Twenty years ago, a study done on college students concluded bi women were three times as likely to smoke weed as straight women or lesbians. Another study found 38% of bisexual women had used marijuana in the past year, compared to only 5% of straight women and 20% of lesbians.

I call this chart, “Mellow Out, Straight Women.”

The conclusion that bisexual women use marijuana at higher rates drew the interest of Dr. Margaret Robinson. She’s a researcher from Toronto and bisexual woman herself who set about interviewing 92 bisexual women in the area about what made them more likely to use cannabis.

In 2015, The Daily Beast did a writeup on Dr. Robinson’s findings called “Why Do Bi Women Smoke So Much Weed?” The conclusion was disappointing in that Dr. Robinson couldn’t say for sure what factors drove bi women to use more cannabis, but her discoveries in the context of my experience helped me form a new theory as to why I as a bisexual woman smoke weed every day.

by Antonov Maxim

Caught between a rock and a hard place

Dr. Robinson hypothesized that bi women are anxious because we’re females who aren’t accepted by either the straight or gay community. She proposed we use marijuana at higher rates than either lesbians or straight women to escape our anxiety about bi-discrimination and bi-erasure.

Research has found that bi women have worse mental health outcomes than either straight women or lesbians. As a bisexual woman with Borderline Personality Disorder, Dr. Robinson’s theory made me stop to consider how much of my daily anxiety and depression is related to my sexuality.

My friends on TV made me hate myself.

The night before 8th grade, I watched Cheers on Nick-at-Nite. The episode was called “The Boys in the Bar,” about a gay baseball player who comes out of the closet. The bar owner, Sam, supports his former teammate, but his employees and regulars — beloved characters like Carla and Norm — spend the episode begging Sam to kick out the homos before the place becomes a gay bar.

My Appalachian parents were anti-gay too, but television had been my safe place. I felt lonely in the middle of this episode like I’d looked up to see my friends huddled on the other side of the room, pointing and laughing at me.

The episode originally aired in 1983 and was progressive for its time. But as I watched the rerun in 2002 as a little girl with butterflies over another girl at school the next day, I felt disgusted with myself. Carla and Norm had taught me that by having a crush, I’d crossed some line they’d never let me uncross.

by Aleynikov Pavel

The queers in real life didn’t want me either.

When I was 23, I announced a cross-country move to California.

“Ain’t that where the queers are?” Mom said.

I wasn’t out yet, so I couldn’t tell Mom the queers were the main attraction. I had visions of a queer circle enfolding me as I deplaned in San Francisco.

Instead, lesbians ignored me when they found out I was bi. Occasionally, one might sniff me, say, “Smells like boy,” and throw me back. Others were hostile and accused me of pretending to like women for men. They didn’t trust me.