LGBTQ+ people are at a noticeably higher risk of “adverse brain health outcomes” in comparison to their straight and cisgender peers — and discrimination could be having an impact.
LGBTQ+ adults are at a 15 percent higher risk of composite brain health outcomes, including dementia, strokes, and late-life depression, according to a new study published in Neurology. Transgender women in particular were found to have higher odds of having strokes.
The study examined data from 393,041 participants with available information on sexual orientation and gender identity, of whom 39,632 (10 percent) identified as some form of LGBTQ+, with 38,528 (97 percent) belonging to a sexual minority and 4,431 (11 percent) to a gender minority.
The report found that LGBTQ+ “persons had higher odds of adverse brain health outcomes,” and that “these results persisted across sexual and gender minorities separately.” It concluded that “further research should explore structural causes of inequity to advance inclusive and diverse neurologic care.”
“It is concerning to see the differences in brain health between sexual gender minority (SGM) individuals and cisgender straight people,” lead author of the study, Shufan Huo, told CNN. “At the same time, I am glad that we can raise awareness for this often overlooked group. Medicine has traditionally focused on white, male patients, but nowadays we realize that this approach does not sufficiently address the needs of our diverse population.”
Huo stressed that the findings do not indicate that simply being LGBTQ+ causes these outcomes. Instead, the trend is made possible by several factors, including discrimination, which can cause stress, depression, and anxiety. Social stigma can also lead to disparities in health care for LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly as they face restrictions on their care from state governments.
Previous reports have demonstrated how discrimination negatively impacts well-being among LGBTQ+ people, as leading cancer research organization the American Cancer Society found in its 2024 Cancer Facts and Figures report that queer people frequently experience “minority stress” in health care settings, leading to an “elevated prevalence” of cancer risk factors.
Earlier this week, 20 Republican attorneys general banded together to send a letter to the leadership of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the national professional association for pediatricians, accusing them of breaking the law for supporting age-appropriate and life-saving gender-affirming care for trans youth.
The letter accuses the organization of violating consumer legal protections for allegedly deceiving the public on the reversibility of puberty blockers while also seeking detailed information on their internal evidence assessments and communications.
The letter was sent by Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador.
According to journalist Erin Reed, this letter holds no legal weight, and as such, the AAP is under no obligation to respond.
The letter claims that puberty blockers, a form of medication given to youth to temporarily delay puberty so that they can better understand their identities before the permanent effects of puberty set in, are unsafe and not reversible. In support of this, it cites the Cass Review, a review of the literature on puberty blockers in transgender youth that has been used to justify bans on puberty blockers in the United Kingdom.
However, the letter does not mention the numerous critiques of the Cass Review, all of which suggest that it got much of the science wrong, failed to consult with proper experts, and left out pertinent research that should have changed the conclusion.
A separate review by the Sax Institute, which was commissioned by the New South Wales, Australia, Ministry of Health, found that puberty blockers are safe, effective, and entirely reversible. It drew from established research on not only transgender youth but youth with precocious puberty, or early-onset puberty, who wanted their puberty delayed to be more in line with their peers.
Research on precocious puberty and puberty blockers has been happening for decades, and it all supports puberty blockers as safe and life-saving.
The letter also cited news articles, fringe journal pieces, and opinion pieces from anti-trans advocates in support of their claims. Among those cited is Leor Sapir, a non-expert who publishes on the conservative Manhattan Institute-backed outlet City Journal.
The letter’s citations also include news articles from New York Times’ Azeen Ghoryashi, who some have criticized for allegedly biased coverage of transgender issues, and psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Levine, who frequently provides expert testimony in court cases opposing gender-affirming care while often being dismissed due to judges finding he lacks professional experience with gender-affirming care.
The letter also claims that the widely regarded World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) is unreliable, citing in support of this a set of leaked documents from the organization’s internal communications called the “WPATH Files.” Reed found these leaks contained over 200 factual errors regarding gender-affirming care and judged them as containing irrelevant information regarding the professional merit of WPATH.
