Bisexual Erasure In Feminist Spaces
I have spent years learning that being bisexual can make a person visible and invisible at the same time. The label is recognised, yet the person using it is often treated as confused, undecided, greedy, or temporarily passing through on the way to a more acceptable identity. In feminist spaces, where I have expected complexity to be welcomed, I have sometimes found the same old demand to prove where I belong.
Bisexual erasure rarely arrives as one dramatic insult. It appears in assumptions about partners, in conversations that divide women into straight and queer categories, and in the expectation that bisexual people should explain their history before their present identity is believed. It can also hide inside progressive language when inclusion is reduced to a rainbow graphic or a neat list of identities.
This reflection is about the emotional fatigue of that experience, as well as the possibility of making feminist communities more honest and spacious. Bisexuality is not a halfway point, a phase, or evidence of indecision. It is a real sexual identity, and bisexual people deserve room to speak about sexism, desire, safety and solidarity without being asked to audition for membership.
| Assumption |
What It Can Erase |
A More Honest Understanding |
| A bisexual woman with a male partner is straight |
Her identity and queer community ties |
Relationship status does not determine sexual orientation |
| Bisexuality is a phase |
The person’s present understanding of themselves |
Identity can be real even while someone is still exploring language |
| Bisexual people have equal access to straight and queer spaces |
The specific biphobia and isolation they may face |
Bisexual people often navigate both welcome and exclusion |
| Feminist spaces automatically include bisexual people |
Their experiences of misogyny and queer marginalisation |
Inclusion requires listening to bisexual voices directly |
When Visibility Becomes Conditional
One of the hardest parts of bisexual erasure is how conditional visibility can feel. People may accept the word “bisexual” in theory, then quietly revise it when they see who I date. A relationship with a man can make others treat me as straight. A relationship with a woman can make them treat me as newly authentic. In both cases, the label seems to belong to the audience rather than to me.
That judgement carries a particular sting in feminist environments. A woman with a male partner may be seen as benefiting from heterosexual privilege, while a woman with a female partner may be welcomed as more politically legible. These observations can contain useful conversations about power, but they become harmful when they erase the person’s sexuality or imply that her relationship is the only relevant fact about her.
I have also noticed how quickly bisexuality is associated with performance. Some people imagine it as a way to seem interesting, attract attention or avoid commitment. That stereotype is exhausting because it turns a personal truth into a public debate about motivation. I should not have to produce a perfect dating history, a particular wardrobe or a specific ratio of partners to be believed.
The Feminist Spaces I Have Entered
Feminist communities have given me language for experiences I once thought I had to carry alone. They have helped me name sexual harassment, gendered expectations and the pressure to become a strong woman who never needs help. Yet a space can teach me about patriarchy while still misunderstanding bisexuality. Political awareness does not automatically remove every prejudice.
Sometimes the exclusion is subtle. A discussion about women and desire may assume all women are attracted to men, while a conversation about queer rights may focus mainly on gay and lesbian experiences. Bisexuality then becomes an aside, a footnote, or a punchline about “having the best of both worlds”. When I mention that gap, I can be treated as distracting from the main issue rather than describing part of it.
The pressure to choose a side is especially painful because feminism should make room for contradiction. I can recognise the social power attached to being read as straight and still experience biphobia. I can care deeply about lesbian history and still refuse to erase my own identity. I can discuss the realities of my current relationship without presenting it as evidence that my bisexuality has disappeared.
The Everyday Language Of Erasure
Language often reveals the assumptions underneath a community’s values. “So, are you gay now?” can sound casual, but it suggests that bisexuality is temporary or that a person’s identity changes according to their latest partner. “You’re basically straight” may be offered as a practical description, yet it makes a declaration about someone else’s sexuality without permission.
There is also the language of suspicion: bisexual people are framed as unreliable, hypersexual, indecisive or more likely to cheat. These stereotypes affect how people are treated in dating, friendship groups, workplaces and healthcare settings. They can make bisexual survivors hesitate to seek support, particularly when they fear being told their identity caused a harmful situation.
