Bi Us, For Us: Articulating Foundational Principles for Research in Partnership with Bisexual Communities

Abstract

Bisexual people comprise over half of all adults who identify as sexual minorities within the United States. Increasingly, population level health research has revealed that bisexual people face striking and broad-ranging health disparities compared not only to heterosexual people, but also often compared to their gay and lesbian peers. Despite the fact that bisexual people comprise an ‘invisible majority’ of LGBTQ people and are disproportionately impacted by poor health, the vast majority of funding dedicated to LGBTQ community organizing and to sexual and gender minority health research does not address the needs of bisexual people. Within this three-part article, we first describe how manifestations of systematic biphobia have led to the current situation where bisexual community organizations and bisexual health researchers are not granted adequate resources to address the health and health promotion of bisexual populations. In the second section, we articulate foundational ethical guiding principles and propose Bi Us, For Us, a new model to inform the design, evaluation, and implementation of intersectional bisexual community engaged research to inform the development of structural bisexual-specific health equity interventions. In the last section of this paper, we present the Chicago Bisexual Health Task Force as a case study of the model in action to illustrate a real-life approach that community engaged research and advocacy initiatives can take to promote bisexual health equity. We view this article as an invitation for dialogue about how to develop best practices to advance bisexual health equity and hope that it inspires additional bisexual people, organizers, and researchers to join in these pursuits.

Notes

1 Bi + refers to a variety of identities that refer to romantic or sexual attraction to multiple genders such as but not limited to bisexual, pansexual, fluid, queer, bi-romantic, etc.

2 Monosexual refers to identities that are meant to represent a romantic or sexual attraction to a single gender such as heterosexual, gay, or lesbian.

3 Bisexual community consciousness refers to an awareness of the systemic oppression faced by bisexual communities including but not limited to biphobia and bi-erasure.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lauren B. Beach

Lauren B. Beach, J.D., Ph.D., (she/her and they/them) is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences within the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. She is also the Associate Director of EDIT within the Northwestern Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing (ISGMH). Scientifically, Lauren investigates how stigma affects chronic disease management and health outcomes in sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations. A long time bisexual community advocate, they are a co-founder as well as a current Steering Committee Co-Chair of the Chicago Bisexual Health Task Force (CBHTF).

Casey D. Xavier Hall

Casey Xavier Hall, Ph.D., (he/him) is a postdoctoral research fellow at ISGMH and a member of the Chicago Bisexual Health Task Force. He received his Ph.D. in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education and his MPH in Global Health from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. His research focuses on social influences on sexual health, violence, and substance use disparities. During his doctoral training his dissertation examined minority stress and intimate partner violence among bisexual women. Casey is interested in multi-level influences on LGBT population health, particularly the intersections of violence, substance use, and sexual health.