The “double stigma” experienced by many bisexual people has been well documented in academic literature over the last few decades. Like gay and lesbian folks, bisexuals suffer stigmatization and discrimination from the heterosexual majority for not being straight, but they are additionally shunned by the gay/lesbian minority — for not being gay “enough.”

Make no mistake, gay and lesbian people have more positive attitudes toward bisexual women and men compared to heterosexuals. However, they harbor more negativity toward bisexuals than toward other gay men and lesbian women, and they endorse more bi-negativity than do bisexuals or other sexual minorities (including those who identify as asexual, queer, and pansexual).

Bisexual women, in particular, have it hard — at least when it comes to desirability within the LGBTQ+ community. Lesbian women and communities are notorious for rejecting bisexual women as potential friends and as sexual and romantic partners due to stereotypes that bisexual women are untrustworthy, unreliable, incapable of monogamy, disease carriers, and “sleeping with the enemy.” Bisexual men are also stigmatized by gay men to some extent, but given gay men’s lesser cultural emphasis on monogamy and greater interest in casual sex, bisexual men’s desirability is less affected by these stereotypes, and may even be bolstered by gay men’s preference for masculinity (which is perceived as higher among bisexual guys).

This “double stigma” takes a toll on the wellbeing of bisexual people, with bisexual women in particular reporting more mood and anxiety disorders, substance use, and other mental and physical health issues compared to gay and lesbian folks.

So, why are many lesbians so anti-bi? A new study recently published in the journal Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity suggests that this might be due to what the researchers call the androcentric desire hypothesis: The fact that people (gay men and lesbians alike) perceive bisexuals as being more sexually attracted to men than they are to women.

Indeed, the stereotypical perception of a bisexual man is often a “gay man in denial,” but the stereotypical perception of a bisexual woman is a “heterosexual in disguise” who’s hooking up with women temporarily for “fun,” or to attract the attention of straight men. In both cases, the sexuality of bisexual women and men appears to be perceived as oriented toward men.

This, understandably, would be more problematic for lesbian women’s acceptance of bisexual women — as their same-gender interest is seen as “fake” — than for gay men’s acceptance of bisexual men, whose same-gender interest is seen as more authentic.

In the latest study, 165 lesbian women and gay men (average age of 31; range: 18–60 years; 32% currently undergraduate students; 61% white) were asked to answer a set of questions about how they believed their group (lesbians or gay men) viewed bisexual women or men in general, and to what extent they thought bisexuals were sexually attracted to men versus women.

Confirming past research, lesbian women were more negative toward bisexuals than were gay men, and they were more negative toward bisexual women than gay men were toward bisexual men, in particular.

Furthermore, as the graph below shows, the results mostly supported the androcentric desire hypothesis. Lesbian and gay participants both agreed that bisexual men are significantly more attracted to men than they are to women, and lesbian women felt that this was true of bisexual women as well. The only exception to this pattern were gay men who felt bisexual women were equally attracted to men and women.

Matsick & Rubin, 2018

Follow-up analyses suggest that this androcentric desire hypothesis was what explained lesbian women’s greater animosity toward bisexual women compared to gay men’s attitudes toward bisexual men. In other words, lesbian women view bisexual women as being more sexually attracted to men than to women, which in turn makes them dislike bisexual women. Gay men, on the other hand, have fewer reasons to dislike bisexual men since bisexual men’s orientation is perceived to lean in a same-gender direction.

This was a relatively small study, and its results need to be replicated in a larger sample of gay men and lesbian people, using measures of participants’ own beliefs (rather than asking them to report on the views of their group). Yet, it adds to our understanding of prejudice toward queer sexualities within communities dominated by lesbian women and gay men.

The next step, of course, is reducing prejudice within LGBTQ+ communities and overcoming this "us versus them" mentality. We need all sexual and gender minorities to work together as allies against those seeking to erase us all.

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