March is Bisexual+ Health Awareness Month. That makes it a great time to highlight bisexual stories and talk about a 2023 study conducted at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Let’s dive into what participants shared about their experiences as bisexual women of color: the struggles they face and the strengths they rely on to make it through. 

Whose Story Are We Telling?

We’ll be looking at a research study published in the journal Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity that is titled “How deep is the cut? The influence of daily microaggressions on bisexual women’s health.” Of the 99 bisexual+ women who participated in this research, 57% were women of color. Researchers report that they actively recruited both cis and trans women to take part in their study, but no trans women enrolled. This means the findings of the study may not be applicable to trans bisexual women, and their stories will not be told in this research. All of the women who did participate identified as either bisexual or non-monosexual. All of them were 25 years old or older, all of them lived in Chicago or a surrounding suburb, and all of them had reliable Internet connections. 

How did these women join the study? They responded to “postings on listservs, targeted Facebook ads, formal and informal networks of the research team, [through] community-based organizations serving women of color and/or LGBT communities,” and to flyers in coffee shops and bookstores. The researchers purposefully chose not to collect any data about immigration status or length of time in the United States for any of the participants, which I commend. There were enough Black and Latina bisexual women in the study to find statistically relevant information about the experience of these groups specifically. While the study also included women who are American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, those numbers were much smaller. 

Why Research about Bisexual People’s Strengths Matters

The point of this study was to compare identity-based stressors to health outcomes for bisexual women. Participants shared what stressors they faced every day for a 28-day period, and what toll this took on their body, mind, and spirit. Naming that pain, and documenting it in a formal research setting, helps us providers to better understand what the populations we work with are up against, and us as a LGBTQ+ community to better support these women through these struggles. 

The research that we have already about bisexual people is about as White as you’d expect. Ghabial and Ross, in their 2018 study “Representation and erasure of bisexual people of color: A content analysis of quantitative bisexual mental health research” discovered that 93% of the articles about mental health and substance use in lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults ignored any racial differences among their participants, and lumped all the people of color in with White people. That’s why research like this study, that looks at the impact of intersecting forms of oppression, is so needed. 

That’s not to say that there has been no quality work done in exploring how Black, Latina, and White women experience bisexuality differently. In fact the second author of the paper, Wendy Bostwick, explored exactly this question in her 2018 study called “Depression and victimization in a community sample of bisexual and lesbian women: An intersectional approach.” She and her colleagues found that compared to White lesbians, Black bisexual women had lower rates of depression over the lifespan. Additionally, Latina bisexual women were found to have four times the odds of developing depression compared to Black bisexual women. The studies that have included bisexual people of color found some common themes that came up again and again: feelings of not belonging in both the racial community and the queer community, feeling that romantic preferences would cause them to betray their racial community or their queer community, and feeling invisible or erased. 

Many of the research studies that include bisexual people focus on microaggressions: the little slights or subtle indignities that people from minority groups face every day. Microaggressions add up over time, in a process that is often compared to thousands of paper cuts, until they cause an impact that can be just as significant to mental wellbeing as a larger or more blatant act of discrimination. 

The opposite of microaggressions are called micro-affirmations: the little moments of having your identity validated or your community uplifted. Bi-positive events, in which bisexuality is acknowledged and supported, have been shown to strengthen mental wellbeing. One example: Dyar and London’s study from 2018, “Bipositive events: Associations with proximal stressors, bisexual identity, and mental health among bisexual cisgender women.” This study showed that more frequent bipositive events happening during a week led to decreased anxiety the following week. 

Impact of Microaggressions

How often did the women in this study actually experience microaggressions, and what kind? To find out, participants made daily entries in a diary app every day for 28 consecutive days, as well as three tests measuring body and mood symptoms. According to their reports,  98% of the women in the study had at least one microaggression happen to them over the 28 days of the study. On average, they had about 8 microaggressions each over the course of the study. 

The authors of the study, Ariel Smith and colleagues, broke down the microaggressions into three categories: race, gender, and sexual orientation. All three kinds were linked to daily depressive symptoms, worsening of mood, and body complaints. Those body complaints included gastrointestinal problems, headaches, and stomach and chest pain. The women who shared that they had experienced microaggressions felt worse and had more body complaints than those who had not had any microaggressions, and the more you experienced, the worse you rated your mood and body changes. 

Comparing those three kinds of microaggressions revealed some surprising details. Gender microaggressions, having to do with being a woman, were the most frequent kind. Being sexually objectified by being “reduced to physical appearance” was commonly reported. The women stated that they were sexually objectified on more than 15% of all the days of the study. 

Race microaggressions made up to 10.9% of the daily reports. The most frequently reported incident was hearing someone say something that denied that racial discrimination exists. On days were there were more race microaggressions, it increased the average rating of mood and body complaints. 

Sexual orientation microaggressions, having to do with being bisexual, were less frequent than race and gender-based microaggressions. The most common sexual orientation microaggression was hearing someone say something insulting about gay or lesbian people. 

The reports from the Latina bisexual women who were part of the study showed a pattern where the microaggressions had a stronger impact on their mood in comparison to White women. One possible explanation for this pattern was the political climate at the time they filled out their reports. The study collected data between 2016 and 2018, a time where anti-immigrant and anti-Latina sentiment increased considerably in the United States. Another possibility is that Latina bisexual women may be cut off from more protective factors like social supports compared to Black bisexual women. The data from this study can’t explain that difference- it looked at what was happening, not the why. 

Bisexual People’s Strengths and Community Supports

 

This study examined many of the obstacles put in the path of bisexual women, and in particular in the paths of bisexual people of color. I want to end here by checking in on what the study found was going well. Among Latina bisexuals, Black bisexuals, and bisexuals of color in general, the findings of this study echo earlier research suggesting that having access to strong social supports is connected to fewer experiences of anxiety, depression, and bi-negativity. Strong friendships are key protective factors when faced with microaggressions of all kinds.

Among Black bisexual women in particular, a study looking at the resiliency of this part of the queer community found that connecting to racial or religious communities were foundational sources of support. Click here If you’d like to read more about the unique strengths of different bisexual people. Connecting with a queer-friendly therapist can also make a big difference in your mental well-being. Read more about the impact of LGBTQ-friendly therapy here.