Online feminist culture can intensify this pattern. A post may celebrate queer women while using “queer” as shorthand for lesbian, or discuss sexual violence through a strictly heterosexual lens. These conversations matter, yet bisexual people need to be present in the framing rather than added after someone points out the omission. Representation means more than appearing in a pride-themed image; it means having our experiences considered from the beginning.
An Australian Context
In Australia, bisexual visibility often sits between public celebration and everyday awkwardness. Sydney’s Mardi Gras and Melbourne’s Midsumma create important opportunities for queer communities to gather, but large festivals cannot represent every identity evenly. A bisexual person can attend a glittering event, see corporate sponsorship everywhere, and still hear comments that bisexuality is “just a phase” on the train home.
The language can be particularly blunt in familiar Australian ways. Someone might say, “Pick a side, mate,” or treat a bisexual person’s identity as a joke at a barbecue. In university feminist collectives, workplaces and community groups, people may use inclusive language in official statements while relying on assumptions in ordinary conversation. Rainbow lanyards and pronoun badges are welcome signals, but they do not replace the slower work of changing habits.
There are practical consequences too. Australia’s queer support landscape differs between inner-city areas and regional towns, where confidentiality, transport and limited services can shape whether someone seeks help. Bisexual people may be overlooked by programs designed around a gay-lesbian binary, while mental-health services may lack confidence discussing biphobia, compulsory heterosexuality and relationship stigma. The result is a familiar Australian contradiction: public progress can coexist with private isolation.
Even astrology and pop culture can become places where I think about belonging. I have learned to question the labels I once used to dismiss parts of myself, including through reflections like this piece about an astrology sign. The broader lesson is that understanding often begins when we stop demanding that people fit the first interpretation we have made of them.
Building More Spacious Feminist Communities
Creating bisexual-inclusive feminist spaces does not require perfect language or a separate conversation every time. It requires curiosity and a willingness to notice who has been left out. Organisers can avoid treating heterosexual and lesbian experience as the only categories, include bisexual speakers in discussions of sexuality, and acknowledge that relationship status never tells the full story of a person’s identity.
It also helps to challenge biphobic humour when it appears, rather than waiting for the bisexual person in the room to object. A simple response such as “That stereotype isn’t harmless” can change the temperature of a conversation. So can using “bisexual” when bisexual people are speaking about themselves, instead of replacing it with a broader term that feels more comfortable to the group.
Feminist education should make room for bisexual-specific realities: intimate partner violence in relationships of any gender, the myth that bisexual people are inherently unfaithful, and the ways bisexual women are sexualised while being denied credibility. The feminism archive can hold these conversations alongside wider writing about gender, power and social justice, rather than treating bisexuality as a niche issue.
Most importantly, bisexual people should not have to perform gratitude for basic inclusion. We can contribute to a community while still naming its failures. We can appreciate progress without pretending that progress has reached everyone equally. Accountability is not disloyalty; it is one of the ways a feminist space becomes safer and more truthful.
What I Am Carrying Forward
I am trying to release the belief that I need to make my identity easy for other people to understand. There will always be someone who wants a cleaner category, a more convincing history or a relationship that confirms their assumptions. Their discomfort does not make my bisexuality less real. It only shows how much cultural pressure still exists around identities that refuse a simple binary.
I am also learning that solidarity has to be mutual. I want lesbian, gay, trans, straight and bisexual people to be able to discuss different forms of privilege without turning those differences into a hierarchy of authenticity. I want feminist spaces to recognise that being read as straight can affect how I move through the world, while biphobia still affects how I am understood within it. Both truths can exist at once.
For me, healing means choosing communities where complexity is treated as part of being human rather than evidence of bad faith. It means speaking up when bisexuality is erased, listening when another person describes a different experience, and refusing the demand to make myself smaller for the sake of group comfort. This week, I am adding one bisexual-led resource to my regular reading and sharing it with my feminist community.
