We’re the biggest queer group you never see—it’s time we changed that

If you're bi+, you may not be very engaged in the queer community. You may not even consider queerness to be a part of your life or your identity. Given the current circumstances, though, bisexuals need to reconsider this lackluster approach to community building and political organizing. If anything, now is the time for the bisexuals, pansexuals, polysexuals, omnisexuals, and anyone with bi+ or fluid sexual and romantic identities to support the broader queer community and, in turn, help ourselves.

Why?

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Largest Queer Group Ignored

Bi+ people are the largest subgroup within the LGBTQ+ community. (Everybody always forgets that!)

According to a Pew Research study from August 2024, 4% of American adults identify as bisexual. Compare that to the 3% of adults who identify as lesbian or gay and the 1.6% who identify as trans or nonbinary.

Despite being the silent majority, bisexuals are hardly talked about and frequently find themselves lost between straight and gay spaces, fitting neatly into neither. They rarely have spaces of their own within the queer community, even in major cities. It's one of the more nebulous, expansive, and sometimes transient identities under the rainbow umbrella, intentionally so, which can make connections with other queer people complex to navigate.

Regardless of any tensions that may exist between bisexuals and the rest of the LGBTQ+ community, the U.S. is still fundamentally split into "queer" and "not queer." Straight, cisgender people don't even know which kind of queerness they're clocking half the time; they sense that a queer person is different from them.

Remember, only 7.6% of the U.S. adult population identifies as LGBTQ+. The numbers are higher for Gen Z, but that's still a tiny percentage of the country when you think about resisting an oppressive majority. Right now is an all-hands-on-deck situation, and we can't have half the community sitting this one out. Not when the stakes are this high!

When you're dealing with a hostile government and with a tech-bro surveillance state on the horizon, bisexual is queer enough.

Many bisexuals fly under the radar because people assume a heterosexual default. Bisexuals are also overwhelmingly closeted. 2017 statistics suggested that 26% of bisexuals are not out to anybody and that only 19% are out to most people in their lives.

That means bi+ people have a certain element of surprise. They can evade perception and hate crimes. They can lay low and undetected when it's needed.

I understand it's tempting to stay in the house and out of the spotlight if no one suspects you're bi. And I'm not going to shame anyone for prioritizing their well-being or suggest that a queer person should put themselves in harm's way for the sake of a cause. That's not my place.

However, when it comes to fights for human rights and the rollback of queer rights, I do sincerely believe it's wiser to mobilize now before things get worse. We need to join forces with other marginalized groups beyond the queer community.

From Isolation to Community: Building Connections

Bisexuals have always been part of gay and trans rights movements, but there are still people in the community who feel we don't belong. Now is the time to put that to bed by standing up with the rest of the LGBTQ+ community, especially queer people that have the additional stressors of racism, classism, disability, and sexism/misogyny.

On top of that, many bisexuals live in isolation. We need community ourselves.

I can count on two hands how many bi+ people I've known in my real life – and some of those were guesses based on shared interests and coded language. In every room I go into, there are none of me there. I have never been to a party or bar of solely bisexual people. I may never get to date anyone with my orientation or find a friend who shares my view on romance and sexuality.

At almost 30, most of my meaningful milestones are gone. Much damage has resulted because of bisexual erasure, queer-phobia, and limiting beliefs about the variety of human relationships that exist. It's not a trauma I want subsequent generations of bisexuals to have to go through.

I know other bi people out there feel alone and disconnected. While in some sense it would be unfortunate to meet each other under these circumstances finally, it's something long overdue, and the community needs all of its members to show up right now.

Actionable Steps: Mobilizing for Change

If you are interested in fighting back against Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their enablers, here are concrete actions you can take:

• Find out what LGBTQ+ organizations are in your area and stay connected with the people already working in your community. You can start by doing an internet search, looking through your local LGBTQ chamber of commerce, or browsing the list on the Bisexual Resource Center website.

• Follow the ACLU's tracker of LGBTQ+ rights battles across the United States. Stay informed about political actions through queer publications like The Advocate and LGBTQ Nation.

• Buy from small queer-owned businesses as a form of community financial support.

• Join local and nationwide protests if you can publicly support LGBTQ+ causes.

• Subscribe to email newsletters from nationwide LGBTQ+ and human rights advocacy groups. Get involved in local grassroots organizations, or if none are near you, feel emboldened to create one yourself.

• Educate yourself on the Nazi tactics used to imprison and torture the queer community, especially gay men and trans women. Please read up on Paragraph 175, its revisions, and the inconsistencies applied across regions. Notice the similarities to anti-LGBTQ+ laws of recent history in this country.

Learn the history of the pink triangle from Nazi Germany and its permutations were incorporated into queer activism from the 1960s through the 1990s, particularly during the AIDS crisis. The original downward-facing version of the triangle was the basis for the bisexual "biangle" symbol from the 1980s, created by Liz Nania. The colors of the biangle later changed to stripes for the design of the modern-day bisexual flag, produced by Michael Page.

In other words, the bisexual flag as we know it descends directly from queer resistance to fascism and hate.

I hope you can cherish your bisexuality as a gift and view it as a source of empathy, adaptability, and unity instead of seeing it as a curse. Bisexuality offers a peek behind the curtain and reveals the absurdities of the systems we live in – which is why they'd prefer we didn't exist at all. But you deserve to be here as much as anyone else!

Sam PerryCourtesy Sam Perry

Sam Perry is a bisexual, gender nonconforming writer and editor living in Chicago, Illinois. She served in her high school Gay-Straight Alliance and an honors college LGBTQ+ club. She also holds a certificate in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies from Arizona State University. When she is not writing articles, Sam spends her time enjoying the lakefront and volunteering with local nonprofits.

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