Bi-Invisibility in Academia; the Intentional and Accidental Erasure of Bi + Parents in Research and Recommendations for Future Research

Abstract

It is incredibly common for research focusing on bi + populations generally, and bi + parents specifically, to cite a lack of research as a reason for their own study. However, few papers have explored the research practices that contribute to bi-invisibility, and the specific erasure of bi + parents. This paper identifies four commonplace research practices that make invisible bi + parents’ experiences in academia: 1. ignoring bi + parents, 2. erasing bi + parents, through unlabeling and accidental or intentional mislabeling, 3. aggregating bi + parents with other groups, generally lesbian and gay parents, and 4. adopting recruitment strategies that lead to bi + parents being underrepresented. This article discusses how these research practices are related to monosexism, heteronormativity, and the epistemic contract of bisexual erasure (Yoshino, 2000). It also identifies certain groups of bi + parents who receive a disproportionately low amount of research attention. Recommendations for researchers are provided, with the aim of improving the field of research concerning LGBTQ parent families.

Keywords:

• Bi-invisibility
• bierasure
• monosexism
• bisexual parents
• LGBTQ research

Bierasure and bi-invisibility in academia

The invisibility of bisexual people in academia has been described as a “profound silence” (Klein, 1993, p. 12) and bisexual activists have consistently written about how bisexuality has been “omitted, silenced, dismissed, and erased within academia, lesbian and gay communities, and the wider society—both historically and contemporarily” (Hayfield, 2020, p. 1). A review by Monro et al. (2017), exploring sexualities scholarship within the social sciences, revealed that bisexuality was consistently marginalized, underrepresented, and made invisible across the social sciences literature published between 1970 and 2015. Of the 73 texts they analyzed, only 16 had indexes that included roughly equal inclusion of bisexual index terms compared to other sexual orientation groups. Even the seminal works of queer theorists fails to address bisexuality; for instance, the seminal work of Judith Butler “Gender Trouble” does not address bisexuality, only including “bisexuality” in a “laundry list… somewhere between gay, lesbian, and heterosexuality”, “never articulated apart from these other sexualities” (Callis, 2009, p. 226).

Even in contemporary literature, although there is increasing attention paid to bisexuality and bisexual+¹ populations, in comparison to lesbian and gay populations much less research focuses exclusively on bisexuality (Hartwell et al., 2017). Although the Journal of Bisexuality, established in 2000, covers a wide range of topics on bisexuality, including bisexual history, new bisexual research, the growth of the bisexual movement, and bisexuality in the media, it remains the only journal dedicated to bisexuality and broader journals tend to neglect the topic of bisexuality. A recent review (Pollitt et al., 2018) found that only 0.5% of the articles published in the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity journal focused on bisexuality, and although papers often used “bisexuality” as a keyword or briefly mentioned bisexuality in the abstract, they did not include a focused discussion of bisexuality within the research. Additionally, an analysis of 22 undergraduate psychology textbooks by Meg-John Barker revealed that around half of the textbooks which covered sexual orientation failed to mention bisexuality as a possible sexual orientation (Clarke & Peel, 2007). This highlights the paucity of research into and recognition of bi + populations in academia, which is problematic given that bisexual individuals comprise a slight majority within the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community, with 1.8% of the US adult population identifying as bisexual, compared to 1.7% identifying as lesbian or gay (Gates, 2011).

Shiri Eisner, a well known bisexual activist and writer, refers to this extensive erasure of bisexuality as bisexual erasure, or bierasure, defining it as the “widespread social phenomenon of erasing bisexuality from any discussion in which it is relevant or is otherwise invoked (with or without being named)” (Eisner, 2013, p. 66). Eisner highlights that bierasure is all-encompassing, and evident in all aspects of life, from the private sphere, to the public sphere. Previously, articles have explored bierasure, and the subsequent invisibility of bisexuality, in various spheres, from the British print media (Magrath et al., 2017), to supernatural media (de Barros, 2020), to LGBTQ rights discourse and litigation (Marcus, 2015). This invisibility of bisexuality is often referred to as bi-invisibility, which is described as the “social invisibility that affects only bisexuals” (Yoshino, 2000, p. 367). This paper will specifically explore the erasure and invisibility of bi + parents in academia.

Bierasure in family research

Very little research has investigated bisexual + parent families despite a growing body of research into queer and trans parent families (Ross & Dobinson, 2013). A systematic literature search by Ross and Dobinson (2013) found that only seven studies had reported findings specific to bisexual parents. Most of these early studies were small scale, with two being case studies (Anders, 2005; Brand, 2001). Another had a sample of five bisexual parents and investigated their expectations of their children’s sexual identities (Yang Costello, 1997). Other studies identified by Ross and Dobinson (2013) had larger samples, but only included a very small number of bisexual parents. For instance, Goldberg (2007) included a sample of 42 adult children of LGB parents but only two had bisexual mothers and none had a bisexual father, whilst the rest had lesbian mothers or gay fathers. Similarly, Murray and McClintock (2005) had a sample of 99 adult children, but only seven were raised by bisexual parents. Of the seven studies that Ross and Dobinson (2013) identified in their literature search, the largest study of bisexual parents at the time (Steele et al., 2008) included 14 bisexual women (out of 64 participants) and explored their use of mental health services in the perinatal period.

A later systematic review (Manley & Ross, 2020) also found a paucity of research investigating bi + parenthood, finding only 36 studies that reported findings of relevance to bisexual parents and noting that many of these studies relied upon the same samples. For instance, Manley and Ross (2020) noted that of the 36 articles identified, ten were derived from one longitudinal data set sampling fewer than 100 women (Goldberg et al., 2017). Additionally, four studies relied on a sample of 33 bisexual parents (Bowling et al., 2017), and three used the same sample of bisexual mothers (Tasker & Delvoye, 2015). Thus, the current research on bisexual parenthood, and the conclusions that are drawn, represent the experiences of a small sample of bisexual parents, who are repeatedly studied and who are relatively socio-demographically homogenous (Manley & Ross, 2020), limiting the generalizability of the findings and leaving many questions about bisexual + parenthood unanswered. This highlights the lack of research into bisexual + parents and their families, especially given that bisexual people are more likely to become parents than gay and lesbian individuals according to estimates in the US (Pew Research Centre, 2013). Other studies have supported these figures, positing that around 64% (the majority) of sexual minority parents are bisexual (Goldberg et al., 2014) and some estimates have even suggested that bisexual women are more likely than heterosexual women to have children (Herbenick et al., 2012).

Reasons for bi-invisibility in academia

Previous literature has posited various reasons for the broad invisibility of bisexuality in academia. Fairyington (2008) discussed various “barriers” to the study of bisexuality, which she posits contribute to bisexuality “remaining an under-researched phenomenon” (p. 267), including issues with clearly defining bisexuality, the problem that many people who are “behaviorally bisexual” do not identify as bisexual creating a behavior-identification divide, and the obstacle of finding a representative sample. She also points to the lack of funding as another barrier to researching bisexuality, stating that sexuality research centers in general are underfunded, and that many sex researchers have been forced to seek funding from pharmaceutical companies, which limits the type of sexuality research they can pursue. However, overall, Fairyington (2008) theorizes that the biggest barrier constraining the growth of a field of bisexual research is ideological, namely the conception of sexual orientation as a binary. Similarly, Hayfield (2020) points to early conceptualizations of sexual orientation as a binary by sexologists as a key reason underpinning bisexual invisibility, in her seminal work “Bisexual and pansexual identities: Exploring and challenging invisibility and invalidation”.

Monro et al. (2017) also explored the reasons for bi-invisibility and attributed the invisibility of bisexuality within the social sciences literature to heterosexism in the literature, the impact of gay and lesbian-focused identity politics, and queer deconstructionism (wherein the term “queer” is argued to have deconstructive potential for displacing sexual categories such as “lesbian”, “gay”, “bisexual”, and “heterosexual” (Richardson, 2000, p. 41)). However, they posited that the reasons for the underrepresentation of bisexuality within and across social sciences varied across different eras. For instance, they postulated that the initial reason for bi-invisibility was linked to the broader erasure of non-heterosexualities, but argued that queer deconstructionism became a more important reason for bi-invisibility in academia around the 1990s, with the emergence of queer theory and poststructuralist approaches.