The letter concludes by demanding all internal communications held with WPATH in relation to their Standards of Care, detailed information regarding the AAP’s views on puberty blockers, and its views on the leaked WPATH Files.
LGBTQ Nation reached out to the American Academy of Pediatrics for comment. However, they did not respond before the publication of this article.
Other states that are represented here include Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia. There are also two signatures from the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives and the President of the Arizona Senate.
LGBTQ+ people are more likely to experience discrimination at work in spite of laws against it, according to reporting from The 19th.
A study released by the Williams Institute last year shows that 17% of LGBTQ+ adults received harassment and discrimination on the job within the past year of reporting. 47% have experienced it at some point in their lives.
“You would hope things have gotten better,” said Brad Sears, the founding executive director of the Williams Institute and a co-author of the report
Many report having to stay in the closet at work out of fear of reprisal for their identities. Almost half of LGBTQ+ adults were not out to any of their coworkers, and this had protective effects in keeping them free from discrimination. Those who were out at work experienced three times the amount of discrimination.
“A lot of people, even if they are out, they’re kind of downplaying their identities in the workplace,” Sears said. “Maybe they use a different voice or different mannerisms at work, or they don’t dress exactly how they would otherwise dress when they’re not at work, or they use a bathroom that they would prefer not to be using at work.”
Nonbinary people, in particular, received disproportionate discrimination for their identities, with coworkers harassing them for not neatly fitting into either a masculine or feminine box. Many were passed over for promotions, were called slurs, and were isolated in their workplace.
The data suggests that three in five nonbinary people have been discriminated against at work, which also includes things like being fired or passed over for a job. One in five report facing physical harassment, being “assaulted,” “attacked,” or “strangled.” One in four are currently experiencing such discrimination at their jobs and are often victims of multiple sources of discrimination.
“Oftentimes, I was passed up for a promotion because I wasn’t ‘manly’ enough, and they doubted my ability to lead a team,” a Latine nonbinary person said in the survey.
A Latine nonbinary participant from Colorado said in the survey: “A co-worker strangled me at a counter and said he was trying to ‘give a girl a massage.’”
And a Black nonbinary person from Connecticut said that they heard their manager talking “disparagingly” about them behind their back.
The Williams Institute cites a lack of clear company policies that protect nonbinary individuals as a cause for much of this discrimination. Many company policies across the nation fail to explicitly outline nonbinary individuals as being included as a protected class, instead saying protections apply only to men and women. Some opponents of trans rights cite their interpretation of Title VII in justification, claiming that it does not extend to protections based on gender identity and only extends to sex.
Much of this discrimination is due to a lack of company policies that explicitly protect nonbinary individuals, with loopholes being present to allow for such discrimination, including in some legal interpretations.
Sears concluded, “LGBTQ+ people are not monolithic. They’re different, they have intersecting identities … and those are leading to differences that are important in the workplace.”
Team sports are generally regarded to have positive benefits for kids, from gaining a new skill to socialization. However, there are some negatives associated with sports teams, particularly boys’ sports teams, when a culture of toxic masculinity and anti-LGBTQ+ language is present.
A study by Fordham University has shown that when youth are exposed to anti-LGBTQ+ language, it greatly harms them, unsurprisingly. However, the data also showed that it was not young queer children who are the most impacted by anti-LGBTQ+ language in athletic environments. It was young, straight white boys.
Locker room talk with homophobic undertones, phrases like “man up” or “don’t be a sissy,” pressure boys not to act feminine, with deeply harmful results, even if the phrases are used jokingly. Researchers write that language like that is often used in boys’ sports environments, allegedly to motivate. But it often simply ends up “policing,” as the researchers write, the right and wrong way to be a man.
Using language and phrases like that “harms the well-being of everyone,” said Laura Wernick, one of the study’s lead authors and an associate professor of social service at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service.
Youth exposed to higher levels of such language did not benefit as much from the positives that youth sports offer compared to their peers who were not exposed to hurtful language. Self-esteem was one of the primary benefits lost when sports environments were inundated with harmful language.
Wernick said that the decrease in self-esteem was significantly greater among straight white cisgender boys than any other subgroup, calling it “the irony of policing masculinity.”
