Biphobia is aversion toward bisexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being bisexual. Similarly to homophobia , it refers to hatred and prejudice specifically against those identified or perceived as being in the bisexual community.
It can take the form of denial that bisexuality is a genuine sexual orientation, or of negative stereotypes about people who are bisexual such as the beliefs that they are promiscuous or dishonest. Other forms of biphobia include bisexual erasure. The hatred of bisexual women and femmes , being a form of prejudice at the intersection of biphobia and misogyny, is referred to as bimisogyny [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] or less commonly bisexism.
Biphobia is a blend word patterned on the term homophobia. Along with transphobia and homophobia , it is one of a family of terms used to describe intolerance and discrimination against LGBTQ people. The adjectival form biphobic describes things or qualities related to biphobia, and the less-common noun biphobe is a label for people thought to harbor biphobia.
The term biphobia was first [ 9 ] [ 10 ] introduced in by researcher Kathleen Bennett to mean "prejudice against bisexuality" [ 11 ] and "the denigration of bisexuality as a life-choice.
Biphobia need not be a phobia as defined in clinical psychology i. Its meaning and use typically parallel those of xenophobia. Biphobia can lead people to deny that bisexuality is real, asserting that people who identify as bisexual are not genuinely bisexual, or that the phenomenon is far less common than they claim.
