ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights why bisexuality is an urgent matter for social workers to engage with and outlines recent empirical evidence that bisexual people are at higher risk of poverty and poor mental health across the life course than lesbians and gay men. It begins with a brief discussion of existing theoretical perspectives on bisexuality. The chapter introduces empirical research focusing on the lives of bisexual people. It focuses on what is known about the life course effects of bisexuality and also outlines the implications for social work practice. The chapter presents a discussion of selected case studies from the authors' research to further examine and illustrates key issues in applying research into practice for social workers. D. Bell describes bisexuality as very much a place on the margins within gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) landscapes, acknowledging a fraught relationship between bisexual and gay people, perhaps particularly between bisexual women and lesbians in the context of feminism.
