Bisexual Erasure: Explaining Attitudinal Driving Factors of Making Bisexuals Invisible on the Individual Level

For many decades, academic debates on sexuality largely excluded sexual minorities and the LGBTQ community. However, since the late 1980s, there has been a slow shift towards including the perspective of LGBTQ individuals in academic discourse, although in most cases, LGB individuals are considered as a group due to the limited availability of data. While numerous papers have been published on attitudes towards LGBTQ individuals, there is a growing recognition that the experiences and perspectives of bisexual individuals are often overlooked. However, attitudes towards bisexual individuals may differ from those towards lesbian and gay individuals due to a variety of factors. One reason is a lack of understanding; confusion or misconceptions about bisexuality may arise because some people view bisexuality as a "phase" or assume that bisexual individuals are equally attracted to all genders. Negative stereotypes that are bisexuality-specific may also contribute to differential attitudes. In addition, biphobia, or the stigmatization of bisexuality, is common within both heterosexual and LGBTQ+ communities. Finally, some people may have a binary view of gender and sexuality, which makes it difficult to understand bisexuality as it challenges the binary framework. This paper addresses a gap in research by examining attitudes towards bisexual individuals compared to lesbian and gay individuals. The study is based on data collected in Germany in August 2021. The findings indicate that bisexual erasure and homophobia share similarities in that religious and conservative individuals are more likely to hold attitudes that are homophobic or erasive of bisexuality. Women are found to be less likely to hold homophobic views and views that erase bisexuality. The study also identifies a community effect where identifying as bisexual leads to holding less homophobic views and views that are not erasive of bisexuality. However, this effect is not present for lesbians and gay men, who are less homophobic but do not differ significantly from heterosexuals in their views towards bisexuality. These findings have important implications as they provide empirical evidence that bisexual erasure is not only present in heteronormative thought patterns but is also shared by members of the LGBTQ+ community.