Four practices that contribute to the invisibility of Bi + parents in academia

Whilst it is clear that bi + parents remain largely invisible in academia (Manley & Ross, 2020; Ross & Dobinson, 2013), and prior research has suggested reasons for the invisibility of bisexuality in sexualities scholarship (Fairyington, 2008; Hayfield, 2020; Monro et al., 2017; Stanford, 2022), the specific reasons for the invisibility of bi + parents in academia remain unexamined. Although some of the reasons for the general invisibility of bisexuality in sexualities scholarship might begin to explain the invisibility of bi + parents in academia, without a specific examination of the invisibility of bi + parents, some key reasons for bi-invisibility of parents have been overlooked. Additionally, although previous literature has explored the invisibility of LGBTQ people in reproductive and infant psychology (Darwin et al., 2019), it has not focused specifically on the erasure of bi + parents. To my knowledge, no literature has focused on explaining why bi+ parents are so invisible in academic literature. Thus, this paper will bring together general reasons for bi-invisibility in academia, that contribute to the invisibility of bi + parents in academia, and reasons relating specifically to ideas about parenthood and family that mean that bi + parents in particular are made invisible in academic literature.

This paper identifies four commonplace research practices that contribute to the invisibility of bi + parents in academia: 1. ignoring bi + parents and not researching them, 2. erasing bi + parents through unlabeling or mislabeling, 3. aggregating bi + parents with other parents such as lesbian or gay parents, and 4. using recruitment strategies that lead to the underrepresentation of bi + parents. After describing each of these practices, the article will provide examples of previous research to illuminate how each of these four practices contributes to bierasure and bi-invisibility of bi + parents in academia. Where examples are discussed, this is not to say these studies and their findings are not valid, reliable, or important, but rather to point to spaces for improvement in future research.

I hope that shedding light on the current research practices that contribute to the invisibility of bi + parents in academia will lead to changes in future research practices and culture, such as encouraging greater specificity and accuracy when labeling parents’ sexual orientations and different family constellations. This has important ramifications not only within academia but also beyond; the invisibility of bisexuality, bierasure, and the discursive marginalization of bisexuality negatively affects the wellbeing of bisexual individuals (Barker, 2015; Barker & Langdridge, 2008), and it has been argued that “scholarly representation of bisexuality may be a normative issue, as well as one of rigor” (Monro et al., 2017, p. 675). Hence, I hope that this paper will lead to positive changes both within and outside of academia, opening up discussions about bisexual parenthood, and reducing (practices that contribute to) bi-invisibility and bierasure.

Ignoring Bi + parents

Mirroring broader Bi-invisibility

Bi + parents are often ignored by research, with very few studies investigating bi + parent families (Manley & Ross, 2020; Ross & Dobinson, 2013). This invisibility reflects broader bierasure in society, with representation of bi + individuals lacking in many areas, from children’s picture books (Knopp-Schwyn & Fracentese, 2019), and books for young readers (Epstein, 2014), to newspapers and print media (Magrath et al., 2017). Representations of bisexuality in media have lagged behind gay and lesbian representation (de Barros, 2020). Research into Primetime Australian network television series containing lesbian, gay and/or bisexual characters, found that gay and lesbian characters were included more frequently than bisexual characters (Monaghan, 2020). More recently, GLAAD’s report on representation on television and streaming services found that bisexual + characters made up 25% of all LGBTQ characters on three platforms in the year 2022-2023 (Where We Are On TV Report 2022—2023 | GLAAD, 2023). Thus, bisexual representation is still lagging behind, especially given that bi + people make up the largest segment of the LGBTQ community (Gates, 2011; Pew Research Centre, 2013). This lack of media representation has negative ramifications outside of academia; the lack of diversity in the representation of LGBTQ parents in media has been found to have negative implications for LGBTQ parents, causing them discomfort and frustration (Reed, 2018).

This invisibility also has implications for academia. As well as mirroring broader invisibility in the media, the invisibility of bi + parents in academia may be directly linked to it. A lack of knowledge of bisexuality, due to a lack of exposure to representations of it, might mean that researchers do not consider bisexual parents and hence do not research them. This may particularly be the case due to the lack of specific representation of bi + parents. Although bi + characters in general are underrepresented, it is likely that bi + parent characters are even more underrepresented, given that, anecdotally, a large proportion of LGBTQ representation in media focuses on and is aimed at adolescents. However, to my knowledge, to date, there have been no systematic attempts to analyze the proportion of bi + media representation that depicts bi + parents, or to analyze the specific portrayal of bi + parents in media.

A lack of statistics about the number of bi + parents may also underlie the lack of research on bi + parenthood. Few statistics are available on the number of individuals who identify as bi+, let alone how many bi + people are parents. For example, in the UK the data on how many people identify as bi + is scarce; it was not until 2021 that the UK census asked people to provide information about their sexual orientation, asking them “Which of the following best describes your sexual orientation?”, with the options, “straight/heterosexual”, “gay or lesbian”, “bisexual”, and “other” available.² This lack of knowledge on the number of people who are bi+, and more specifically the number of parents who are bi+³, might contribute to the lack of research on bi + parents in two ways. Firstly, because of the lack of representation of it, and because “popular wisdom has it that there are far fewer bisexuals than homosexuals” (Fairyington, 2008, p. 267), researchers may underestimate how many bi + parents there may be. Secondly, researchers may lack the statistics they need to justify their research and thus find it harder to gain funding for their studies, given that it is commonplace for studies to justify their importance using statistics on the number of people in the population they are studying, or the prevalence of an issue. If these statistics do not exist (i.e., in the case of bi + parents), it becomes difficult for researchers to make a case for the importance of their proposed research.

A lack of funding for bisexual projects

In addition, the lack of bisexual-specific funding and resources (Beach & Xavier Hall, 2020) likely contributes to the lack of research on bi + parenthood. Evidence suggests that in both 2012 and 2013 less than one percent of LGBTQ funding in America was granted for bisexual specific programs and research (2012 Tracking Report Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Grant Making by U.S. Foundations, 2013). Beach and Xavier Hall (2020) posit that the lack of funding of bisexual research relates to biphobic social justice narratives that suggest that lesbian and gay people are deeply marginalized whereas bisexual people are not and that bisexual people do not face unique issues. Applying this idea to the topic of bi + parenthood, it is thus possible that beliefs that bisexual + parents do not face unique issues or that bisexual + parents are not deeply marginalized in the way that lesbian and gay parents are, may contribute to the under funding of research into bi + parenthood.

Biphobia, stereotypes, and the perceived incompatibility of bisexuality + and parenthood

Biphobia is defined as negative behaviors, attitudes, and structures concerning bi + people (Monro et al., 2017). Yoshino (2000) argues that attaching a stigma to bisexuality is a method of delegitimization of bisexuality. Monro et al. (2017) argue, “it would be naïve to imagine that social scientists are immune to the broader forces such as biphobia” (p. 673). As such, biphobic attitudes and stereotypes, which often contradict or seem incompatible with the heteronormative and mononormative model of parenthood, likely also contribute to the absence of studies on bi + parents.

One biphobic belief is the rhetoric that bi + people should “pick a side” (Burke & LaFrance, 2016). Relating to this, bisexuality is often viewed as an unstable, or transitional identity, that people only adopt fleetingly, whilst on a journey to their true monosexual (lesbian, gay, or heterosexual) identity (Eisner, 2013). Evidence suggests that heterosexual, gay, and lesbian men and women perceive bisexuality as less stable than heterosexuality or homosexuality (Burke & LaFrance, 2016) and that the perceived instability of bisexuality underlies lesbians’ and gay men’s prejudicial attitudes toward bisexual men and women (Matsick & Rubin, 2018). These beliefs contribute to the idea that bisexuality is not a real, true, or valid identity and are linked to the valorization of monosexual identities (Eisner, 2013). These beliefs might contribute to the lack of research focused on bi + parents, because they lead to bi + parents in monogamous relationships being viewed as having ‘picked a side’, or having reached their “true” monosexual identity, with those in same-gender relationships being read as gay or lesbian, and those in mixed-gender relationships as heterosexual (Dyar et al., 2014; Haus, 2021).

In addition, bi + identities are often sexualized, with bi + people often viewed as highly sexual, hypersexual, or promiscuous (Callis, 2013; Dobinson et al., 2005; Hayfield et al., 2018), especially bi + women, who are often fetishized (Whitehorne, 2017) or eroticized (Israel & Mohr, 2004). This sexualization of bisexuality + contributes to the lack of research on bi + parents, because parents, especially mothers, are often perceived of as non-sexual, which has been referred to as the ideology of asexual motherhood (Weisskopf, 1980). Thus, again, the mainstream ideas and discourses about bisexuality+, built upon biphobic myths and stereotypes, are incompatible with mainstream conceptions of parenthood, creating the idea that bi + parenthood is in itself a contradiction, or incompatible.

