Last Updated on 1 November, 2025 by Cara Sutra
Bisexual Visibility Month: Combatting Bisexuality Myths & Bi Erasure
September 2025 is Bisexual Visibility Month, which includes Bisexual Awareness Week (16th-23rd) September annually and Bisexuality Day (23rd September annually). As a bisexual and pansexual woman, it’s important to me to add my voice to the global choir of fellow bisexual people to say loud and clear that we exist, that bisexuality is its own real and valid sexuality, and to dispel various persistent myths about bisexuality and bisexual people.
What is Bisexuality?
A person who identifies as bisexual is attracted to more than one gender. Bisexuality is the potential to be attracted to people of the same gender as yourself, or a different one.
Why is Bisexuality Visibility Month needed?
There is an arguably strong need for a month of awareness of bisexuality and bisexual people. Bi-erasure is a common phenomenon. People who are bisexual but in hetero-presenting relationships may struggle to see themselves, or be seen by others, as part of the LGBTQIA+ community – I face this issue myself, as I will expand upon later in this feature. The myths that bisexual people are simply greedy, or that bisexuality is some sort of ‘holding room’ status while people decide if they are hetero or gay, are still prevalent.
In a nutshell, the aims of Bisexuality Visibility Month are:
- Keep raising awareness
- Challenge bi-erasure
- Celebrate bisexual people globally
- Promote cultural acceptance of bisexual people
- Advocate for bisexual rights
- Recognize bisexual & LGBTQIA+ advocacy throughout history
How did Bisexuality Visibility Month begin?
Bisexual Pride Day originated in 1990, created by a bisexuality organisation in the USA called BiNet USA. This day was originally marked on June 23rd annually. It was developed after the first bisexuality conference in San Francisco. This day is sometimes referred to as ‘Celebrate Bisexuality Day’. Later came Bisexual Awareness Week.
Bisexual Visibility Day was first celebrated at the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) conference in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1999.
These special days were created to recognise the adversities and prejudices many bisexual people face due to their sexual identity.
Myths About Bisexual People
Here are the 10 most common myths about bisexual people:
- Bisexual people are obsessed with sex and more likely to be sexual predators.
- Bisexual people will try to steal your partner.
- Bisexual people are just confused about whether they’re gay or hetero. Bisexuality doesn’t exist as its own valid sexuality.
- Bisexual people are just greedy.
- Bisexual women are only bi for the male gaze.
- Bisexual people are incapable of being faithful to their partner as they will inevitably cheat.
- Most bisexual people are women (bisexual men face higher levels of bi erasure).
- Bisexual women are happy to be your unicorn.
- Bisexual people are a higher risk for STIs.
- Bisexual people are selfish in bed.
About My Bisexuality: Acknowledging Privilege & Using My Voice
I am a cis-gendered, bisexual and pansexual woman. This means that my gender as a woman matches what I was assigned at birth, I can be sexually attracted to people of any biological sex or gender, and can be attracted –sexually, romantically and emotionally– to people regardless of their gender identity.
I am also a cis woman married to a cis man, therefore to society we are in a hetero-presenting relationship. My husband is bi as well, so we are both members of the LGBTQIA+ community as well as vocal allies. It can be difficult to quash the bi-erasure from my own psyche, as a woman married to a man who is not in any other romantic or sexual relationships. By this I mean that I often find myself speaking about or giving vocal support to the LGBTQIA+ community as if I were an outsider, forgetting that I am in fact one of those letters!
Related: What is LGBTQIA+ Pride? Why Do We Still Need Pride Month?
There is also an element of guilt that as a bisexual in a hetero-presenting relationship, I don’t experience any of the same struggles or prejudices that other groups in the LGBTQIA+ community face. My sexuality is, in fact, invisible – unless I choose to disclose it to any person at any time. That isn’t the case for people in lesbian or gay relationships, and trans people are fighting a global wave of hateful rhetoric, physical threat and infringement to their rights that I can’t begin to understand, it is so incomprehensibly and intolerably vitriolic.
Any prejudice, misunderstanding or erasure of my sexuality as a bisexual woman in a hetero-presenting relationship will never be on that level. I want to make that absolutely clear.
While accepting my many privileges as a white, cis-gendered, bisexual woman in a hetero-presenting marriage, I believe it is still important to educate and speak about topics I have personal experience of. I cannot and would not hope to speak on behalf of other various, misunderstood or actively discriminated against groups of people, but bisexuality and bi-erasure is a part of my life and experiences and I want to use my platform here at Cara Sutra to share my thoughts, experiences and to help dispel the ongoing myths about bisexuality.
Why is it important to me to be known as a bisexual woman rather than simply living my life ‘undercover’ as if I were heterosexual, and not part of the LGBTQIA+ community at all? It isn’t because I want to feel like a ‘special snowflake’ or that I require any external validation for my persona and sexuality. I don’t want, need or deserve any badges or medals just for being who I am – especially with all the privileges in life I acknowledged earlier.
I’ve examined this question at length, and the answer in part comes down to how heterosexuality continues to be viewed in society. It has a long history of not only being seen as the ‘default’ sexuality for humans, but the only ‘correct’ one – with lesbian, gay and bisexual sexualities vehemently persecuted in history in cultural, religious and legal contexts. As a bisexual woman, I am living proof that heterosexuality is not the only sexuality, and of course I resolutely believe that my bisexuality isn’t wrong, a sin or a crime. By being a vocal part of the LGBTQIA+ community, rather than simply a privileged but ‘lips sealed’ ally, I hope in a very small way to encourage others to feel comfortable about their own sexuality too, whatever that may be.
When people speak up about the truth of their sexuality (where possible and appropriate, taking into account personal safety & circumstances of course), more voices are added to that global choir of people forming living proof that heterosexuality is not the default. Other sexualities exist, they are real and valid. Especially bisexuality, which is so often erased in society or dismissed as sex addiction, greed or indecision.
