5 Barriers To Healthcare For Black Bisexual Women

#1. Healthcare Isn’t Always Accessible or Helpful

My home state of South Carolina has yet to accept the Medicaid expansion. For a poor bisexual like myself, this means choosing between getting the root canal I’ve been putting off or buying groceries. Accessing mental health services as an uninsured person is like running through an endless maze. The outdated lists of healthcare providers, the lack of POC mental health practitioners, and the unaffordability of these services all deter folks from seeking treatment.

#2. Treatments Are Actively Biphobic

With Obamacare, more bisexual people will have access to healthcare, but what does that mean if healthcare providers aren’t queer-competent? Queer-incompetent health providers put bisexual folks’ well-being at risk with their ignorance.I visited a therapist a few months ago who seemed helpful at first, yet later attributed my bisexual identity to “seeking love from all the wrong places”. And my former therapist fed into stereotypes of the “confused bisexual/secret straight woman” and tried to convince me to pick a side.

#3. Facing Judgmental Doctors

My first STI screening was at my alma mater’s infirmary. Before this, I didn’t have health insurance. I lacked familiarity with the seemingly awkward, invasive questions the doctor asked.Once I arrived at my doctor’s office she immediately told me my number of sexual partners was high. Interestingly enough, the inflection in her voice made her statement seem like a question. As a young, bisexual, Black hottie with a libido, it should be no surprise I’m having a lot of sex. I came to the infirmary for a simple STI test, not a morality lecture.

#4. Assumed Gender(s) Of My Partner(s)

“Do you sleep with men?” I never know how to take this question. I want to ask, “do you mean people with penises or folks who identify as cis men?” Health providers must come up with a better way to pose questions to patients, such as talking directly about body parts involved in contact.My doctors don’t always acknowledge that some of my partners are trans and some don’t fit into the gender binary.In my experience, straight healthcare providers are quicker to understand gay and lesbian identities than they are to understand bisexuality, pansexuality, and queerness. Like straightness, gay and lesbian identities are monosexual. Mainstream understanding of gayness isn’t enough to support bisexual, pansexual and queer folks because, simply stated, monosexual identity is wholly different from bi- or pan- sexual identities.

 #5. Lack of Understanding That Racism Impacts Health

Combine bisexuality with Blackness and you get intersectional levels of oppression. For Black bisexual women, we experience a hypersexualized gaze from partners. This often leads to high levels of sexual and physical violence from our partners and peers.The rate of sexual violence among bisexual women is double that of gay, lesbian, and heterosexual populations. Consider the rate of domestic violence that Black women already face in addition to a queer sexuality and you get a whole lot of violence. And the statistics for trans folks, many of whom are bisexual, are worse.  According to the Anti-Violence Project trans folks account for 72% of the victims of hate crimes in the United States.