Another common biphobic stereotype is that bi + people must have multiple partners of different genders at all times in order to be fulfilled or maintain their bi + identity. This stereotype can be understood as a conflation or assumed unavoidable connection of bisexuality and polyamory, with stereotypes perpetuating the idea that bisexual individuals are prone to consensual non-monogamy (Davids and Lundquist, 2018) or what Christian Klesse refers to as “the assumption of an essential bisexual non-monogamy” (Klesse, 2005, p.456). I posit that this assumed unavoidable connection between bisexuality and polyamory has contributed to the lack of research about bisexual + parenthood, because parenthood is ideologically perceived as monogamous, and mainstream discourses about and conceptualizations of families and parenthood are mononormative (Klesse, 2019), contributing to the idea that bisexuality + and parenthood are incompatible. This is not to say that polyamorous people cannot be parents, or that all bisexual + people are not, or cannot be monogamous, or that monogamy is any more or less valuable that polyamory or consensual non-monogamy. Rather, the assumption that bi + people are non-monogamous, and the perceived incompatibility of ideas about consensual non-monogamy and parenthood due to mononormative ideologies, may have contributed to the invisibilization of bi + parents.

Double delegitimization

A related idea is what I will refer to as ‘double delegitimization’, by which I mean that bi + parent families are delegitimized on two grounds, through the broader delegitimization of LGBTQ families, and through the delegitimization of bisexuality itself. Vaccaro (2010) discusses the way that “in the United States, dominant discourse on family either delegitimizes or demonizes GLBT families and, in turn, naturalizes heteronormative, two-parent family structures” (p. 427). These discourses are also present in many other societies. Delegitimization of LGBTQ parents also occurs through legal processes, and is reflected in various organizations and services, such as in the field of education (Selmi et al., 2019). Discourses also delegitimize bisexuality. For instance, discourses that claim that bisexual women engaging in same-gender sexual behavior are performing to attract or please heterosexual men, serve to delegitimize bisexuality (Nutter-Pridgen, 2015, p. 396). Delegitimization has also been identified as a bisexual-specific minority stressor (e.g., Maggi, 2021) and Yoshino (2000) argues that delegitimization is one of the ways in which bisexuality is erased by monosexuals. Hence, I posit that this double delegitimization of both LGBTQ parenthood and bisexuality, underlies the lack of research on bi + parents.

Ignoring Bi + parents because of the epistemic contract

Additionally, the lack of studies on bi + parents might relate to the fact that both heterosexual and gay/lesbian individuals have vested interests in maintaining that bisexuality does not exist (Yoshino, 2000), which Yoshino refers to as an “epistemic contract”. Yoshino explains that monosexual people have an interest in “stabilizing sexual orientation” (in other words in maintaining the monosexual-binary), because admitting the existence of bisexuality “precludes both straights and gays from "proving" that they are either straight or gay” (p. 362). As Fairyington (2008, p. 34) puts it, bisexuality “erodes the border between homo- and heterosexuality” and this is a “boundary that our society is heavily invested in maintaining”. Similarly, Lingel (2009) explains that “having battled to carve out a recognizable (if not respectable) place for homosexuality in the social strata, gays and straights are reluctant to undo, undermine or undervalue the truce (however uneasy) of binary sexual identity” (p. 387).

Heterosexual populations have an interest in maintaining the monosexual-binary, by denying the existence of bisexuality, because it blurs the boundaries between gay and heterosexual, and may call into question their own sexual orientations. For instance, bisexuality makes salient the fact that attraction to the “opposite” gender alone is not sufficient to make one heterosexual, which may call into question “heterosexual” people’s heterosexuality if they have ever experienced same-gender attraction. If there are only two categories of sexual orientation (heterosexual and gay), then “heterosexual” people with some same-gender attraction can explain away their same-gender attraction and remain, comfortably, in the heterosexual category.

Similarly, gay and lesbian populations have an interest in maintaining the monosexual-binary, by denying the existence of bisexuality, because the gay/lesbian movement’s dominant arguments rely upon the ‘born this way’ rhetoric to gain equal rights and acceptance by society (Eisner, 2013, p. 48), and this is threatened by bisexuality. The ‘born this way’ argument is said to be at least 150 years old, and its roots can be traced back to early sexology, which deemed same-sex attraction and behavior pathological, deviant, and as something inborn (Funke, 2014). It has since become a widely circulated argument in LGBT communities, and is used for a number of social and political purposes (Bennett, 2014), such as to advance issues of equality including same-sex marriage (Dixon, 2022, p. 241), and to confront religious objections to LGBT behavior. The argument relies on the idea that sexuality is “natural and immutable” (Barker, 2013, p. 607). As Eisner (2013) explains, the ‘born this way’ argument used by gay and lesbian movements goes as follows: they cannot help being gay/lesbian and would not have chosen it, so deserve rights and acceptance by society because they cannot change. Therefore, this is based on the idea that if something is natural, then it is authentic and legitimate, whereas if there is a choice then that is inauthentic and illegitimate. Hence, because bi + people can be viewed as having a choice between “being gay and being straight” (Eisner, 2013, p. 39), due to their choice of partners of different genders (although of course we cannot choose who we fall in love with), acknowledging the existence of bisexuality might be seen as a threat to the “born this way” argument.

Thus, the epistemic contract (Yoshino, 2000) explains that both heterosexual individuals (who make up the majority of the population), and gay or lesbian individuals, have vested interests in denying the existence of bisexuality or other nonmonosexual identities, and hence would not choose to research bi + parents. This is what Yoshino (2000) refers to as ‘class erasure’ or ‘categorical erasure’, whereby the category of bisexual is not recognized or its existence denied (p. 395), and can be seen as related to biphobia; a “primary manifestation of biphobia is the denial of the very existence of bisexual people” (Ochs, 1996, p. 224). This leaves researching bi + parents and their families up to bi + people, who despite being a majority within LGBTQ communities (Gates, 2011), constitute a minority of the general population.

Ignoring Bi + parents due to bisexuality’s ability to destabilize

Previously, Hemmings (2002) pointed to bisexuality as an epistemological project with the ability to problematize normative gender and sexual orientation categories. Moreover, Yoshino (2000) argued that bisexuality can destabilize monosexual identity because it challenges the primacy of sex (p. 421), and also postulated that bisexuality can destabilize norms of monogamy (p. 420). Additionally, Shiri Eisner (2013) explains that bisexuality is “something that society finds threatening to its normal order” (p. 43). In this vein, I argue that bisexuality also has the potential to destabilize the concept of the nuclear family as heterosexual, as acknowledging the existence of bi + parents has the potential to disrupt the idea that families headed by a mixed-gender couple are heterosexual, which may underlie the lack of research on bi + parents and their families.

Historically, pregnancy and parenting have been “inextricably intertwined with heterosexuality” (Manley et al., 2018, p. 170). The nuclear family remains a powerful normative ideal in much of the Western world (Saggers & Sims, 2005) and a culturally established common core of individual understandings of what constitutes a family (Lück & Ruckdeschel, 2018). Families which “deviate” from the “ideal” nuclear family, are often considered deviant, not considered families, or viewed as a suboptimal environment for raising children. For instance, the stigmatization of plural marriage remains strong (Ault & Van Gilder, 2015), highlighting that deviation from the model of family headed by a monogamous heterosexual couple is often not accepted. Additionally, there continue to be unfavorable attitudes toward families headed by same-gender couples; a study of the attitudes cisgender men and women (of various sexual orientations including heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual and ‘other’) held toward adoption by heterosexual, lesbian, and gay couples found that people showed the highest concerns about adoption by “lesbian and gay couples” (Hermosa-Bosano et al., 2022). Taken together, these studies highlight that the nuclear family “ideal” remains prevalent and is still viewed as the most favorable environment to raise children in.

Acknowledging the existence of bisexuality + means acknowledging that some families that fit the structure of the “ideal” nuclear family (a married, monogamous, mixed-gender couple parenting their biological children), are not heterosexual. This hence destabilizes the concept of the nuclear family, by calling into question whether family structure can indicate heterosexuality and preventing the distinguishing of queer parents and heterosexual parents by family structure. This relates to “hegemonic fears of infiltration and invasion, reflecting dominant groups’ fears of not being able to distinguish between ‘us’ and ‘them’” (Eisner, 2013, p. 118). The idea that the nuclear family may include non-heterosexual parents may thus be uncomfortable for those who wish to uphold the distinction between queer parent families and heterosexual parent families. Thus, this ability of acknowledging the existence of bi + parents to destabilize the “ideal” of the nuclear family as heterosexual may contribute to bi + parent families being ignored in research, due to certain groups’ investment in maintaining the construct of the heterosexual parent nuclear family.

