L v. B and Feminist Identity: Examining Lesbians’ Bi-Negativity and Bisexuals’ Lesbian Negativity Using Norm-Centered Stigma Theory

Abstract

Historically, there has been a schism between lesbian and bisexual women that was largely embedded in the rigid rules of the 1970s lesbian feminist movement. Yet while the overt separatist tactics of lesbian feminism that once excluded bisexual women have largely faded away, the current study demonstrates continued evidence of fractures between L (lesbian) v. (B) bisexual women using data from a sample of U.S. adults aged 18-64 stratified by U.S. census categories of age, gender, race/ethnicity and census region collected from online panelists (lesbian women, n = 346; bisexual women, n = 358) and a partial test of Norm-Centered Stigma Theory (NCST) with an emphasis on feminist identity. Specifically, lesbian women’s negativity toward bisexual women (looking at measures of authenticity, unfaithfulness, and hypersexuality) is more pronounced than bisexual women’s negativity toward lesbian women; however, the findings demonstrate that today’s negativity toward bisexual women may not be embedded in feminism as it once was. In addition, the results suggest that feminism may mean something different to bisexual women in comparison to lesbian women (which perhaps may be related to differences in investments in queer activism). Overall, by using NCST’s theoretical framework that focuses on the intersecting roles of sexuality, gender, and feminist identity to investigate lesbian women’s stigma toward bisexual women and bisexual women’s stigma toward lesbian women, this research offers insight into working toward the ultimate goal of ameliorating these schisms.

Keywords:

• Lesbian
• bisexual
• feminism/feminist
• separatism/separatist
• stigma
• bi-negativity
• Norm-Centered Stigma Theory

Acknowledgment

The author would like to acknowledge the University of Oklahoma Office of the Vice President for Research who provided financial support for the data collection utilized in this project via the Faculty Investment Program.

Disclosure statement

No potential competing interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The stigmatized lens examines how the target of stigma’s (i.e., the stigmatized) own axes of social power impact their own experiences with negativity, prejudice, and stigma.

2 Due to the historical tensions between lesbian women and trans women (Browne, 2009, 2011; Hartman, 2006), all models were also run excluding trans women (results not shown but available upon request). Results did not differ significantly, thus, trans women were included in the current study’s final models.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meredith G. F. Worthen

Meredith Gwynne Fair Worthen (she/her/hers) is as a Professor of Sociology and elected faculty member of the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at the University of Oklahoma. She is interested in the sociological constructions of deviance and stigma, LGBTQ identities, as well as feminist and queer criminology.