A 2019 research brief from the Trevor Project, a national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to L.G.B.T.Q.
That said, some studies suggest that they may be suffering a disproportionate amount.Ī 2017 review of 52 studies, for instance, found that when compared with heterosexual people, bisexual people had higher rates of depression and anxiety, and higher or equivalent rates of those conditions when compared with those who identified as gay. Fish and other experts said, because the research is limited and tends to focus on younger, single people - especially women. Understanding the mental health experiences of bisexual people is challenging, Dr. That can be really influential on someone’s mental health.” ‘The more anti-bisexual experiences someone has, the worse their health can be.’ “The stereotypes of confusion, that it’s a phase, that they’re promiscuous, those perpetuate on both sides. Fish, a researcher at the University of Maryland School of Public Health who studies L.G.B.T.Q. “Bisexual folks experience stigma not only from heterosexual communities, but also from - even though they’re named in it - the L.G.B.T.Q. She didn’t know where she fit in, or how she should define herself. She felt like her queerness alienated her from her straight friends, and her relationships with men prevented her from fully relating to her gay friends. “My anxiety was always so high, because I was like, ‘I don’t understand, I don’t understand,’” she said. High school friends who had come out to her as gay didn’t believe her when she told them that she was bisexual, citing her past relationships with men. She would print bisexual fan fiction and read it at night, thinking to herself, “This is totally me.” Still, she said, her father told her she was just confused. Lindley did get a boyfriend, but she found she was still also attracted to women. “Just wait ’til you get a boyfriend,” she remembered her mother saying.Ī few years later, Ms.
When Brooke Lindley was 13 and first came out to her family as being attracted to both boys and girls, she didn’t even know the term “bisexual.” It was 2003, and her parents responded dubiously.