A very happy Bisexual Visibility Day to all bi parents, who make up the largest segment of LGBTQ parents! Just how large? Let’s look at the latest numbers, the experiences of bi parents, and a few resources for and about bi parents.
A July report, “LGBTQ Parenting in the US,” from UCLA’s Williams Institute found a total of 2.57 million LGBTQ parents of minors. Bisexual women comprise 61% of that, and bisexual men 11%. That means there are (rounding) approximately 1.57 million bi women and 283,000 bi men parents of minors, or a total of 1.85 million bi parents of minors.
Of course, many bi people may have children who are grown or living elsewhere. The Williams parenting study also found that 40.7% of bi people have ever had a child. If we look at another Williams report from late last year, we find that there are about 13.9 million LGBTQ adults in the U.S. And a Gallup poll from earlier this year found that 57.3% of LGBTQ adults identified as bisexual. 57.3% of 13.9 million equals 8 million bisexual adults. 40.7% of 8 million would give us about 3.2 million bisexual adults who ever had a child.
But wait: A recent Pew study found that 4% of U.S. adults are bisexual, and 36% of them are parents to children of any age. If we use federal data showing that there are 262 million adults in the U.S., 4% of that gives us a total of 10.5 million bi adults; 36% of 10.5 million gives us about 3.8 million bisexual adults who ever had a child.
It’s not surprising that different methodologies (and cross-referencing multiple studies, which I’m doing rather flippantly here) gives us somewhat different results. It seems reasonable, however, to say there are probably more than 3 million bi adults who have ever had a child.
The Experiences of Bi Parents
Despite the vastly greater numbers of bi parents, however, they face specific disparities, the Williams parenting study found. Bisexual parents of minors are more likely to live in poverty than their lesbian, gay, or trans parent peers (although LGBTQ parents in general are more likely to be living in poverty than LGBTQ non-parents and straight cisgender parents).
The study also found that over half (53%) of LGBTQ parents of minors are partnered with a different gender, cisgender person; it seems reasonable to assume that most of those are bi (although some could be lesbians and gay men still in different-sex relationships). And while over half (53%) of married LGBTQ parents are cis bisexual women, 44% of bisexual women parents are single mothers (never married and not in an unmarried partnership). (For comparison, 40% of lesbian parents and 29% of straight women parents are single mothers.)
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 that 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 study concluded. The youngest group of bisexual women, however, reported more community connectedness than bisexual women of other age groups, which is a hopeful sign.
Making Room
We lesbians and gay men need to try harder to welcome and include bi parents 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 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 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, religion, 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.
Resources for and About Bi Parents
- 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.
- Lewis Oakley’s “Ask a Bi Dad” column at Bi.org sometimes covers topics specific to parents, such as “When Should I Come Out to My Child?“
- If you’re looking for kids’ books with bi representation, have a look at my Database of LGBTQ Family Books, filtered by the various “Bisexual [+gender]” tags—start typing “bisexual” into the Tags box and the options will appear. You can filter further by the age categories. There are very few picture books with clear bi representation (this biography of Freddie Mercury, which mentions both a former girlfriend and Mercury’s partner Jim, is a rare exception, though it never uses the terms “bi” or “bisexual”), but there are a happily increasing number of middle-grade titles with young bi characters and/or their bi parents.