Still Complicated

Key findings

The 2022 Bi+ Survey found small but important changes compared with the 2013 Survey. Experiences of, and feelings towards, services have improved, showing better bi+ inclusion in some areas. However, responses showed that issues remain around biphobia and lack of trust.

The wider bi+ community is still suffering from assumptions, misunderstandings, and prejudices such as ‘being promiscuous’ or ‘undecided about their sexuality’. Some LGBT+ spaces were still being perceived in these survey results as being less open to bi+ identities than to lesbian and gay ones.

Comparing the results of the new survey with the previous ‘Complicated’ report revealed some overall positive trends:

Online engagement with communities, groups, and safe spaces for bi+ people increased, especially during the pandemic. Being unable to go to in-person activities was the obvious cause of this trend, however, increased online engagement has continued. Many online groups that started during the pandemic are still going with thanks to a robust user base.

For most services, the number of people who never felt comfortable sharing their sexual/romantic orientation fell. The biggest improvements were for mental health services, down 43% (from 21% to 12%), charities and voluntary organisations, down 32% (from 22% to 15%), and other public services, down 23% (from 31% to 24%). For LGBT+ organisations, the number of people who never felt comfortable remained at a steady low, around 2%.

Police services received the greatest negative change in comfort level. For these services there was an increase by 56% in the percentage of people who answered that they were never comfortable sharing their sexual/romantic orientation (from 34% to 53%), while the percentage of those usually comfortable fell by 34% (from 28% to 18.5%) and those sometimes comfortable fell by 22% (from 37% to 29%). It is worth noting that in the original ‘Complicated’ survey, the police already had the highest rate of never comfortable among the services, and the second lowest of usually comfortable.

Due to some questions being updated to better reflect the lives of bi+ people, direct comparisons with the previous ‘Complicated’ report were not possible on the topics of healthcare, public services, and other services.

Religious services were not included in the previous research, and thus no comparisons can be made. In this survey they had the least engagement among the options provided, with 44% of respondents saying they had not used religious services. Of those who had used them, only 14% of respondents usually felt comfortable sharing their sexual/romantic orientation, with another 28% being sometimes comfortable, and 58% being never comfortable.

A final note on data comparisons: the original ‘Complicated’ survey showed the number of people who answered ‘yes’ to experiencing biphobia in those services. The new survey asked whether people had experienced biphobia ‘yes, once’ or ‘yes, multiple times’. So comparisons with the previous survey present the new number with the “yes” answers added together. Where relevant, additional comments have been provided on the nuances and extra context gathered from the new research, such as high percentages of people not using services, or differences between ‘yes, once’ and ‘yes, multiple times’.

The graph below shows, in percentages, how respondents to our 2022 Bi+ Survey answered the question “Do you feel comfortable sharing your sexual/romantic orientation when accessing the following?”