Firstly, she says it is because bisexuality is legally irrelevant to plaintiffs who are presumed to be heterosexual or homosexual unless outed, and secondly when bisexuality is legally relevant, it is erased within the legal culture because it complicates legal arguments that depend on a gender binary nature of sexuality.
In a 2010 article written for the 10th anniversary of Yoshino's piece, Heron Greenesmith argues bisexuality is inherently invisible in the law, even beyond the reach of deliberate erasure. Thus, individuals both in the dominant culture and in the queer community resist bisexuality. Juana Maria Rodriguez adds to Yoshino's argument and posits bisexuality breaks down traditional understandings of sexuality and the gender binary. However, bisexuals are typically assumed by homosexuals and heterosexuals to be "intrinsically" non-monogamous. The third motivation is the maintenance of monogamy since a pair or bond is preferred by mainstream American culture. The second motivation is the maintenance of the importance of gender, which is seen as erotically essential to homosexuals and heterosexuals whereas bisexuality appears to challenge this notion. This motivation reinforces the belief that bisexuals are simply undecided about their bisexuality and are fundamentally either homosexual or heterosexual, and it isolates, marginalizes, and makes bisexuals invisible within the LGBT community. The first of these motivations is sexual orientation stabilization, which is argued to relieve people from the anxiety of possibly having their sexual orientation questioned. Īccording to scholar Kenji Yoshino, there are three main investments that motivate both self-identified homosexuals and heterosexuals to erase bisexuality from LGBT culture. There is increasing inclusion and visibility of bisexuals, particularly in the LGBT community. Īnother common variant of bisexual erasure involves accepting bisexuality in women while downplaying or rejecting the validity of bisexual identity in men. Bisexual erasure is a form of stigma and leads to adverse mental health consequences for people who identify as bisexual. Bisexual erasure often results in bisexual-identifying individuals' experiencing a variety of adverse social encounters, as they not only have to struggle with finding acceptance within society but also within the LGBT community. Bisexual erasure is also often a manifestation of biphobia, although it does not necessarily involve overt antagonism. Gross misrepresentations of bisexual individuals as hypersexual erases the sexual agency of bisexuals, effectively erasing their true identities as well. One reason for this is the belief that bisexual individuals are distinctively indecisive. īisexual erasure may include the assertion all bisexual individuals are in a phase and will soon choose a side, either heterosexual or homosexual. In its most extreme form, bisexual erasure can include the belief that bisexuality itself does not exist. When using a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo check the safe search settings where you can exclude adult content sites from your search results Īsk your internet service provider if they offer additional filters īe responsible, know what your children are doing online.Bisexual erasure or bisexual invisibility is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources. Use family filters of your operating systems and/or browsers Other steps you can take to protect your children are: More information about the RTA Label and compatible services can be found here. Parental tools that are compatible with the RTA label will block access to this site. We use the "Restricted To Adults" (RTA) website label to better enable parental filtering. Protect your children from adult content and block access to this site by using parental controls. PARENTS, PLEASE BE ADVISED: If you are a parent, it is your responsibility to keep any age-restricted content from being displayed to your children or wards. Furthermore, you represent and warrant that you will not allow any minor access to this site or services. This website should only be accessed if you are at least 18 years old or of legal age to view such material in your local jurisdiction, whichever is greater. You are about to enter a website that contains explicit material (pornography).