Developing Successful Sexual Health and Support Services for Bisexual People

SUMMARY

In the last decade and a half in the Boston metropolitan area, community-based approaches have developed to meet the range of mental and general health support needs of bisexual people. We will chronicle some of this history and describe the web of programs and services available in Boston, focusing in particular on the BiHealth program at Fenway Community Health. We believe that BiHealth has been successful at serving bisexual people because of its unique approach to addressing bisexual behavior and identity. This approach is to carefully distinguish and take into consideration sexual behavior, on the one hand, and sexual identity, on the other, and to address them separately or in tandem, as appropriate. This approach includes recognizing and addressing different sub-groups of bisexual people, including self-identified bisexual people, non-identified bisexual people, and bi-curious people in particular. Here we describe the unique broad-based approaches to medical and mental health that BiHealth offers and we consider the importance of linkages to community, grassroots activism, and resources in addressing both bisexual behavior and identity. In conclusion, we offer lessons learned that we hope others will find useful in developing programs in other places for self-identified bisexual, non-identified bisexual and/or bi-curious people.

Key Words:

• Bisexuality
• bisexual women
• bisexual men
• bisexual identity
• polyamory
• sexual behavior
• sexual health
• HIV/AIDS
• HIV prevention
• HIV education
• HIV outreach
• peer education
• Boston area