Erasing Bi + parents

UnLabeling and non-reporting

The second commonplace research practice that contributes to the lack of research on bi + parents can be referred to as “unlabeling”. I use the term “unlabeling” to refer to the practice whereby researchers describe families based on their structure, disregarding, and hence making invisible, parents’ sexual orientations. For instance, much research refers to “same-sex parents”, “sex-gender parents”, “same-sex mothers”, and “same-sex fathers”, overlooking the sexual orientations of the parents in the relationships, as, for example, a “same-sex mother” family could include two lesbian mothers, two bi + mothers, or a combination of a bi + and a lesbian mother, meaning one cannot infer the sexual orientations of the individuals involved. A similar limitation has been identified previously in relation to population representative surveys, which often rely solely on the sex of partnerships, lacking adequate data about sexual orientation (Julian et al., 2024).

As bisexual individuals are a slight majority within sexual minority (lesbian, gay, and bisexual) groups (Gates, 2011), and research on bi + parents has included those in same-gender relationships (e.g., Davenport-Pleasance & Imrie, 2022), showing that some bi + people do parent in same-gender relationships, it is statistically likely that studies of parents in same-gender relationships include bi + parents, but just often fail to acknowledge their bisexuality+. As Epstein (2014) explained in her work entitled “The Case of the Missing Bisexuals”, “some of the partners in these same-sex couples must certainly be bisexual, but this is scarcely mentioned in research on parenting” (p. 115). It is also likely that bi + parents in mixed-gender relationships are incidentally trawled by large scale surveys of mixed-gender parent couples, and hence also unlabeled by terms such as “opposite-sex couple parents”, “different-sex parent households”, or “male-female couple parents”, given that most bi + parents parent in mixed-gender relationships (Gates, 2014).

An example of unlabeling comes from a study into the motherhood experiences of non-birth mothers in same-sex parent families (McInerney et al., 2021). The study investigated the experiences of non-birth mothers in same-sex relationships and concluded that their experiences were characterized by vulnerability in parenting their children without legal parental rights, and how they dealt with these challenges to their maternal legitimacy. Although this experience is unlikely to differ between same-sex non-birth mothers who are lesbian and those who are bisexual, as they would face the same legal difficulties regardless of their sexual orientation, by not reporting the mothers’ sexual orientations, and solely referring to them as same-sex mothers, the study may have missed the nuances and intricacies of their experiences. For instance, it would be interesting to explore the experiences of bisexual non-birth mothers in same-sex relationships, who may need to contend with challenges to the legitimacy of their bisexual identity, as well as the challenges to their maternal legitimacy, which lesbian non-birth mothers in same-sex relationships may not need to contend with. Hence, using unspecific terminology, and not reporting the sexual orientations of the mothers, means one cannot decipher if their experiences were impacted by their sexual orientation as well as their family structure.

Other research has adopted terms such as “two-father parenting” and “two-mother parenting” (e.g., Ioverno et al., 2018), which again fails to capture the nuances of the sexual orientations of the parents, making opaque potential differences between, for instance, two-father families with two gay fathers, two bi + fathers, and one gay and one bi + father. For example, in the aforementioned study, Ioverno et al. (2018) explored the beliefs and stereotypes heterosexual participants held about “two-father parenting” and “two-mother parenting”, with the aim of developing and validating a measure to capture prejudices toward “same-sex couples’ abilities to parent” and “concerns about same-sexual parenting”. Although using the wording “two-father parenting” and “two-mother parenting” led to the development of a valid scale to measure beliefs on “same-sex” parenting, it is likely that heterosexual individuals would hold different beliefs toward gay or lesbian parents compared to bisexual + parents, due to differences in stigma and stereotypes (Dyar et al., 2017; Dyar & London, 2018). Hence, using structural language, rather than sexual orientation labels, can miss nuance, especially relating to the different stereotypes held about bisexual + individuals compared to gay or lesbian individuals, and how stigma affects heterosexual individuals’ perceptions of bi + individuals’ and gay/lesbian individuals’ ability to parent.

It is possible that the use of unspecific language such as “same-sex parents” or “two-father parenting” is indeed an attempt to acknowledge that not everyone in a same-sex or same-gender relationship is lesbian or gay, actually countering monosexist assumptions by acknowledging the existence of nonmonosexual identities. However, the unspecified nature of the terminology, albeit perhaps more inclusive and not inaccurate, makes opaque parents’ sexual orientations. This is problematic because lesbian and gay parents in same-gender relationships may have different experiences than bisexual + parents in same-gender relationships, which are not able to be explored when language such as “same-gender parents” is adopted. For example, the stigma facing bi + parents versus lesbian and gay parents in same-gender relationships may differ, with stereotypes about bi + individuals differing from those about gay or lesbian individuals (Dyar et al., 2017). This may affect their experiences in parenthood, as experiencing stigma and minority stress is related to mental and physical health outcomes (Meyer, 2003). Thus, the unlabeling of parents in same-gender relationships contributes to the erasure of bi + parents from academic literature.

Using nonspecific, structure based language may also have negative implications for understanding the parenting experiences of gay or lesbian parents. Due to monosexist assumptions in society, if people are referred to as being in a same-gender or same-sex relationship, they may be assumed to be gay or lesbian. Thus, researchers reading articles which refer to same-gender parents might make the assumption that the parents are gay or lesbian. This is problematic because the samples of the studies could include bi + parents, hence leading to invalid conclusions being drawn through incorrect interpretations. Thus, referring to family structures, and subsequently making opaque parents’ sexual orientations, is problematic not only because it obscures bi + parents, but also because it inhibits knowledge acquisition about gay and lesbian parents.

Some research has appropriately used nonspecific language such as using the term “sexual minority” to refer to a sample that included both nonmonosexual and monosexual parents who are not heterosexual. An example of good practice comes from Kuvalanka et al. (2018), whose study of “sexual minority” mothers with transgender children included a sample of bisexual, lesbian, and pansexual mothers. Whilst using the term “sexual minority” to refer to the mothers as a group, the researchers helpfully provide a table with pseudonyms and each parents’ sexual orientation label, allowing the reader to understand the specific experiences of nonmonosexual parents, and distinguish these from monosexual parents. This highlights that nonspecific language can used to collectively refer to groups of parents, without further perpetuating bierasure, by providing information about specific sexual orientation identity labels where possible.

Mislabeling unintentionally

Moreover, bi + parents are often erased through mislabeling by researchers. Bi + parents are often mislabeled as gay or lesbian parents in research, if they are in same-sex or same-gender relationships. An example of accidental mislabeling of potentially bi + parents as gay or lesbian comes from a study by Mazrekaj et al. (2020) which explored the school outcomes of children raised by same-sex parents. Despite not measuring parents’ sexual orientations, parents are referred to as gay or lesbian, even though they could be nonmonosexual. This accidental mislabeling of potentially nonmonosexual parents in same-gender relationships contributes to the lack of understanding of bi + parents’ experiences, as it means that bi + parents are likely being included in samples labeled as gay parents or lesbian parents. Limitations concerning the use of relationship sex-composition as a proxy for identity have been pointed to previously in relation to large scale surveys (Julian et al., 2024) and researchers have demonstrated that partner-inferred sexual orientation is not an adequate substitute for self-reported sexual orientation (Kühne et al., 2019).

This type of mislabeling relates to monosexist language conventions that label same-gender relationships or marriages as gay or lesbian. Lannutti (2008) found that couples involving one lesbian woman and one bisexual woman reported that their marriage was often labeled as a “lesbian marriage”, which erased the uniqueness of their relationship, especially one partner’s bisexuality, with one participant explaining “all you ever hear about is ‘lesbian and gay marriages’” (p. 256). Thus, just as monosexism has been theorized to be a leading contributor to bisexual invisibility/erasure in contemporary culture (Corey, 2017), it is clear that monosexism is also a key contributor to the invisibility of bi + parents in academia through monosexist language conventions.

As well as being wrongly labeled as lesbian and gay if in same-gender relationships, it is likely that research often wrongly labels bi + individuals as heterosexual if they are in mixed-gender, heterosexual-passing relationships. Studies sometimes refer to “heterosexual relationships” and do not report measuring the sexual orientations of the individuals involved in these mixed-gender relationships. Similarly, research sometimes refers to “heterosexual individuals” but does not report having asked the individuals about their sexual orientations, rather basing this on the gender compositions of their relationships. For example, a study by Haycock and Smith (2014) reported in their methodology that “families were headed by heterosexual couples”. Although it is possible that the researchers did measure the sexual orientations of parents, the authors did not report administering any measure of parental sexual orientation (such as asking parents how they identify), suggesting that they may have assumed the couples were heterosexual based on the gender composition of their relationships. If this is the case, it is possible that studies on families headed by “heterosexual couples” actually include bi + parents. This potential accidental mislabeling of potentially nonmonosexual parents in mixed-gender relationships as heterosexual, contributes to the lack of understanding of bi + parents’ experiences, as it means that bi + parents are likely being included in samples labeled as heterosexual parents.

