Wishing a very happy day to the millions (yes, millions!) of bi parents, who comprise about two-thirds of all LGB parents! Read on for more for and about bi parents!
Yes, that’s right: Approximately two-thirds (64 percent) of LGB parents are bi: 59 percent of bi women and 32 percent of bi men have had children, versus 31 percent of lesbians and 16 percent of gay men, according to calculations from a 2013 study from Pew Research and a 2014 report from UCLA’s Williams Institute. If we combine that with 2013 estimates from UCLA’s Williams Institute that approximately 3 million LGBT Americans have had a child (now both minors and grown), we get 1.9 million bi parents. And since the number of Americans identifying as LGBT has gone up since then, the number is likely higher.
There’s a little bit of fuzziness because the populations of the two studies are slightly different (one explicitly includes trans people), but the number generally accords with what demographer Dr. Gary Gates of the Williams Institute told me via e-mail in 2015 (my bold):
In the 2014 version of the General Social Survey [a nationally representative survey of adults in the U.S.], roughly half of bisexual adults say that they have ever had a child. I usually use about 9 million for the LGBT figure (based on current population estimates and assuming 4% LGBT), roughly half as Bisexual, so 4.5 million. If half of them have ever had a child, then that means about 2.25 million bisexual parents.
More recently, a 2018 study from the Center for American Progress (CAP) also found that “Bi+ women were nearly four times as likely to be caregivers for minor children compared with lesbians.” (I have not found parallel data for bi+ men.)
Furthermore, most bi parents in the U.S. are raising children with different-sex partners, according to a 2014 Williams Study:
Among bisexual adults with children, 51% were married with a different-sex spouse, 11% had a different-sex unmarried partner, and 4% had a same-sex spouse or partner. Among adults who identified as gay or lesbian and were raising children, 18% had a different-sex married spouse and 4% had a different-sex unmarried partner.
Despite the vastly greater numbers of bi parents, however, they face specific disparities. The CAP study also found, for example, that “Bi+ women and their families are more likely to depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid than their monosexual peers.”
Additionally, a 2021 Williams study of LBQ parents who identified as female found that bi parents reported more psychological distress and lower life satisfaction and happiness than lesbian parents, something the researchers found surprising, “because the overwhelming majority of bisexual parents are in relationships with male partners and thus would likely be viewed as heterosexual by the general public.”
They speculate, “There is a unique form of bias against people who have both same-sex and different-sex attractions and sexual relationships, and this may be why we see poorer mental health outcomes for bisexual parents.” Other studies have shown sexual minority women with male partners “reported less connection to the LGBT community and greater anxiety” and that many bisexual mothers experience binegativity and exclusion by lesbian communities. “Parenthood for bisexual mothers involved with male partners thus comes at a cost from both the general public and the LGBT community,” the Williams study concluded. In what could be a sign of hope, though, the youngest group of bisexual women reported more community connectedness than bisexual women of other age groups. (See also this 2016 study from the Movement Advancement Project about the disparities facing bi people.)
As I’ve said before, all of us lesbians and gay men need to try harder to welcome and include the bi parents we know and not to assume that a different-sex couple doesn’t include queer people in it. Yes, moving through the world as a different-sex couple and doing so as a same-sex couple are two different experiences, but so are moving through the world as a two-mom couple and a two-dad couple, or as a trans parent and a cis parent, or any other way we want to parse the LGBTQ spectrum. Throw in our intersectional identities (race/ethnicity, socioeconomic class, disability, etc.) and the picture becomes even more complex. That doesn’t mean we can’t all support each other as we connect over our similarities and celebrate our differences under the big rainbow umbrella.
If you’re on the path to parenthood (or considering it) as a bi person in a different-sex relationship, check out this guide from Family Equality.
Addendum: Canada looks to be similar to the U.S. in terms of the proportion of bi parents. A 2021 study based on the Canadian Community Health Survey found that bi people were twice as likely as gay and lesbian people to be parents living with at least one child under the age of 18. (I could not find numbers for the number of bi Canadian parents overall, including those with adult children.)
Amazing so few lesbian couples are having children. Why?
Well, I think “so few” depends on who you’re comparing them with. Lesbians are twice as likely to have children as gay men, according to the Pew research. They’re less likely to have children than bi women, true, which I’m guessing is because more (though not all) bi women are partnered with someone who can provide sperm, making it much easier to get pregnant.