experiences as bisexual activists, scholars, and allies; and (2) empirical studies from our members and affiliates focused on bisexual people’s health. In the first section, Beach and Xavier Hall (2020) discuss how bisexual + individuals, community stakeholders, and researchers (groups that can and often do overlap) all contribute to the creation of knowledge related to bisexual health and to advocacy for health equity for bisexual populations. Then, Harrison and Kopit (2020) describe their experiences advocating for attention to accessibility in bisexual advocacy efforts and they provide recommendations for how organizations can make their events more accessible and inclusive. Finally, Pickett and Tucker (2020) discuss the role of allies in advocacy efforts and they describe their experiences as allies to the bisexual community in Chicago. In the second section, our members and affiliates present the results of their latest research on bisexual people’s health, including a qualitative study of bisexual men’s health concerns and healthcare experiences (Williams et al., 2020), a quantitative study of bisexual + people’s motivations for concealing their sexual orientation (Feinstein et al., 2020), and a descriptive study of bisexual people’s use of HIV/STI services at a community-based organization that primarily serves the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community in Chicago (Holmes & Beach, 2020).

Conclusion

By showcasing the work of our members and affiliates, I hope to inspire others to increase the visibility of bisexual communities, disseminate information about bisexual people’s unique needs, and ultimately to participate in efforts to improve bisexual people’s health and wellbeing. It can be challenging for researchers, healthcare providers, and community members to work together given the differences described above (e.g., in values, priorities, and resources) and historical tensions related to community mistrust of researchers’ intentions. That said, CBHTF is an example of what can happen when community members, social service and healthcare providers, and researchers listen to and respect each other in the interest of working toward a common goal. After reading the articles in this special issue, I hope that readers will recognize the power of academic-community partnerships and consider ways to leverage the collective knowledge, skills, and resources of diverse stakeholders to improve the health of bisexual communities nationally and beyond.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Dr. Lauren Beach for their helpful comments on this article and for their service to the Chicago Bisexual Health Task Force as well as the broader bisexual + community.

Additional information

Funding

Brian Feinstein’s time was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (K08DA045575). The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.

Notes on contributors

Brian A. Feinstein

Dr. Brian Feinstein received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from Stony Brook University in 2015. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. His program of research focuses on understanding and reducing the health disparities affecting sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations, especially bisexual and other non-monosexual individuals. He is interested in understanding how different types of stress (e.g., discrimination, internalized stigma, rejection sensitivity) influence mental health, substance use, sexual risk behavior, and relationship functioning among SGM individuals and couples. He is also interested in developing and testing interventions to improve health and relationships in these populations. Dr. Feinstein is also a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of Illinois.

Notes

1 I use the term “bisexual+” to reflect the range of identity labels that people can use to describe attractions to people of more than one gender or regardless of gender (e.g., bisexual, pansexual, queer, fluid).