The mislabeling of individuals as heterosexual is likely related to heteronormative ideologies that continue to be pervasive. Heteronormativity, a term coined by queer theorist Michael Warner in 1991, refers to the systematic privileging of heterosexuality (Barker, 2014; Robinson, 2016; Warner, 1991). This leads to the common assumption that everyone is heterosexual, or takes heterosexual as a default, as the norm, or as the only natural sexual orientation. Heteronormativity is evident in the assumptions that some parents make about their children, assuming that their sons will marry women and their daughters will marry men, and talking about this from an early age (Martin, 2009). It is also evident in the way society is structured that “reflects and extends the assumption that men and women will pair off [and] reproduce” (Oesterreich, 2002, p. 288-289). As heteronormative ideology remains pervasive, it is likely that this could be the cause of researchers assuming that participants are heterosexual. In fact, it may be even more common for researchers to assume that parents are heterosexual than to assume that non-parents are heterosexual, due to the prevalence and strength of heteronormative scripts about parenthood (Manley et al., 2018).

Overall, the accidental mislabeling of bi + parents as gay/lesbian or heterosexual depending on the gender composition of their relationships is intrinsically linked to “passing”, which is described as the ability “to assume (either actively or passively) membership within multiple communities” (Lingel, 2009, p. 382). Thus, in relation to bisexuality, bisexual passing can mean the ability for bi + people be perceived as heterosexual or gay/lesbian, and means that bi + parents in same-gender relationships are often read as gay or lesbian, and bi + parents in mixed-gender relationships as heterosexual (Haus, 2021). This is evident in research by Tasker and Delvoye (2015), who found that bisexual mothers with male partners described encountering monosexist, heteronormative beliefs that they were heterosexual when they disclosed their partner’s gender.

The mislabeling of bi + parents based on the gender composition of their relationships is also problematic because it means that conclusions drawn about gay, lesbian, or heterosexual individuals may be incorrect. If samples of gay and lesbian, or heterosexual parents wrongly include nonmonosexual parents through mislabeling, it means that the studies are not actually investigating the population they intend to. Hence, these studies draw conclusions about a population based on data from a sample which includes members of another (namely nonmonosexual) population, whose experiences are likely to differ from those of the target population in meaningful ways. Thus, this means that studies on samples with nonmonosexual participants who have been mislabeled may draw invalid conclusions that do not reflect the experiences of a truly monosexual population and may not replicate.

Additionally, parents who have previously identified as bi+ or who experience multiple-gender attraction might not label themselves as bisexual(+). As Yoshino (2000) explains, “[the epistemic contract] is so powerful that bisexuals are prevented from fully conceiving of themselves as bisexuals” (p. 429). “Accounts” of bisexuality are often unavailable, with the gay community advancing gay and lesbian interpretations of non-heterosexual attractions to restrict bisexual self-interpretations (Steinman, 2000, p. 24). People draw connections between their past lives, bodies, feelings, and behaviors, and connect these with “accounts” that are available in their “contemporary world” (Plummer, 1981, p. 69) to interpret and label themselves. As “accounts” of bisexuality are particularly lacking for parents, nonmonosexual parents may be particularly likely to not label themselves as such. This has been observed previously in research on non-parent specific populations, by Ochs (2014), who found that some women who identified as both lesbian and bisexual chose to only label themselves as ‘lesbian’ publicly if their life-partner was the same gender as them. The number of multiple-gender attracted parents who adopt monosexual labels may be even higher than the number of multiple-gender attracted non-parents who adopt monosexual labels; research suggests that young mothers prioritize their identity as good and self-sacrificing parents over their LGBTQ identification, and women in committed relationships with the father of their child felt their same-gender attraction was rendered irrelevant (Budnick, 2016). Similarly, other research has found that some male-partnered plurisexual mothers increasingly distanced themselves from their same-gender behaviors and desires across the first year of being a mother (Goldberg et al., 2019). Hence, when working with statistics about the number of bi + or nonmonosexual parents, researchers should pay attention to the societal pressures that push individuals (particularly parents) toward using monosexual identity labels (Eisner, 2013, p. 67), which mean that the number of multiple-gender attracted parents may be much higher.

Mislabeling intentionally

Some studies purposely choose to refer to their participants as lesbian or gay, even when data indicates that their sample includes nonmonosexual parents, again contributing to the lack of understanding of bi + parent families. This relates to Yoshino’s (2000) concept of ‘class erasure’ or ‘categorical erasure’, wherein the category of bisexual is not recognized (p. 395). One example of this mislabeling is evident in a study by Geerts and Evertsson (2022), where they refer to their sample as “lesbian couples” despite acknowledging that some of their sample were bisexual. The intentional mislabeling of bi + individuals in same-gender relationships is likely because they are being viewed as “truly gay” or “truly lesbian”, due to the societal denigration of nonmonosexual identities and the privileging of monosexual identities (Eisner, 2013).

The mislabeling of nonmonosexual parents in same-gender relationships as gay or lesbian makes it incredibly difficult for researchers to search for literature concerning bisexual + parents, as keyword searching for “bisexual parents” will not retrieve results of studies that include nonmonosexual parents, but mislabel them as “gay fathers” or “lesbian mothers”. This thus prevents researchers from effectively finding research concerning bi + parents using logical keyword searches. Karl Popper famously proposed that science is cumulative, with advancements in knowledge and understanding of the world building on previous discoveries and knowledge (Popper, 1963). Hence, as researchers are hindered in their ability to find previous research on nonmonosexual parents due to mislabeling, this can hinder knowledge acquisition about bi + parents and their families, preventing progress in the field. It may also lead to the exclusion of studies that include bi + parents from meta-analyses or systematic reviews.

Aggregating Bi + parents and gay or lesbian parents

There are key differences between the experiences of bi + parents and gay or lesbian parents; bi + parents are likely to experience poorer mental health (e.g., Bostwick et al., 2010), may be more able to pass as heterosexual (Scherrer et al., 2015), creating unique disclosure decisions (Davenport-Pleasance & Imrie, 2022), may experience double discrimination from both queer and non-queer people (Arden, 1996; Ochs, 1996), and face different stigma/stereotypes/systems of oppression (Dyar et al., 2017; Dyar & Feinstein, 2018; Eisner, 2013) than gay/lesbian parents. Despite these key differences in experiences, studies often aggregate bisexual parents with lesbian and gay parents, reflecting the belief held by some that “bisexuals don’t actually suffer oppression that is separate from homophobia or lesbophobia” (Eisner, 2013, p. 59).

The aggregation of bi + populations with lesbian and gay populations means that the potentially unique experiences of bisexual individuals are often “rendered invisible” (Roberts et al., 2015, p. 555), and “are likely to be overlooked” (Watson, 2014, p. 102), making it impossible to determine challenges or experiences that are specific to bisexual people, and not shared by gay and lesbian individuals (Dodge et al., 2008; Israel, 2018). Steinman (2000) posited that the reason that bisexual individuals are often “added on” in studies with queer monosexual individuals, and their experiences seen as synonymous, is because of the problematic characteristic of constructionist theory that leads it to develop a “historically and socially coherent account of gay history, community, and identity by erasing differences and ignoring experiences that do not easily or necessarily fit into such narratives” (p. 23). The aggregation of bi + parents with gay or lesbian parents also relates to the discursive strategy of “incorporation” identified by Ault (1994) in their work on the ways that bisexuality is discursively neutralized by lesbian discourses.

This type of erasure of bisexualities by their aggregation with lesbian and gay categories, or under the LGBTQ umbrella has been documented in other areas of academia too, such as in social work publications (Ferguson & Gilmour, 2018), as well as in the field of education, which has noted bisexuality’s “exclusion by inclusion”, as part of lesbian and gay categories, and the GLBTIQ acronym (Jones & Hillier, 2014; Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2014). Similarly, the Institute of Medicine noted that LGBT populations are often merged as a single entity for research despite each group being a distinct population with their own health needs (Garofalo, 2011). The issue of the amalgamation of bisexual individuals with other groups is also discussed in the very useful “Guidelines for Researching and Writing About Bisexuality”, which suggest that bisexual populations should be separated from other groups, rather than subsumed under another category or assumed to face the same issues as other groups (Barker et al., 2012).