It’s not that LGBTQ+ youth are unaffected by this type of language in youth sports environments. However, researchers suggest that the impact on them and other marginalized groups may be less severe, as their past experiences have often helped them develop coping strategies.
The study was published in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues. Data was collected in 2014 as part of a project started by high school students in Michigan who were a part of Neutral Zone, an organization in Ann Arbor. The LGBTQ+ students who started the project bonded over shared experiences being bullied and were mentored by Wernick, a doctoral student at the time.
About the experience, Wernick said, “This was before a lot of media were starting to pay attention to the experiences of queer and trans youth.Their experiences weren’t being heard or believed.”
The study surveyed students in five urban, rural, and suburban schools about their experiences of harmful language in different environments, such as youth sports.
“I don’t think coaches think about the actual impact it has on boys,” Derek Tice-Brown, an assistant professor of social service at Fordham and the study’s co-lead author, said. “They grew up playing sports the exact same way, and that’s how they were taught to compete, to live up to a certain idea of what manhood is.”
A Nigerian distributor of independent gay romance films is fighting to get its YouTube channel back.
Earlier this month, Omeleme TV launched an online petition aimed at getting YouTube to reinstate its original account after the streaming platform removed its channel, claiming Omeleme TV had violated its policy “on spam, deceptive practices and scams.”
But in its petition, Omeleme TV argued it has never violated YouTube’s policies and has “always complied with their rules and regulations accordingly.”
An Omeleme TV spokesperson, who wished to remain anonymous,told The Washington Blade that YouTube has not indicated “the main issue” that resulted in its deplatforming.
In its petition, Omeleme TV notes that “same-sex love is often denied and shrouded in taboo” in Nigeria, where homosexuality is illegal and same-sex relationships are punishable by up to 14 years in prison under the country’s Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act. “Deleting our YouTube page is basically shutting [out] the voice of the queer folks in the region,” the petition states.
As the Washington Blade notes, Omeleme TV launched its YouTube channel last September. At its peak, the channel reportedly had over 5,000 subscribers and had been monetized.
Its first film, Nearly All Men, directed by Akpos Otubuere, was initially posted in October 2023. By November 4, 2023, the film had garnered 5,500 views according to a post on the channel’s official Instagram account. This past June, the channel premiered its second film, Pieces of Love, which received over 500,000 views in 24 hours, according to a June 22 Instagram post. A screenshot posted on August 2 appears to show that the film had reached 101,000 views.
The following day, nearly 10 months after Nearly All Men went live on YouTube, a post on Omeleme TV’s Instagram page stated that the channel’s operators had chosen to remove the film after the platform “flagged a particular score.”
The channel’s spokesperson told the Washington Blade that Omeleme TV faced an initial copyright claim over a song in one of its films. In the process of settling the copyright issue, they discovered that Nearly All Men had not, in fact, been monetized. According to the Blade, the channel pulled the film and reuploaded it with a new original song.
It’s unclear when this version of the film was posted or how long it remained on YouTube, but on August 15, a post on the channel’s Instagram stated that “after back and forth with YouTube” over the platform’s policies on adult content, Nearly All Men would be reposted the following day, “BUT, the 18+ scenes in the movie will be up soonest in the next few days [sic].”
Omeleme TV’s spokesperson told TheWashington Blade that YouTube flagged the film again on August 18. “This time they claimed it is not ad friendly, but it does not affect the channel and that we can only earn and be viewed by premium subscribers,” they said.
On September 3, Omeleme TV posted another update on Instagram, indicating that Nearly All Men had been flagged several times. Rather than edit scenes out of the film, Omeleme TV announced that Nearly All Men would return to its channel as a “premium” members-only video due to scenes containing nudity.
“We are sincerely sorry that it’s not open to everyone,” the channel wrote in another September 3 post. “Like we said earlier YouTube is strict on nudity and editing out those scenes entirely from the film jeopardizes the aim/purpose of the entire film.”
A September 6 post announced that the film was once again live for premium subscribers.
