Loyola Marymount University’s LGBTQ+ Victory Institute has just released a report on the experiences of LGBTQ+ women in politics and it is… predictably grim. Queer women are more likely to be discouraged from running or worried about harassment than their queer male peers (with trans women in particular experiencing this); while on the campaign trail, they’re more likely to face prejudice and gender-based violence and be attacked for their appearance.
So, you know, standard misogyny stuff.
Except. While I was reading the rundown, I couldn’t help but notice that the report only seems to breakdown the experiences of queer politicians by gender — we hear about “gay and bisexual men” vs LGBTQ+ or “lesbian, bisexual, and queer” women, with trans women being broken out occasionally to highlight their specific experiences of transmisogyny. And keeping to that framing, well, it seemed to obscure a fairly important detail about queers — or at least bisexuals — in politics.
Namely: as far as I know, there are more openly bi women than openly bi men in elected office in America.
That does not mean, of course, that there are more bi women than bi men in office; nobody knows how many closeted bi men there are roaming the halls of power. But it does mean that the only open bisexuals to serve in Congress with both (white, cis) women; the two known bi men to have served in Congress both came out after they left office (and in one case, was outed posthumously).
And it does mean that the Advocate‘s recent list of “35 Bisexual Politicians You Should Know” has more than twice as many women as men. When I look at the numbers, I have to wonder how much of the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute’s reporting about “gay and bi men” in politics was really about gay men in politics.
I have to wonder if, say, Pete Buttigieg’s experience in politics is not going to be the same as that of an openly bi man.
I feel like I should note here that — despite the men on that Advocate list, who seem like lovely state legislators who will hopefully do the bisexual community proud — the primary name that comes to mind when I think of a bisexual male politician is Andrew Gillum, the scandal ridden Florida gubernatorial candidate who went down in flames after losing to Ron DeSantis. In the same way that selfish, shallow, and greedy Kyrsten Sinema and beleaguered revenge porn victim Katie Hill seem like concise representations of the two lanes that exist for bi women on the national political stage; Andrew Gillum strikes me as an easy sketch of what people imagine when they imagine a bi man in power.
Which is to say: all the grotesque stereotypes of gay men as wild party animals who can’t be trusted with power feel like they’ve been ported over to bi men, in a way. We’ve accepted that out gay politicians can be, you know, Pete Buttigieg. But an out bi man? Why would he be out unless he wanted the world to know he was a freak?
I mean, it’s just a theory, of course. But it seems like one that might hold water. There’s certainly something that’s holding back out bi men in politics, some hesitancy that either prevents them from coming out or prevents them from getting elected. And we’re not going to find it if we insist on lumping bi men in with their gay brothers. We’re not going to find it unless we consider bi male politicians’ experiences all on their own.
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