Complicated?
‘Complicated?’ is the first UK wide research report to focus specifically on bisexual people’s experiences of accessing services. The report reveals some very shocking statistics and personal stories. But it also highlights examples of good practice and ideas for services about how they can be more inclusive for bisexual people.
Some of the key findings of the report are:
- Bisexual people are highly unlikely to share their sexual orientation with services, most commonly because of fear of negative reactions.
- 66% feel that they have to pass as straight and 42% feel they need to pass as gay or lesbian when accessing services.
- 48% have experienced biphobic comments and 38% have experienced unwanted sexual comments about them being bisexual while accessing services.
- The highest amounts of biphobia experienced are within LGBT services and NHS services.
- 61% have experienced multiple discrimination. 35% said that they are disabled.
One respondent said “A nurse refused to treat me due to being bisexual. My mother overheard him saying to the senior nurse, ‘I refuse to treat her, she’s not normal and just a greedy b***h, she needs to decide what gender she loves, it’s unnatural to love both’.” Another said that while attending LGBT services they had “heard lots of negative comments about bisexual people and dismissal of the need to include bisexual people.”
How to make services more inclusive of bisexual people:
The respondents called for mainstream and LGBT services to work with bisexual people to take action on improving bisexual inclusion. The report identified good practice examples and contains a bisexual inclusion roadmap for services. This roadmap can be found be found on pages 8 and 9.
We would like to thank all the respondents and contributors for taking the time to express their experiences and ideas for better bisexual inclusion. We would also like to thank the authors of ‘The Bisexuality Report’ for inspiring and supporting this work.
We hope that you find the report helpful. Download the report now or request a hard or large print copy by emailing en@equality-network.org.
