Depression and/or Oppression? Bisexuality and Mental Health

Abstract

Perhaps the most important, and consistent, finding in existing research on bisexuality is the fact that bisexual people are more prone to mental health problems than either heterosexual, or lesbian and gay, people. This article considers bisexual mental health from an individual, and a community, perspective. It asks how we, as individuals, generally understand mental health, and what ideas might be useful in relation to this. It also asks how the bisexual and wider lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer communities that we are located in can relate to the ways in which we engage with mental health.

Prevalence of Depression and Anxiety Among Bisexual People Compared to Gay, Lesbian, and Heterosexual Individuals:A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…This focus is because we believe that a more complete understanding of these experiences is necessary to develop effective clinical and social interventions for those bisexual people who need them. However, at the same time, we agree that biomedical interpretations of psychological distress associated with experiences of oppression are problematic (Barker, 2015), and as a consequence, we take up experiences of oppression explicitly in our interpretation of our findings (in sections that follow).…”

“…Although the data pooled in our analysis were individuallevel data, we argue that the disparities we have characterized should not be interpreted as problems of individual bisexual people. Rather, following Barker (2015), we call attention to the structural conditions that erase and delegitimize bisexuality in ways that appear to have substantial implications for bisexual mental health. We also call attention to the structural conditions of academic scholarship that limit the production of knowledge about bisexual mental health in ways that reproduce the social erasure and delegitimization of bisexuality.…”

“…Considering all of these ambiguities, together with the reality that human experiences of gender and sex are deeply intertwined with each other (van Anders, 2015), we use the term gender/sex throughout the article, with the exception of places where we are explicitly referring to socially determined gender identities independent of biological sex characteristics (i.e., transgender or cisgender identities). ROSS, SALWAY, TARASOFF, MACKAY, HAWKINS, AND FEHR resistance (e.g., Barker, 2015;Eisner, 2013). Ultimately, our hope is that learnings from both perspectives can be complementary to each other in the development of interventions and social actions to support the well-being of all bisexual people.…”

Is bisexuality invisible? A review of sexualities scholarship 1970–2015

“…It seems overall that bisexuality has not been taken seriously within the social sciences, raising questions about the ways in which issues are framed as worthy of scholarly concern, and the impact that academic work may have on social discourses concerning sexualities. The invisibility of bisexuality and the discursive marginalisation of bisexuals negatively affects their wellbeing (Barker, 2015), and we argue that scholarly representation of bisexuality may be a normative issue, as well as one of rigour.…”

Comparison of Treatment Outcomes Between Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Heterosexual Individuals Receiving a Primary Care Psychological Intervention

“…The reasons are unclear but suggested contributory factors include others’ misconceptions or prejudices about bisexuality (e.g. that it is a phase, does not really exist, or is a sign of being promiscuous or confused), bisexual individuals experiencing prejudice from both heterosexual and lesbian/gay individuals, bisexual individuals being less likely to be ‘out’ and bisexual people having fewer social resources than others (Barker, 2015; Dodge et al, 2016; Hsieh, 2014).…”