Including the B-word: Reflections on the place of bisexuality within lesbian and gay activism and psychology

Abstract

In the July 2003 issue of Lesbian & Gay Psychology Review, Bobbie Petford wrote about the marginalisation of bisexuality in UK psychology. Unlike the American Psychological Association’s Division 44 (The Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Issues) and many community organisations, the Lesbian and Gay Section of the British Psychological Society (BPS) still has not added ‘bisexual’ to its name. In his editorial for the July 2003 edition of the review, Adrian Coyle explained that this was because of British Psychological Society constraints requiring Sections to be formed around existing substantial bodies of British psychological work, and pledged the review’s support for future research that ‘places bisexuality centre stage’ (p.3). It is true that there is still a distinct lack of psychological research in the UK on bisexual experiences, although bi psychologists and counsellors like myself and Bobbie are attempting to remedy this. Running one’s eyes over the reference lists of most Lesbian & Gay Psychology Review articles also displays the fact that much recent psychological work on non-heterosexual experiences focuses on lesbian gay, bisexual and often transgender (LGBT), identified people rather than just on lesbians and gay men, and there is certainly a growing body of interdisciplinary work on bisexual identity and lifestyle in the UK (e.g. Hemmings, 2002; Storr, 2003).