Stonewall’s Abby Crawford responds to that controversial Metro article

Aug 29, 2016 by

by Abby Crawford, Diva Magazine

There has been a lot of focus on bisexuality in the news recently. One article published earlier this week asked the question “Would you date a bisexual man?” before presenting the reader with an argument ‘for’ and ‘against’. Some people, myself included, asked a counter question of the news site responsible for publishing the article – would they ask the same question about someone from another minority background?

Although there is a definite need for tailored approaches to the issues faced by all individuals of a protected characteristic (including bisexual people), in fact equality law protects sexual orientation in the same way as it protects the likes of disability and race.  

Biphobia should therefore be being tackled with the same severity as we tackle racism, or discrimination against disabled people, but unfortunately that’s not the case – and the very fact that dating a bisexual person is seen as something to be debated in national media only seeks to reaffirm this – society does not take biphobia seriously enough and this needs to change. When a well-loved celebrity in the same month declares that bisexuality is the ‘worst type of sexuality’ and blames us for the spread of AIDS, it becomes apparent that we have a long way to go to achieve equality and respect.

From our survey last year of 60,000 professionals in Great Britain, just 12 per cent of bisexual people were ‘out’ to everyone at work (compared to 33 per cent of gay men and 23 per cent of lesbians).  The Bisexuality Report found that bi people are more likely to suffer higher rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide than all of the larger sexual orientation groups, and further research in 2014 found that nine in ten young people reported never having learned about bisexuality at school or college.  

Given the YouGov survey from last year in which nearly half of young people reported their sexual orientation as something other than heterosexual, it’s concerning that young people are not being taught about bisexual people and issues, or their right to equality and respect.

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