An example of this aggregation of bi + parents with monosexual parents can be illuminated by exploring research by Morris et al. (2002), which investigated the demographics and coming out process of lesbian and bisexual mothers. The study concluded that lesbian and bisexual women who had children before coming out had reached developmental milestones in the coming out process about 7–12 years later than women who had children after coming out and about 6–8 years later than non-mothers. However, due to the amalgamation of lesbian and bisexual mothers, potential differences between their experiences cannot be understood. Research suggests that bisexual individuals tend to reach identity development milestones at different times to lesbian or gay individuals, such as coming out later than gay or lesbian individuals (e.g., Maguen et al., 2002). Thus, by aggregating lesbian and bisexual mothers differences between these groups might be obscured. Additionally, if it is the case that bisexual mothers reach developmental milestones at different timepoints than lesbian mothers, such as coming out later, as is the case in non-parent specific populations (Maguen et al., 2002), combining the groups could skew the averages, making it appear that the average age that lesbian mothers come out at is later than it is, or that the average age that bisexual mothers come out at is earlier than it is. This highlights the importance of running separate analyses on lesbian/gay and bisexual parents, to avoid compromising the validity of findings, or obscuring meaningful differences between groups.

Children with bi + parents are also often aggregated with children with gay or lesbian parents in research. For instance, a study by Murray and McClintock (2005), which aimed to explore whether there was a relationship between parental nondisclosure of sexual orientation and children’s self-esteem and anxiety, had a sample of 99 participants (seven of whom had bisexual parents). However, when running analyses, the paper collapsed the sample with bisexual parents and the sample with lesbian and gay parents (likely due to a lack of statistical power due to small sample sizes) making it impossible to distinguish if there was a difference between the self-esteem and anxiety of adult children of gay/lesbian and bisexual parents. As research has found a difference in the developmental outcomes of children with bisexual parents compared to children with lesbian and gay parents, with children with bisexual parents more often experiencing adjustment difficulties according to the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Calzo et al., 2019), it might be the case that the relationship between parental nondisclosure of sexual orientation and child psychological adjustment functions differently. However, the aggregation of children with gay, lesbian, and bisexual parents, prevents exploration of this.

Similarly, research by (Kuvalanka and Goldberg, 2009), which investigated the perspectives of 18 queer young adults with lesbian or bisexual mothers, aggregated the children of lesbian and bisexual mothers. The study found that the queer children of lesbian and bisexual mothers felt social scrutiny relating to their mothers’ identity and felt societal pressure to be heterosexual and gender-conforming as a result. However, as children with lesbian and bisexual mothers were aggregated, it is impossible to discern if there were differences in the experiences of these groups, which may occur due to the differences in the visibility of their mothers’ queerness, given that bi + mothers often parent in heterosexual-passing relationships (Davenport-Pleasance & Imrie, 2022; Gates, 2014). Thus, aggregating children with bi + parents and those with lesbian or gay parents obscures the potential differences in their experiences, contributing to the invisibility of bi + parent families in academia.

To improve knowledge acquisition about bisexual + parents, and their families, it is important that if studies aggregate bi + parents with lesbian or gay parents, they run specific analyses on the groups separately or report findings that differ between these groups. An example of good practice comes from a study that aggregated lesbian and bisexual mothers in their exploration of the experiences of intimate partner violence, but included specific discussion of similarities and differences in the results section (Hardesty et al., 2011). For instance, they reported that whereas 11 lesbian mothers overtly sought help for intimate partner violence without hiding their sexual orientation, the violence, or the fact their abuser was a woman, no bisexual mothers engaged in this process. The researchers also reported the sexual orientation of each participant when quoting them, which is another method that helps to shed light on the potential differences or similarities in the experiences of lesbian and bisexual mothers. It is important that if researchers do aggregate nonmonosexual parents with lesbian and gay parents, they adopt these strategies to avoid making the experiences of bi + parents invisible. Researchers should also strive to explicitly state the number of parents of each sexual orientation in their sample, rather than simply reporting the total number of participants.

This also applies when using the term ‘queer’ to describe groups of parents in research. Previously, scholars have explored patterns of bierasure in queer theory, and noted that although the term ‘queer’ can encompass bisexual people, it is generally used to refer to a predominantly monosexual gay and lesbian experience. For instance, Halperin (2009) writes that the term ‘queer’ has “subsided into a mere synonym of gay” (p. 454) and Friedrichs (2011) noted that in it’s “most narrow sense [queer] is only another word for lesbian and gay” (p. 366). When it is not used as simply a synonym for gay and lesbian, excluding bisexuality entirely, ‘queer’ is often used as shorthand for LGBTQ, meaning the term ‘queer parents’ can encompass both monosexual, and nonmonosexual parents, and can refer both to sexual orientation and gender. Whilst this may be beneficial in some circumstances (as the term can be a useful way to refer to all those who are not cisgender and heterosexual), it can be said that the term ‘queer’ is often used as a “catch-all term… such that bisexuality loses its precise meaning” (Stanford, 2022, p. 19). For instance, if the term ‘queer parents’ is used, and specific findings are not reported about nonmonosexual parents compared with monosexual queer parents separately, the potential uniqueness of the experiences of bi + parents is not interpretable. Hence, if researchers are to use the term ‘queer’ to collectively refer to participants with different identity labels, it is important that they transparently provide information about participants’ sexual orientations and report findings in a way that allows any differences between monosexual and nonmonosexual queer parents to be disentangled. An example of good practice comes from Carpenter and Niesen (2021), in their paper on pregnancy and parenting desires amongst queer cisgender women and nonbinary people assigned female at birth. By explicitly stating the identity label of each participant when reporting quotes, the reader is able to identify the quotations that refer specifically to nonmonosexual parents, meaning that their bi + identities are not erased through the collective use of the term queer.

Recruitment strategies lead to underrepresentation of Bi + parents

Despite the fact that bisexual individuals comprise a slight majority of the LGB community (Gates, 2011) and the majority of sexual minority parents are bisexual (Goldberg et al., 2014), studies of sexual minority parents often include an overrepresentation of (adult children of) lesbian and gay parents and underrepresent (adult children of) bisexual parents. An example comes from work by Steele et al. (2008), which had a sample of 64 participants, but included only 14 bisexual women. Similarly, research by Goldberg (2007) had a sample of 42 adult children of sexual minority mothers, but only two had bisexual mothers, whilst the rest had lesbian mothers, and Murray and McClintock (2005) had a sample of 99 adult children of lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents, but only seven of these were raised by bisexual parents. This underrepresentation in samples hinders the conclusions that can be drawn about the experiences of bi + parents and their children.

One possible reason for the underrepresentation of bi + parents in samples of sexual minority, LGB, or LGBTQ parents is that bi + parents may self-exclude when research calls for LGB parents, as they may be worried about encountering biphobia, as bisexual individuals face double discrimination from both queer communities and from heterosexual communities (Arden, 1996). Additionally, bi + parents may not feel “queer enough” to participate, due to the invalidation of bisexuality as an identity, a feeling which has been documented in studies of non-parent specific bisexual populations (Flanders et al., 2017; Hutchinson, 2023; Tavarez, 2023). Another potential reason could relate to recruitment strategies, which often rely upon LGBTQ (parenting) groups. Research has found that bi + individuals often experience biphobia in LGBTQ spaces or from other LGBTQ people (e.g., Hayfield et al., 2014), including online spaces (Crowley, 2010), leading some bi + people to self-exclude from LGBTQ spaces (McLean, 2008). This issue of biphobia in LGBTQ spaces has also been documented in parent populations, with bisexual mothers often feeling excluded from queer communities by lesbians, or feeling unwelcome in lesbian spaces due to invalidating, biphobic reactions (Bartelt et al., 2017; Manley et al., 2018). Hence, the reliance on LGBTQ (parenting) groups for recruitment, may contribute to the overrepresentation of lesbian and gay parents and underrepresentation of bi + parents in studies, thus contributing to the invisibility of bi + parents. This highlights the importance of researchers working hard to identify spaces where bi + parents can be recruited from (including bisexual + specific spaces). Researchers should also consider using targeted language in their recruitment adverts, to specify that bi + parents are welcome and are specifically encouraged to participate.

Bi + parents may also be more difficult to recruit or less likely to participate in research studies than bi + non-parent individuals, due to parenting duties and the demands of parenthood. Research suggests that parents have significantly less discretionary time than non-parents (Wladis et al., 2018), which highlights the “time poverty” associated with parenthood. Hence, as parents have less discretionary time, it is likely that they have less time to participate in research studies, potentially making bi + parents harder to recruit than bi + non-parents. Therefore, it is paramount that researchers consider the childcare and household demands facing parents and consider ways to lessen the time burden of participating in research.

Uneven (bi)erasure within academia

It is important to note that certain groups of bi + parents are even more invisible and erased within the academic literature than others. This section will provide evidence for this uneven bierasure within academia, focusing on various subgroups of bi + parents in turn, each of whom has received comparatively little research attention for various reasons.

