Here’s some rare good news: I went to the doctor for my annual physical on Monday and I’m in good health. All my vitals good, all my labs good, despite the chaos and insanity of everything I’m actually… physically doing fine.
Here’s some bad news: that puts me in the minority of bisexuals.
Yes friends, another study on health — in this case, “functional health” — and sexuality has been released, and this time… it’s Canadian. Which I mention only because that’s the main thing distinguishing it from other studies I’ve seen on health and sexuality. Other than its Canadianness, it’s basically the same as every other report on queer health: bisexuals are doing badly, especially bi women, and after the bisexuals are the lesbians. Indeed, when people say that “over half” of LGBTQ people are reporting functional health problems, it’s the bisexuals who are really pulling those numbers up:
According to age-standardized data from 2017 to 2018, over half (52.2%) of LGB adults reported experiencing at least some difficulty in one or more functional health domains, significantly higher than heterosexual adults (38.3%). Among the LGB population, bisexual people (59.6%) were the most likely to report at least some difficulty in any functional health domain, followed by gay or lesbian individuals (43.0%).
On the plus side, I suppose this study gives you permission to tell people you are simply too bi to function. It’s the literal truth!
More seriously, though: once again I am just left feeling like these studies are so bare bones. They continually leave us hanging. Bisexuals are suffering and so… yes? Doctors should be more aggressively tending to the needs of bi patients? Bi people need dedicated support resources? No one ever seems to float an answer — indeed at times they just fold the bisexuals into LGBTQ without ever asking why our numbers are so much worse — and at some point you get kind of tired, you know? We’re marginalized from both sides, we’re denied community, we struggle and suffer, rinse, repeat.
It just reminds me of a few months ago when I spoke to someone from the NYS governor’s office at a party and she told me that the LGBTQ advocacy office (or whatever it’s called) basically… never talks about bi-specific issues. Ever. I mean what is the point of all these studies if no one is applying their findings when crafting policy, you know? Yes, they give me content for this newsletter, but also… don’t we deserve more?
Of course we do. And of course the purpose of these studies is to enable us to advocate, to organize, to come together and lobby for what we deserve. If only the path to doing that were actually straightforward. If only it actually felt like we had an actionable plan.
But hey: if your doctor ever tries to lecture you about your health outcomes, at least you can tell you him that it’s biphobic to expect you to be healthy.
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