For anyone who needs a reminder: the homophobia and lesbophobia experienced by bisexuals isn't any less than what gay and lesbian monosexuals experience. Bisexuals are not half-straight/half-gay and therefore experiencing only partial homophobia/lesbophobia. True bisexuality is not accepted by society or normalized to any degree. Cishet people can perhaps tolerate fleeting bi-curiosity at most, but that's even a stretch for the majority of them.
The cisheteropatriarchy demands you eventually choose a side, and the side they want you on is straight - not bisexual, not even bisexual but partnered with someone of opposite/different gender. There are no caveats. They don't want us to exist as much as they don't want gay/lesbian people to exist, because same/similar gender attraction is a permanent fixture of bisexuality alongside our opposite/different gender attraction (also defined as attraction to any/all genders or attraction regardless of gender.)
It doesn't matter if a bisexual person is single or has a partner who is deemed "acceptable" - we aren't judged by our relationships, we're judged by our bisexual attraction and our ability to be attracted to any gender. This doesn't change depending on our relationship status, because we don't change to being monosexual in any direction when we're dating and bisexual when we're not. We don't lose our bisexuality in any circumstance, because that isn't the way attraction works. We experience full, direct homophobia/lesbophobia, as well as biphobia (including lateral aggression from some gay/lesbian peers who have bought into and bolster biphobia), and systemic/institutionalized monosexism - and all of this is simultaneous, unwavering, and specifically because we're people who experience bisexual attraction.
Being bisexual puts us in a sexual minority category that is distinctly not straight - because we don't experience only monosexual attraction to opposite/different genders. We are also not gay/lesbian, because we don't experience only monosexual attraction to same/similar genders. Cisheteronormative society views bisexuals in similar way to how they view gay/lesbian people, but compounds this with biphobia that suggests we're exploitable, fetish material, hypersexual, and makes us targets of the highest IPV and overall violent victimization rates of all sexual orientations in several countries that are often deemed "safe" for us, even accounting for population ratios in statistics. We are also viewed by society in a far more negative light than our monosexual gay/lesbian peers, a fact that has been researched and proven many times over.
Statistically speaking, bisexuals are more likely to be transgender/non-binary, and/or people of color, as well as more likely to live below the poverty line and experience the worst mental/physical health outcomes when compared to other minority sexual orientations. We're often victims of police brutality and violence when we try to seek help. I've talked about this a lot in various posts and cited peer-reviewed sources, please feel free to browse my bisexual statistics tag if you need the exact percentages.
I'm tired of science-deniers claiming that biphobia isn't real when it's a well-recognized form of social discrimination and even the term "biphobia" was coined by sociological researchers who began to look more closely at the distinction and overlap between that and homophobia/lesbophobia in the 90s. It's also well known that bisexuals suffer what's called "double discrimination", which means we're not accepted by and often discriminated against by monosexual straight and gay/lesbian persons.
From the 2017 research paper (also linked above) Bisexual-Specific Minority Stressors, Psychological Distress, and Suicidality in Bisexual Individuals: the Mediating Role of Loneliness -
Of course, the main people who disagree with this are typically the kind who also whine about the existence of trans/non-binary people disrupting their knowledge of the world through the lens of "sixth grade biology" and are anti-intellectuals who are one nighttime internet rabbit-hole away from declaring that the Earth is flat and all vaccines are poison. Not to mention a hop and a skip away from shaking hands with right-wing fascists if they aren't already there.
The point is: There is no world in which being bisexual is easier than being gay/lesbian. Research has shown it's even more difficult in many ways. There's no world in which we're accepted more than our monosexual peers by a widespread monosexist, cisheteronormative culture. The homophobia/lesbophobia experienced by bisexuals from straight people is just as significant, direct, and intentional as that which is experienced by monosexual gay/lesbian people, and compounded by equally detrimental biphobia/monosexism. Then we have to face the impact of double discrimination and lack of support from monosexuals on top of it.
Don't let anyone downplay what we go through, and don't downplay what you go through either with internalized binegativity. Your experiences are real, shared by others in your community, and researched by social scientists. Bisexual rights are just as important as the rights of any other marginalized group.
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