Two days later, on September 8, Omeleme TV reported via their Instagram account that their channel had been removed from YouTube. A screenshot posted on their @nearlyallmen X account indicates that the platform removed the channel for allegedly violating its policy “on spam, deceptive practices and scams.”
In a September 10 response to the @nearlyallmen X account, @TeamYouTube noted that Omeleme TV had “already appealed & received an email outlining the final decision” not to reinstate the channel.
“We know it wasn’t the outcome you were hoping for, but there’s nothing more we can do on our end as these decisions are made very carefully,” the @TeamYouTube account wrote.
The Omeleme TV spokesperson told the Washington Blade that YouTube “did not in any way specify the actual violation or spam.” They also noted that YouTube had never once given the channel a “strike.” The platform issues “strikes” to channels for a second violation of its policies following an initial warning for a first violation.
Under its “Community Guidelines strike basics,” the platform does note that it “may remove content for reasons other than Community Guidelines violations. For example, a first-party privacy complaint or a court order. In these cases, your channel won’t get a strike.” It also notes that in certain instances “a single case of severe abuse will result in channel termination without warning.”
Omeleme TV has since launched a new YouTube channel, though it has only uploaded Pieces of Love and the trailer for Nearly All Men so far. And with only 98 subscribers, its reach has been drastically reduced and falls far short of the 1,000 subscribers required before it can monetize its content.
And it continues to fight to have its original channel restored. In its petition, which 170 signatures toward its 200 goal, Omeleme TV says that it plays a crucial role in normalizing same-sex relationships, “providing visibility and affirmation for LGBTQ+ individuals, both young and old,” in Nigeria.
“YouTube remains our major source for distribution of these films to queer folks all over the world,” the channel’s spokesperson told the Blade. They continue to believe that YouTube has somehow made a mistake, that the platform, “being a safe space for filmmakers all over the world, will do the right thing by restoring our channel for their esteemed viewers.”
The Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) has ordered local school districts to submit their sex education plans to the state for approval. The FLDOE has also said the classes must promote abstinence and cannot include discussion of contraception or pictures of reproductive health organs.
The sex-ed takeover removes local discretion when it comes to district sex education classes and materials.
For some time, Florida law has mandated that sex-ed lessons emphasize the “benefits of sexual abstinence as the expected standard and the consequences of teenage pregnancy” for grades 6 through 12.
But now the state has removed any local control of additional information school districts can provide their students.
A memo written by Broward County administrators obtained by The Orlando Sentinel summarized the district’s verbal interactions with state officials regarding their takeover of sex ed in the state. The state provided no written instructions provided for districts.
“Pictures of external sexual/reproductive anatomy should not be included in any grade level,” the memo recorded state officials as saying. “Contraceptives are not part of any health or science standard” but could be mentioned as a “health resource,” though “pictures, activities, or demonstrations that illustrate their use should not be included in instruction in any grade level,” it said.
“Different types of sex (i.e., anal, oral, and vaginal) cannot be part of instruction in any grade level,” state officials added, according to the Broward memo.
Orange County schools previously started their lessons in 5th grade with one class devoted to the physical changes of puberty. High schoolers had discussions about contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.
Now the state must approve any additional curriculum and they’ll either deny the additions or ignore them, forcing local districts to cancel sex-ed classes altogether until the state addresses their plans.
Elissa Barr, a professor of public health at the University of North Florida and a member of the sex ed advocacy group Florida Healthy Youth Alliance, has been keeping in touch with local school officials and compiling a list of words and phrases they’ve been told to remove from their reproductive health plans.
These words include abuse, consent, domestic violence, fluids, gender identity and LGBTQ information, she said.
Removing the word “fluids” from lessons will make it hard to teach about how HIV is transmitted, for instance, since it spreads through blood, breast milk, semen and vaginal “fluids”.
“That’s science,” Barr said.
The verbal feedback that Orange school district officials got was plain: Throw out your plan and just use the state textbook.
“The FDOE strongly recommended the district utilize the state adopted text,” the district said in an emailed statement to the Sentinel.
The state textbook preaches abstinence as the only effective way to prevent STDs and pregnancy, and there’s no mention of contraception. The text also encourages students to go on group outings rather than spend time alone with a date.
