Where Does the “B” Belong?: Anti-Bisexual Experiences, Self-Stigma, and Bisexual Individuals’ Sense of Belonging

Abstract

Bisexuality remains a stereotyped sexual identity in which bisexuals face prejudice from both gay/lesbian and heterosexual populations. Some bisexual individuals internalize society’s negative attitudes, resulting in an experience of self-stigma. Consequently, many bisexual individuals report a reduced sense of belonging. The current study explored whether self-stigma mediates the association between experiences of anti-bisexual prejudice and a sense of belonging within a bisexual sample (n = 529) while also identifying how experiences of anti-bisexual prejudice vary as a function of participant gender (man, woman, non-binary) and the source of prejudice (gay/lesbian or heterosexual). Self-stigma fully mediated the association between anti-bisexual experiences and a sense of belonging. Women and non-binary individuals reported more frequent anti-bisexual experiences than men, and all participants reported more frequent anti-bisexual experiences from heterosexual versus gay/lesbian sources. Efforts to improve a sense of belonging among bisexual individuals should focus on reducing anti-bisexual prejudice and anti-bisexual self-stigma.

Keywords:

• Bisexuality
• biphobia
• self-stigma

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by an American Institute of Bisexuality Grant awarded to Dr. Caroline Pukall, Dr. Karen Blair, and Stéphanie Gauvin, an Ontario Graduate Scholarship awarded to Meghan McInnis, and an Ontario Women’s Health Scholar Award funded by the Ontario Ministry for Health and Long Term Care awarded to Stéphanie Gauvin. The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The remainder of this paper will use the term “nonbinary” to refer to individuals in our sample who identified their gender outside of the binary, including those who identified as nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, agender, or some other variation or combination.

2 Means and standard deviations reported here are based on transformed scores on the ABES-H and ABES-LG.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meghan K. McInnis

Meghan McInnis is a Clinical Psychology doctoral student working under the supervision of Dr. Caroline Pukall in the Sexual Health Research Laboratory (SexLab) at Queen’s University. Her research interests are varied, with a focus on sexual and gender diversity. Her doctoral research is an investigation of the concept of virginity in adulthood. She is a co-founder of QueeringCancer.ca, an online resource for LGBTQ+ individuals living with cancer.

Stéphanie E. M. Gauvin

Stéphanie Gauvin is a Clinical Psychology doctoral student under the supervision of Dr. Caroline Pukall in the Sexual Health Research Laboratory (SexLab) at Queen’s University. Stéphanie is a coeditor of the comic anthology Rainbow Reflections: Body Image Comics for Queer Men which mobilizes knowledge on gay, bisexual, queer, and trans men’s body image. Her doctoral research focuses on how individuals in relationships negotiate and navigate sexual challenges, with a focus on how sexual script flexibility is related to sexual well-being after treatments for breast cancer.

Karen L. Blair

Karen Blair is the director of the Trent Social Relations, Attitudes and Diversity Lab in the Psychology Department at Trent University. She previously held an Associate Professorship in Psychology and a Jules Léger Research Chair in Humanities and Social Sciences at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia where she received the Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award in 2019. Dr. Blair is an adjunct member of the Department of Psychology at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, is the President of LGBTQ Psychology Canada, and Chair of the Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity Issues (SOGII) Section of the Canadian Psychological Association.

Caroline F. Pukall

Dr. Caroline Pukall received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from McGill University. She is currently Full Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Director of the Sex Therapy Service at the Psychology Clinic at Queen’s University. The students in Caroline’s research lab—the Sexual Health Research Laboratory—work on research projects examining various aspects of sexuality, including: vulvodynia, sexual difficulties, male and female sexual arousal, women’s health issues, male circumcision, and various relationship constellations. She has investigated numerous aspects of sexuality using brain imaging, psychophysics, psychophysiology, and blood flow imaging, all the while relating the findings of these methods to a variety of self-report measures. Caroline’s research has been funded by several organizations including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the National Vulvodynia Association. Caroline is Associate Editor for Sexual Medicine Reviews and is on the editorial board of several journals, including The Archives of Sexual Behavior, The Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, and The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. Recently, she was co-chair of the Women’s Sexual Pain Disorders Committee of the International Consultation of Sexual Medicine.