Bi + fathers

The experiences of bi + fathers are particularly ignored and erased from the academic literature to date. In their seminal chapter, Manley and Ross (2020, p. 78) note a particular paucity of research concerning bisexual fathers. In fact, none of the 36 studies identified that reported findings concerned bisexual parents were dedicated specifically to bisexual fatherhood, with the majority focusing on samples of bisexual/nonmonosexual mothers, and the rest either including mixed samples of bisexual parents, or focusing on LGBTQ+ parenthood more broadly. This erasure of bi + fatherhood from the academic literature reflects the broader invisibility of bi + masculinities in academia. For instance, Steinman (2011) found, through analyzing a decade of research published in the Journal of Bisexuality, that most bisexually oriented research critically examining gender focused on women, and that journals focusing on masculinities were characterized by a notable lack of scholarship dedicated to male bisexuality. Additionally, it has been noted that outside of the field of HIV/AIDS research, bisexual men have received little attention, and are often treated as an extension of gay men (Bostwick & Dodge, 2019). Some work has specifically attempted to challenge this paucity of research on bi + masculinities, such as the recently published book “Bisexual Married Men: Stories of Relationships, Acceptance, and Authenticity” (Cohen, 2023).

Various reasons have been proposed for the invisibility of male bisexuality. For instance, Steinman (2000) suggested that the discomfort of gay and lesbian individuals regarding bisexuals may generate different levels of conflict among men compared to women, with gay men historically concealing their negative attitudes about bisexuality more than lesbians who have historically expressed more public disapproval of bisexuality. Steinman (2000) suggests that these gender differences in the overtness of the disapproval of bisexuality from queer monosexual men and women have led to bisexual women being more motivated to gain visibility, compared to bisexual men, who comparatively have not publicly asserted their bisexuality as widely, which Steinman links to their lower levels of exclusion and stigmatization from the homoerotic community.

Gendered ideas about parenthood may also underlie the lack of research concerning bi + fathers compared to research focusing on bi + mothers. Historical and social conventions traditionally maintained that mothers should be the primary caregivers (Jones, 2020) and assumed that mothers were naturally better suited to, and better at, being the primary caregiver or caring for children (Lamb, 1998). These ideas likely underlie the lack of research on fathers more generally, and in combination with the disregard of bi + masculinities, may have contributed to the erasure of bi + fathers from academic literature to date.

It is important that future research specifically explores the experiences of bi + fathers, given the dearth of research on their potentially unique experiences to date. The experiences of bi + fathers and bi + mothers may vary drastically, due to traditional ideas on gendered parental roles (Booth & Amato, 1994), as well as attitudes toward bisexual men and women differing (Eliason, 1997; Herek, 2002). For instance, whilst both bi + men and bi + women face monosexism, it is more common for bi + women to be assumed to be heterosexual, whereas bi + men are more often assumed to be gay, as both bi + men and bi + women are perceived to be more sexually attracted to men than they are to women (Matsick & Rubin, 2018). Hence, it is important that future studies disaggregate bi + mothers and bi + fathers where possible to illuminate any potential differences in their experiences, such as differences in the discrimination they experience, their levels of minority stress, or their levels of connectedness to the LGBTQ community.

Nonbinary and transgender Bi + parents

Furthermore, nonbinary and transgender bi + parents’ experiences are yet to receive any dedicated research attention, which is likely linked to the broader cisnormativity of scripts surrounding pregnancy and parenthood (Fischer, 2021). Whilst some research has explored the experiences of trans and nonbinary parents and their families (Bower-Brown, 2022; Bower-Brown & Zadeh, 2021; Imrie et al., 2021), and a small body of research has explored the experiences of bi + parents (Manley & Ross, 2020), research has not focused on the intersection of these experiences and “trans and bi people [are] always discussed as separate and distinct groups” (Eisner, 2013, p. 245). It is important that research specifically explores the experiences of transgender and nonbinary bi + parents, separately from cisgender bi + parents, to better understand their experiences at the intersection of two systems of discrimination (biphobia and transphobia). This is particularly important, given the increasing hostility toward transgender people in many countries, including in the UK and US. Research on non-parent populations has found that transgender and nonbinary sexual minority people experience significant disadvantages compared with cisgender sexual minority individuals, such as higher rates of mental health challenges than cisgender sexual minority individuals (Rutherford et al., 2021). This suggests that transgender and nonbinary bi + parents might face additional mental health challenges compared to cisgender bi + parents, highlighting the importance of research on this potentially particularly vulnerable group, to best support them and their children.

Bi + parents of color

Similarly, the experiences of bi + parents of Color are disproportionately invisible in the academic literature to date, with the majority of samples being comprised mostly of White participants and some being compromised entirely of White participants (e.g., Delvoye & Tasker, 2016; Tasker & Delvoye, 2015, 2018). I crudely quantified the ethnic diversity of the samples of studies of bi + parents to date (see Appendix 1 for details on this process) and found that 93.99% of the bisexual parents in studies conducted before 2020 were White. Thus, this highlights the lack of ethnic diversity of samples, and hence the uneven erasure of bi + parents of Color or ethnic minority bi + parents, which is problematic given that bisexual women of Color represent over a third of bisexual women, with the same being true for bisexual men (Movement Advancement Project, 2016).

This underrepresentation of bisexual + parents of Color may relate to recruitment strategies that rely upon LGBTQ spaces and groups, which people of Color are often disconnected from or feel othered in Ghabrial (2017). This underrepresentation is problematic because there might be salient differences in the experiences of bi + parents of Color compared to White bi + parents, due to bi + parents of Color existing at the intersection of multiple systems of oppression. Research on non-parent specific populations has found that White LGBT individuals generally had a stronger and more positive view of their sexual identity than people of Color did (Feldman, 2012). Therefore, current studies which overrepresent White populations in their samples, may overstate how positively bi + parents view their sexual identity. Additionally, research has suggested that LGBTQ people of Color often experience racism and microaggressions in LGBTQ spaces (Cyrus, 2017; Furman et al., 2018; Giwa & Greensmith, 2012; Patel, 2019). Thus, this suggests there may be salient differences in the experiences of bi + parents of Color, compared with White bi + parents, demonstrating the problem with samples overrepresenting the views and experiences of White bi + parents.

Recommendations for researchers

Previously, general guidelines for researching and writing about bisexuality have been published in the Journal of Bisexuality by Barker et al. (2012). These provide researchers with helpful guidance on good practices for researching and writing about bisexuality generally, and provide an important starting point for good research practice. This section aims to provide specific suggestions for those researching and writing about bisexual + parenthood.

Firstly, it is vital that researchers acknowledge the existence of bi + parents and do not ignore bi + parents in research, given that they constitute the largest segment of sexual minority parents (Goldberg et al., 2014). Researchers should be mindful when using broad, nonspecific language such as “same-sex parents”, “same-gender parents”, “two-mother families”, and “two father families”, as this not only contributes to the erasure of bi + parents, limiting knowledge advancements in relation to bi + parent families, but can also have negative ramifications in relation to understanding the experiences of gay or lesbian parents. Although this language can be inclusive, and avoids the monosexist assumption that everyone in same-gender relationships is gay or lesbian, it can obscure the sexual orientations of parents, making drawing conclusions about the potentially unique experiences of bi + parents difficult. These unspecific terms should be used with caution. If they are used, it is important that they are used where parents’ sexual orientations are unimportant (such as describing family structures).

Previously, work aiming to amplify bisexuality research in the field of LGBTQ psychology has called for authors to be accurate about their samples in their titles, abstracts, and keywords (Pollitt et al., 2018). Adding to this suggestion, I suggest that researchers should be careful not to accidentally mislabel bi + parents as gay, lesbian, or heterosexual, as this contributes to bierasure and bi-invisibility in academia, and hinders knowledge advancements. Researchers must avoid purposefully mislabeling bi + parents for ease or to reduce the word count of their paper. Researchers must be aware of, and challenge, monosexist assumptions and monosexist language conventions and must not mislabel bi + parents as gay/lesbian parents if they are in same-gender relationships. Researchers should also be aware of heteronormative biases, and should not assume that all parents are heterosexual without asking them about their sexual orientations, or mislabel bi + parents as heterosexual if they are in heterosexual-passing relationships. Researchers must respect bi + identities, and learn and acknowledge that bi + individuals are always bi+, regardless of their parental status, relationship status/gender composition, or the visibility of their bi + identity. It is paramount that researchers working on these topics combat their own monosexist assumptions and language conventions, and challenge any biphobic beliefs and stereotypes that they have been taught by society and mainstream media.

