Other services
Parent led groups and spaces were heavily mentioned as a place where people could not be open about their sexuality. Even specifically LGBT+ parent groups were found to suffer from biphobia and transphobia, leaving bi+ and trans/non-binary parents with no inclusive support available to them.
“I was ostracised when I shared my sexuality with a parents’ group when my children were young. I am only open with people I know reasonably well.”
“With families of other children at my nephew’s school – there’s no space for sexuality in the conversations.”
A wide variety of groups were mentioned as accepting of bi+ people, including creative groups, and some sports, with roller derby being mentioned several times, interest-based groups such as board games or Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), and neurodivergent groups being mentioned often.
As we know from our work with the bi+ community, there is a large number of people with multiple marginalised identities. This includes a high proportion of people in this survey, 57%, with disabilities and/or chronic illnesses and neurodivergences such as autism and/or ADHD.
Finding spaces that are accepting of all of a person’s intersecting identities can pose additional difficulties or force people to suppress parts of their identity when accessing certain groups or services. This can leave people feeling like there is no safe space where they can fully be themselves.
A number of respondents mentioned feeling safe to come out in neurodiverse spaces, and that these spaces were generally more likely to be accepting of bi+ and LGBTI+ people.
“The autistic community (on social media) is very accepting of bisexuality. I feel much more accepted within the autistic community. This is particularly because, in contrast, lots of queer spaces are inaccessible to disabled people. When you are queer and disabled, it is often the case that both parts of your identity are accepted or neither are, even in queer/disabled spaces.”
