ABSTRACT
Abstact
This chapter focuses on the stigmatization of bisexual women. First, the Bisexual Women Stigma Scale is examined. Second, Norm-Centered Stigma Theory (NCST) is utilized to explore the relationships among the Bisexual Women Stigma Scale, the Hetero-cis-normativity Scale (HCN Scale), gender, sexuality, additional gender/sexuality, race/ethnicity, and basic needs. Third, bisexual women’s experiences with gender- and sexuality-based discrimination, harassment, and violence (DHV) are investigated. In line with the three tenets and hypotheses derived from NCST, there are six patterns found in this chapter: (1) bisexual women are largely stigmatized by both hetero-cis and LGBTQ people due to the stereotype that their identities are temporary and/or experimental; (2) the stigmatization of bisexual women by both hetero-cis and LGBTQ people is also situated within sex act-related stigma (i.e., that bisexual women are too sexual/hypersexual, that they are unfaithful to their romantic partners) and that they are not feminine enough; (3) hetero-cis-normativity is positively related to bisexual women stigma for both subsamples—however, the interaction effects between the HCN scale and social power axes only moderate these relationships for the hetero-cis subsample; (4) individual social power axes are significantly related to bisexual women stigma for both subsamples—however, the interaction effects between the social power axes that moderate these relationships differ for the hetero-cis and LGBTQ subsamples. In addition, there are more significant interaction effects between the social power axes for the LGBTQ subsample than there are for the hetero-cis subsample; (5) bisexual women experience high levels of gender- and sexuality-based DHV (about half indicate DHV) —however, in comparison to the LGBTQ subsample, bisexual women experience significantly less sexuality-based DHV; and (6) being a bisexual woman is not in and of itself related to the likelihood of gender- or sexuality-based DHV; however, bisexual women’s intersecting experiences with trans identity, SGL identity, femme identity, and Latinx ethnicity do increase the likelihood of gender-based DHV, while African American/Black identity among bisexual women decreases the likelihood of gender-based DHV.
