The Globe and Mail should issue apology about Phoebe Maltz Bovy bisexuality article

Last week the Globe and Mail ran an article written by Phoebe Maltz Bovy that explored the puzzle of why a recent Gallup poll found that about 20% of Gen Z women identify as bisexual, while only about 7% of Gen Z men report the same and rates of bisexuality are much lower than 20% for other age groups.

I would like to see Globe editors write an apology to readers that shares facts about bisexuality and bisexual prejudice. This step would tackle prejudice against members of the LGBTQ2+ community and be a positive contribution to this Pride month. ???

In her analysis, Maltz Bovy flirts aggressively with damaging stereotypes of bisexual people in an attempt to explain these Gallup results. This article is flippant, hurtful and reinforces prejudice against bisexual people. The Globe should not be publishing work like this. It’s an extra slap in the face to have this work published days before Pride Month begins. ?????

I wrote to the editor to complain about the article and pitch an op-ed suggesting a more evidence-based explanation for why we see so many young bisexual women but didn’t hear back. So, I’m taking to social media (with the added benefit of being liberated from word limits). ?

There is a healthy body of literature in the field of psychology that shows that bisexual people face substantial stigma and prejudice. I copied links to many of them at the end of this post. There are two main points I want to highlight from the research that are relevant to Maltz Bovy’s argument:

1. There is a major stereotype that bisexuality is “just a phase”. Maltz Bovy leans into this stereotype hard. Of course, people’s sexual identities change as they get older and understand themselves better. How many gay men out there have been with a woman before they came out of the closet? There is also no doubt that there are people out there that identified as bisexual at one time and later identified as straight, gay, or something else. But there is a stereotype that bisexuality is a sort of transitory state – think of that classic Sex and the City quote that bisexuality is “just layover on the way to Gaytown”. ?Researchers have found that since bisexuality is often seen as choice or phase, people who disclose they are bisexual are often perceived as attention-seeking (trying to seem cool and interesting), confused, unstable, disingenuous, deceptive, unfaithful, unable to commit, and immature. The fundamental belief underpinning this stereotype is that there is something unnatural about being attracted to multiple genders (which is called “monosexism” for the nerds out there). ?

2. Men and women experience bisexual prejudice differently. Several studies found that bisexual men face greater hostility than bisexual women, most notably from straight men. Bisexual women also face prejudice, but they are more likely to be eroticized by straight men. Since bisexual women are more likely to be sexualized and objectified, the prejudice they experience is less outright hostile than that experienced by bisexual men.

I didn’t spend my weekend picking apart Maltz Bovy’s article because I’m a troll. The issue of bisexual prejudice is important because it has real and tangible impacts on people. Researchers have found that bisexual people have worse outcomes than both straight and gay/lesbian people when it comes to depression and anxiety, suicidality, overall feelings of distress and poor physical health, and intimate partner violence. Statistics Canada has found that bisexual people face significantly higher rates of food insecurity compared to both straight and gay/lesbians people as well. Bisexual prejudice is a public health issue – it makes people sick.

Bisexual people in Canada also face a shocking pay gap compared to their straight, gay, and lesbian counterparts. For bisexual people working full-time in Canada, typical employment income is nearly 30% lower than that of straight people, based on the most recent data available from Statistics Canada. The gap between bisexual and gay and lesbian people is about 20%. This disparity cannot be fully explained by the fact that bisexual people tend to be younger, nor can it be explained by different levels of education. ?

When you separate those pay gaps for bisexual men and women, the data show an even more jarring income disparity for bisexual men. The median employment income of straight men working full-time had a median income of $61,400, while the median income for bisexual men was $39,400, a 36% difference. The straight-bisexual gap for women was about 19%. Importantly, there is also a gap in the incomes of straight and gay men, although that gap is less pronounced.

These data cannot show whether these income gaps are driven by discrimination, but the results are certainly not surprising given what researchers have been able to uncover about the degree of prejudice and hostility experienced by bisexual men. It would be very reasonable to expect this hostility to translate into workplace discrimination that prevents bisexual men from accessing employment opportunities in male-dominated workplaces. Also, ongoing hostility and prejudice impacts a person’s sense of self-worth and belief that the constructive actions they take in life can lead to positive outcomes, like the belief they are qualified for a job and if they apply for it, they could win it. These psychological impacts of prejudice are often overlooked in studies looking at pay gaps experienced by marginalized populations, but very likely play a role in the experiences of bisexual men (and is something I’m looking at in current work I’m doing with the Public Policy Forum about economic and financial inclusion). ???????

Importantly, one of the reasons why bisexual people have worse outcomes than both straight and gay/lesbian people is “double discrimination”, where bisexual people face prejudice both from outside and within the LGBTQ2+ community . In addition to the discriminatory tropes mentioned before (namely monosexism), some bisexual people face messaging from within LGBTQ2+ community that they are not legitimate members on account of being “straight passing”. Ultimately, this is another area where Maltz Bovy gets is wrong. Being bisexual doesn’t guarantee young women free access into the cool-queer-kids club. In fact, many bisexual people face greater prejudice because they get it from both straight and gay communities. Lacking a strong sense of community and belonging can make bisexual people more susceptible to the negative social and health outcomes I mentioned before. ?

When I look at actual evidence on the experience of bisexual people, I think there are likely three reasons why we see so many young women reporting they are bisexual and so few men in the same age group:

1. I strongly suspect there are many, many bisexual men in the closet. Given the substantial income differences and higher amounts of stigma bisexual men face from mainstream “straight” society, it would not be surprising that may bisexual men would never express their true identities because they run a greater risk of being socially marginalized and experiencing the economic consequences of that marginalization.

2. Bisexual women (or men for that matter) may go back into the closet later in life because they partner with someone of the opposite gender and get tired of receiving both direct and passive messaging that they are immature, indecisive, and unfaithful attention-seekers. They tire of the stigma grating on their sense of self-worth, so they dissociate from their sexuality and go back into the closet. ?

3. I will grant Maltz Bovy that there may be some young women that report being bisexual but may change how they understand and describe their sexuality. And perhaps women are more likely to do this than men? But based on the evidence this realistically cannot be the whole story.

The article that Maltz Bovy wrote and this whole issue of bisexual prejudice matters because it has a tangible impact on people’s lives. Yes, it’s not like one mean article about bisexual people is going to tip the scales, it does perpetuate and reinforce the real harm that prejudice has on people.

It also has implications for other members of the LGBTQ2+ community, particularly transgender people who also face prejudice on the basis that their gender identities are not real and “just a phase”. Both bisexual and transgender people challenge our notions of gender by living and loving beyond the binary definitions of man and woman and the stigma that goes along with that. Articles that nonchalantly delegitimize bisexuality harm more than just bisexual people.

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Studies on Bisexual Prejudice

·???????? This is a great summary -- https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71535-3_6

·???????? https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-75417-001

·???????? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8856634/

·???????? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7313263/

·???????? https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-27206-003

·???????? https://europepmc.org/article/med/21597943

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15299716.2017.1382424