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A new political ad from former President Donald Trump delves deep into transphobia, highlighting Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ support of providing lifesaving care to transgender inmates (something required by federal law) and showing pictures of her next to a drag queen, a trans woman, and a nonbinary person.
“Kamala is for they/them,” the 30-second ad says. “President Trump is for you.”
The ad primarily accuses Harris of supporting “taxpayer-funded sex-changes for prisoners and illegal aliens” — a crude restatement of her 2019 ACLU questionnaire answer that all federal prisoners, including trans immigrants detained by border agents, deserve medically necessary care, which includes gender-affirming care and surgeries. The Constitution requires U.S. prisons and detainment facilities to provide such care, and courts have upheld this requirement, but some facilities still deny it to inmates.
“It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Even the liberal media was shocked,” the ad states. To substantiate its claim, the ad shows Harris’ video interview with the National Center for Transgender Equality, in which she declares her support for providing care for trans inmates.
Neither one has anything to do with the federal government’s decades-long obligation to provide essential medical care to all inmates.
Trump has also claimed that schools are conducting surgeries on trans youth without parental consent. This is also a lie. No schools are providing such surgeries, doctors typically refuse to provide such surgeries to minors, and doctors never provide gender-affirming surgery to minors without parental consent.
Furthermore, the Republican National Platform pledges to “keep men out of women’s sports” and cut federal funding for any schools “pushing radical gender ideology” or “inappropriate sexual or political content on our children.”
Chapter 9, Section 5 of the platform promises to “end Left-wing gender insanity,” stating, “We will keep men out of women’s sports, ban Taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries, and stop Taxpayer-funded Schools from promoting gender transition, reverse Biden’s radical rewrite of Title IX Education Regulations, and restore protections for women and girls.”
Down-ticket Republicans are also incorporating transphobia into their political messaging.
One recent TV ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee accuses Democratic Texas state Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of “push[ing] sex changes for kids” even though he told the Texas Tribune that he has “never supported tax dollars paying for gender transition surgeries and never will.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has also published ads accusing his opponent, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX), of being “wrong for our girls,” a reference to Allred’s support of the Equality Act, a federal bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal anti-discrimination protections.
Allred was a co-sponsor of a resolution to create a “Transgender Bill of Rights to protect and codify the rights of transgender and nonbinary people under the law and ensure their access to medical care, shelter, safety, and economic security,” the Texas Tribune noted.
Allred’s campaign called the ads a “disgusting, false attack, and another example of how Ted Cruz only wants to divide Texans.” Allred and Cruz are polling very closely in a high-profile race that could help determine party control of the Senate.
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) released an anti-trans ad featuring Riley Gaines, a former competitive collegiate swimmer who launched a career as a spokesperson against trans athletes after she tied for fifth place with trans University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA championship.
In the ad, Gaines says that Hawley’s Democratic opponent Lucas Kunce “supports the radical trans agenda” and falsely claims that he supports “sex change operations for minors.” Doctors rarely ever conduct such procedures on minors. Gaines also claims that Kunce supports “boys in girls bathrooms” and “explicit teaching in grade school,” though both are distortions of his support for LGBTQ+-inclusive school policies.
“It’s really disgusting that these politicians think they can use trans people, and more specifically trans youth, as a political tool to win points,” Chase Glenn, the trans male executive director of the Alliance for Full Acceptance, told the Associated Press.
Republican campaigners and polls indicate that transphobia resonates with conservative Christian voters. In fact, the Republican National Platform promises to legally protect Christians who discriminate against LGBTQ+ people.
However, a March 2024 poll showed that 53% of voters oppose candidates who campaign against transgender people. While that might sound like a slim majority, such a majority could help determine which candidates win in close races.
An August 2023 Economist/YouGov poll found that majorities of voters mostly care about inflation, taxes, jobs, the economy, government spending, and immigration.
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A federal judge inIndiana has granted a preliminary injunction requiring the Indiana Department of Correction to provide gender-affirming surgery fortransgender inmate Autumn Cordellioné.