Researchers should educate themselves on the key differences between the experiences of bi + parents and gay/lesbian/straight parents, even when their relationships are structurally the same. When researchers understand these key differences, they will understand the problems that arise when bi + parents are aggregated with other groups of parents, in relation to how this makes opaque the unique experiences of, and challenges facing, nonmonosexual people. Researchers should consider the differences between the experiences of bi + parents and straight parents in mixed-gender relationships, and between bi + parents and gay/lesbian parents in same-gender relationships. For instance, as discussed, bi + parents face specific anti-bisexual prejudice (Dyar & Feinstein, 2018), and double-discrimination (Ochs, 1996), distinguishing their experiences from those of heterosexual parents, even if their relationships are structurally the same (when bi + parents parent in mixed-gender relationships). Additionally, bi + parents face unique choices about coming out to their children as bi+ (Davenport-Pleasance & Imrie, 2022) differentiating their experiences from those of both heterosexual parents and monosexual queer parents, even when their relationships are structurally the same. Research has also found that on average bisexual parents have higher levels of psychological distress and lower life satisfaction, happiness, and LGBTQ community connectedness than lesbian parents (Assink et al., 2021), again highlighting the importance of disaggregating bi + parents from other groups of parents.

Moreover, researchers should pay attention to whether there are differences between bi + parents’ experiences in mixed-gender and same-gender parenting partnerships, as prior research comparing pregnant plurisexual women partnered with women to those with men has found that those whose partners in the past five years had been predominantly male reported greater anxiety and less connection to the LGBTQ community (Ross et al., 2017). Januwalla et al. (2019) also documented differences based on relationship composition, documenting statistically significant differences in the rates of miscarriage and pregnancy complications between male-partnered and female-partnered sexual minority women. Finally, researchers should specifically consider the combination of sexual orientations of parenting-dyads, to determine whether/how bi-parent dyads are distinct from both-gay or both-straight parent dyads, given that this question remains unanswered.

If researchers aggregate bisexual + and lesbian/gay parents in their quantitative research, they should run separate analyses on lesbian/gay and bisexual + parents (if there is adequate power), to avoid compromising the validity of findings, or obscuring meaningful differences between these groups. Researchers should also explicitly state the number of parents of each sexual orientation in their sample. If researchers aggregate bi + and lesbian/gay parents in qualitative research involving reporting quotations, researchers should report the sexual orientation of the participant who said each quote, to aid transparency. Where appropriate, qualitative researchers should pay attention to potential differences in the experiences of bi + and lesbian/gay parents, and report on both the similarities and differences in experiences. Researchers should also ensure that bi + parents are adequately represented in the sample, if aggregating them with other groups. If a sample overrepresents gay/lesbian parents, and underrepresents bi + parents, researchers should be cautious of drawing or generalizing conclusions about bi + parents, and acknowledge this as a limitation of their research. Researchers should not include bisexuality as a keyword for their paper if their research does not report findings specific to bi + parents.

Additionally, where possible, researchers should distinguish between bi + parents who identify as bisexual, and those who adopt what are sometimes called “emerging” identity labels (e.g., pansexual, omnisexual, plurisexual) (Assink et al., 2021). Where possible, researchers should specify the number of parents who identify with each label, but should also be mindful that a significant proportion of bi + people use multiple identity labels (Davenport-Pleasance & Imrie, 2022). In qualitative research, researchers can consider including participants’ identity labels (and other salient demographic details, or even pseudonyms) in brackets after quotations. In quantitative research, researchers can run between-group comparisons where appropriate, given that there is high enough power (again keeping in mind that the groups might not be discrete given that many bi + people use multiple labels). Previous quantitative research using this approach has revealed that parents with emerging identities reported lower levels of internalized homophobia and higher levels of social support than bisexual parents (Assink et al., 2021). The reason for these differences are difficult to discern, as very little research has considered differences between groups of people who fall under the plurisexual umbrella, beyond exploring demographic differences (Greaves et al., 2019), highlighting the need for future research exploring between-group differences and pointing to the importance of distinguishing between different plurisexual groups.

Finally, researchers should be mindful of their recruitment strategies, as reliance upon adverts posted in LGBTQ (parenting) groups may lead to the overrepresentation of lesbian and gay parents and underrepresentation of bi + parents in studies. Thus, researchers should attempt to identify spaces where bi + parents can be recruited from, and consider targeted recruitment in bisexual + specific spaces. Researchers should also pay attention to the language choices of their recruitment adverts, use inclusive language, and where appropriate explicitly specify that bi + parents are specifically urged to participate.

Conclusions

This paper has identified four commonplace research practices that lead to the invisibility of bi + parents in academia: ignoring bi + parents, unlabeling bi + parents by using unspecific language, unintentionally or intentionally mislabeling bi + parents as gay, lesbian, or heterosexual, aggregating bi + parents with gay/lesbian parents, and adopting recruitment strategies that lead to the underrepresentation of bi + parents. These research practices contribute to the lack of understanding of bi + parenthood and bi + parent families. It also highlighted certain groups of bi + parents who receive a disproportionately low level of research attention, including bi + fathers, transgender and nonbinary bi + parents, and bi + parents of Color. Recommendations for researchers were made. If researchers follow these recommendations, this will help to combat bierasure in the field of family research, aiding knowledge development in regards to bi + parents and their families, which is important given that bi + parents constitute the largest segment of sexual minority parents (Goldberg et al., 2014). It will also improve the specificity and validity of findings in the field of research concerning LGBTQ parent families, and lead to a more nuanced and sensitive field of research. Overall, I hope that this paper has not only illuminated the commonplace research practices that hinder knowledge acquisition about bi + parents currently, but that the suggestions will improve the field of family research concerning LGBTQ parent families, increase knowledge relating to bi + parents and their families, and combat bierasure in academia.

Disclosure statement

The author reports that there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Notes on contributors

Ellen Davenport-Pleasance

Ellen Davenport-Pleasance is a PhD student at University College London, researching bisexual + motherhood as part of her doctorate in Social Science. She has previously completed an MPhil and BA in Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Previously, she has published her qualitative research in LGBTQ Family: An Interdisciplinary Journal. In addition, she is a member of the leadership team for the Bisexual Research Group, an international group of bisexuality + researchers who collaborate through monthly researcher meetings and annual conferences. Ellen is interested in bisexuality and bisexual + research, and is currently researching relationships, experiences, and well-being in bi + mother families.

Notes

1 “Bisexual+” and “bisexuality+”, terms that will be used throughout this paper, are intended as inclusive terms, to encompass the diversity of terminology and definitions used by nonmonosexual people (multiple-gender attracted people), including bi, bisexual, pan, pansexual, queer, omnisexual, and plurisexual.

2 The UK 2021 Census found that 628,000 people identified as bisexual (1.3% of the population aged over 16), and 112,000 identified as pansexual. Taken together, this suggests that around 740,000 people in the UK identified as nonmonosexual, a number almost equal to the 748,000 who identified as gay or lesbian).

3 It is still not possible to tell the number of parents who are bi + in the UK using 2021 census data.

Appendix 1

The process of estimating the ethnic diversity of samples in studies of bi + parents to date

The ethnic diversity (or lack thereof) of the samples of studies of bisexual + parents to date was estimated using the studies identified by the most recent review of the literature concerning bisexual parenting (Manley & Ross, 2020). I acknowledge that more research on bisexual parenting and bisexual parent families has been published since 2020, however this is the most up-to-date review of the literature so has been used for the purpose of convenience and completeness. The 36 studies which the review identified, which had some relevance to bisexual + parenting, were reviewed and interrogated. Whilst reviewing these 36 articles, five were discounted, for various reasons. For instance, one paper (Hodson et al., 2017) was excluded because it was a systematic review, another (Calzo et al., 2019) was excluded because it reported demographic characteristics of children rather than parents, and another (DeVault & Miller, 2019) was excluded because it did not focus on bisexual + parents, but rather prejudice against lesbians, gays, and bisexual adoption applicants. This left 31 articles remaining. The samples of these 31 were interrogated to explore the number of bisexual + parents/participants in each study, and the ethnic backgrounds of these bisexual + participants. Some studies had missing data regarding either the number of bisexual + participants, so were discounted. For instance, Hardesty et al. (2011) reported that in their sample of 24 lesbian and bisexual mothers, 19 were completely out lesbians, and “5 were lesbian but closeted, bisexual, or unsure of how they defined themselves.” (p. 31). This prevents us from identifying how many bisexual mothers were in their sample. Other studies were missing data regarding the ethnic backgrounds of participants. For instance, Gibson (2018) did report that 20% of their sample were bisexual, but did not report the ethnic backgrounds of participants by sexual orientation. Hence, it was only evident that three of the total sample of 20 participants belonged to a racial minority, and readers are not able to tell the sexual orientation of these participants. Other studies were excluded from analyses because multiple studies relied on the same sample; for instance, three studies were conducted on the same UK sample (Delvoye & Tasker, 2016; Tasker & Delvoye, 2015, 2018). Where multiple studies were conducted on the same sample, all but one were excluded. After studies were excluded (for their various reasons), 10 studies remained. Their samples were analyzed to compute the figure discussed in the text.