The Overlooked Bi Majority

By Blaize Stewart

March 15, 2023

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When Gallup conducted its first poll on US LGBT Identification in 2012, it found 3.5% of Americans identified as LGBT. Its latest survey, released in February 2023, shows that this percentage has more than doubled in the past decade to reach 7.2%, with members of Generation Z — those born between 1997 and 2004 — the most likely to identify as part of the LGBT community.

As someone who struggled to accept my own sexuality and took years to come out, it’s refreshing and inspiring to learn that even though the battle for visibility and acceptance continues, younger people are finding the comfort and confidence to be themselves much sooner than generations past.

Taking a deeper look at the results, Gallup also provides data on the breakdown within the LGBT community. When it comes to sexual orientation, bi individuals make up about 60% of LGBT adults, more than double the percentage of those who identify as gay (20.2%) or lesbian (13.4%). Though Gallup’s pre-2020 polling did not measure how respondents identified with each LGBT category, earlier data collected from other research institutions — as well as Gallup's 2020 and 2021 surveys — have consistently found bisexuality to be the largest cohort within the LGBT community!

A group of diverse and attractive young men and women posing for a picture laughing and smiling.
Bigstock/Xavier Lorenzo

Considering these findings, one would think the levels of bi representation and visibility would have similar highs. However, that is not often the case. For example, a review of GLAAD'S 2021-2022 Where We Are on TV Report shows that of the 92 LGBT series regular characters scheduled to appear on scripted broadcast primetime programming for the year, only 27 (19%) were bi. For comparison, lesbian characters represented the majority of the LGBT characters on broadcast with 56 (40%), with gay men following at 49 (35%).

While it’s exciting to see LGBT representation grow in television and pop culture, it’s hard not to feel frustrated by the lack of visibility afforded to bi characters. It diminishes the reality of the makeup of the LGBT community, especially when these characters are painted in the stereotypical tropes often driving bi storylines: indecisive, selfish, oversexualized, or in a phase, among many others.

This lack of representation helps fuel bi erasure and the ostracization of bi individuals, even within queer spaces — spaces that are supposed to be welcoming of everyone, regardless of sexuality or gender identity. But I know from personal experience that not all are warmly embraced or accepted. In more than one of these spaces, I’ve been told I’m confused, in a phase, desperate for attention, and, worst of all, a detriment to the LGBT community because I can’t “pick a side”.

With some in the larger LGBT community continuing to permit or even support the omission of bi people from LGBT spaces and stories, bigots gain the power to dictate our narrative. If bi people can’t feel safe and welcome in spaces specifically built to foster those feelings, where exactly can we go? Why bother coming out at all if we’re not going to find acceptance anywhere, especially within our own community?

I’m not asking for special treatment. I just want the levels of respect and support I give to my gay and lesbian peers to be reciprocated. Stop pushing the narrative that the bi community is less worthy because we fall outside the false straight/gay binary. Our stories, truths, pains, and joys are no less real than those of anyone else. I’m here as a friend, peer, and supporter of all LGBT people. All I ask is not to be mocked, dismissed, or bullied into submission when it comes to my sexual orientation.

If there is one silver lining from all this pushback, it’s that it’s challenged me to understand myself on a much deeper level than I would if I had defaulted to monosexuality due to fear and insecurity. I’ve worked through my anger and sadness to embrace my bisexuality. Though I still feel occasional flares of frustration and defensiveness, they don’t dominate my experiences any longer. Sadly, for me and many other bi individuals out there, it has been a lonely journey — one that remains so because of a lack of acceptance and representation.

However, seeing numbers of bi people continue to rise within the growing LGBT population gives me hope. Hope that the future will hold a stronger sense of community and acceptance for bi folks like me. Hope that the power and scope of the bi community can be an asset to our larger community’s efforts to build a more inclusive, diverse world for us all. Hope that everyone can feel seen, heard, valued, and safe to be themselves, regardless of who that might be.

A young attractive man and woman smile and pose with arms crossed against a purple background.
Bigstock/kegfire

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