The decision comes after Cordellioné, a trans woman currently incarcerated in a facility for men, challenged the constitutionality of Indiana’s 2023 law banning gender-affirming surgeries for prisoners.
United States District Court Judge Richard L. Young ruled on Tuesday that the state’s ban on gender-affirming surgery likely violates the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the care is deemed necessary. The ruling mandates that the IDOC arrange for Cordellioné to receive the surgery immediately.
The case centers on a state law that prohibits the use of state resources to provide gender-affirming surgeries for incarcerated people. Cordellioné, who has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, has been undergoing hormone therapy and social transitioning but argued that surgery is medically necessary to address her ongoing distress. The court’s decision affirms what major medical associations have long argued: that surgery is essential in some cases for the treatment of severe gender dysphoria.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana represented Cordellioné in her legal battle. The organization argued that the blanket denial of gender-affirming surgery amounted to deliberate indifference to a serious medical need, as established under the Eighth Amendment and discriminated against transgenderindividuals in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The court agreed with the ACLU’s arguments, concluding that Cordellioné’s need for gender-affirming surgery was both urgent and medically necessary.
In a statement following the court’s decision, Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, emphasized the broader implications of the ruling for transgender rights. “Today marks a significant victory for transgender individuals in Indiana’s prisons. Denying evidence-based medical care to incarcerated people simply because they are transgender is unconstitutional. We are pleased that the Court agreed.”
The ruling also reinforces that states are required to provide adequate medical care to incarcerated people, a principle grounded in the U.S. Constitution.
Cordellioné, who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2020, has faced multiple suicide attempts and incidents of self-harm due to the severity of her condition. While hormone therapy has provided some relief, Cordellioné has long argued that surgery is essential for her mental and physical well-being. Her legal team, along with experts who testified in her case, emphasized that her dysphoria could not be fully alleviated without the surgery.
Young’s ruling affirms that Indiana’s law represents unconstitutional discrimination based on sex. The judge cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which determined that discrimination againstLGBTQ+ people is a form of sex discrimination.
Teams of prominent scientists and ethicists have called for the end of medically unnecessary nonconsensual surgeries on intersex children in two new papers.
On the heels of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s first-ever resolution affirming the rights of intersex people, the papers signal growing international resolve to address rights violations experienced by people born with variations in their sex characteristics, sometimes called intersex traits.
Since the 1950s, surgeons have conducted irreversible and medically unnecessary “normalizing” operations on intersex children, such as procedures to reduce the size of the clitoris, which can result in scarring, sterilization, and psychological trauma. Intersex advocacy groups, as well as various medical and human rights organizations, have spoken out against these surgeries for decades. Despite a growingconsensus that these surgeries should end, as well as global progress on banningthem, some parents still face pressure from surgeons to choose these operations for children too young to participate in the decision.
The authors of one of the expert papers found that surgeons’ subjective cosmetic preferences for the appearance of genitals was one of the most commonly reported justifications in the paper’s sampling of elective “normalizing” surgeries on children younger than 10. Cosmetic appearance of genitals has no validated measure, so the data featured surgeons’ subjective descriptions instead. The authors, including five World Health Organization staff members, concluded that, “Legislating and medical regulatory bodies should advocate for ending the conduct of irreversible, elective, ‘sex-normalizing’ interventions conducted without the full, free and informed consent of the person concerned.”
The second paper, co-signed by dozens of professionals around the world, including physicians, ethicists, and psychologists, examined the ethical implications of “normalizing” interventions on children’s genitals. The authors conclude that clinicians “should not be permitted to perform any nonvoluntary genital cutting or surgery on any child, regardless of the child’s sex traits or socially assigned gender, unless doing so is urgently necessary to protect the child’s physical health.”
Both papers advocate that children born perfectly healthy – just a little different – should be free to grow up and make decisions about their own bodies.
PinkNews examines the issues faced by bisexual people at work, the impact of bi-erasure and what colleagues and employers alike can do to support their bisexual colleagues.
A common experience for many bisexual people is the feeling of being invisible, and this rings true for the workplace. Many bisexual people are faced with the choice of being out and living their authentic selves or trying ‘fit in’.
With the amount of time spent at work, having to hide a huge part of one’s identity can be emotionally draining and can lead to burnout, mental health issues and even exacerbate imposter syndrome.
LGBTQ+ people are often discriminated against and even bullied at work: Data from McKinsey suggests that up to 30 per cent of LGBTQ+ people believe that their sexual identity will harm their career progression.
Katherine, an art history professor at a small state university in the rural US Midwest, believes her bisexual identity has positively impacted her career in academia – but she remains acutely aware of the issues it poses, too.
The bisexual Pride flag. (Getty)
She tells PinkNews: “While working in a Women’s and Gender Studies department for five years, in a way [being bisexual] legitimises my research and teaching interests. When introducing myself to students in those classes, it creates a safe space for my LGBTQ+ students to share their experiences and perspectives.”
However, living in a largely conservative part of the country and with anti-LGBTQ+ bills on the rise, Katherine still maintains a level of care in how she discloses her sexual identity.
“I mostly have fear from outside the university setting from internet trolls and conservative politicians,” she explains. “But this is also one of the reasons I try to be so open with students. So many of them come from rural communities where they can’t explore their own sexuality or gender.”
The impact of bisexual erasure at work
Many in the bisexual community contend with bi-erasure – the tendency to remove, ignore and even falsify experiences of bisexuality in legacy media, academia and history. In its most extreme form, bi-erasure can also manifest as the belief that bisexuality doesn’t exist.
Bisexual people can experience specific micro-aggressions at work, including assumptions about their partners and relationships and inappropriate questions about their personal lives. Bisexual women are often fetishised and bisexual men are often told that they are “too afraid to come out as gay.”
Frustratingly for the bi community is that sometimes bi-erasure and micro-aggressions come from within the LGBTQ+ community itself.
Fears of experiencing this could be preventing bi people from being out at work. Data from Catalyst found that in the US, just 17.5 per cent of bisexual men are out at work, compared to 50 per cent of gay men. For bisexual women, nearly 20 per cent are out compared to 49 per cent of lesbians.
Katherine admits that bi-erasure does happen frequently: “People tend to view any monogamous relationship, regardless of the gender of those involved, as being straight or gay.”
She says she combats bi-erasure by being more open with friends and family, yet she does acknowledge the negative impact it can cause.
“I think the bi-erasure affects me in the way that it is part of me, and I hate that in some cases I cannot share that part of me for fear of being targeted politically.”
Supporting bisexual colleagues and employees at work
Here in the UK, the most recent census data reveals that 1.28 per cent of the population (640,000) identified themselves as bisexual. For Gen Z specifically, those born between 1997 and 2012, four per cent identified themselves as bi.
As the younger generations feel more comfortable being out and head into the workplace, the responsibility of employers and colleagues to recognise all facets of the LGBTQ+ community is even more crucial.
Aside from simple steps like respecting pronouns and challenging bullying and discrimination, there are some other things business leaders and co-workers can do to support the ‘B’ in the LGBTQ+.
Education
Bisexuality is often misunderstood and can be attached to stereotypes. If employers understand that being bisexual is a valid sexual orientation, and that the sex of an employee’s partner, partners or spouse does not immediately categorise them as ‘gay’ or ‘straight’, it can create an empathetic working environment where everyone has the opportunity to live their authentic lives while at work. Business leaders should consider targeted training and resources that specifically tackle the bi-experience.
Listening and communication
Active listening is a powerful tool for supporting bisexual employees. Much like the rest of the LGBTQ+ community, no two peoples experiences are the same. Creating opportunities for open conversations where bisexual employees can share their experiences, concerns, and suggestions. Be empathetic and validate their feelings, showing that you genuinely care about their well-being. Encourage a culture of respectful communication, where everyone’s perspectives are valued.
Respect privacy and the ‘coming out’ experience
Coming out is a personal journey, and it’s important not to pressure anyone to disclose their sexual orientation. Never assume someone’s sexual orientation or share their personal information without their consent. Part of an inclusive workplace is creating a safe space where employees can choose to share when they’re ready promotes trust and respect.
