Lesbians & Bisexual Women: A History of Tension & Solidarity
This article discusses experiences of stigma, discrimination, and biphobia. Read with care.
Looking for the Past to Understand the Present
I don’t remember the first time I looked in the archives for evidence of how bisexual people have been treated over the years. It couldn’t have been long after I saw one too many Tinder profiles from someone proudly declaring they were a lesbian who wouldn’t date a bisexual woman. Or after another conversation in a queer space where I was afraid to mention my sexuality because bisexual people were treated like a liability - something that made me less trustworthy or less committed. Or after yet another incident where someone suggested my relationship with a man made me less queer, as though this could be used to determine my authenticity.
By the time I reached the archives, I had already accumulated too many of these moments, and they shaped how I read everything - each finding like scaffolding that upheld the stigma and exclusion I’d been navigating for years. I didn’t reach for the archives as a researcher trying to find something from the past; I reached for them as someone desperately trying to understand how patterns of biphobia were built, justified, and sustained.
Lesbian Separatism and the Politics of Legitimacy
And it’s from that place that I find myself arriving at moments like this: 1971, New York City’s Town Hall, where feminists Jill Johnston, Jacqueline Ceballos, Germaine Greer, and Diana Trilling take the stage. They are joined by moderator Norman Mailer, who has just published The Prisoner of Sex, his response to the rise of second‑wave feminism.
They are there for a public debate, A Dialogue on Women’s Liberation, and Jill Johnston has stepped up to the lectern. After her introductory remarks, she says, “All women are lesbians except those who don’t know it naturally.” Rather than following the expected structure of a debate with arguments and rebuttals, Johnston abandons the entire format. She reads parts of her own free‑association writing. She jokes. At one point another woman joins her on stage and they embrace before rolling around on the ground.
All the while, Mailer grows impatient and demands that Johnston adhere to the time limits imposed on speakers. His annoyance is palpable. Johnston refuses and ultimately exits the stage, leaving the event altogether.
The first time I watch the scene unfold in Town Bloody Hall, I instinctively describe it as chaotic. On reflection though, I realise what I’m noticing is actually defiance. Johnston is rejecting boundaries imposed by a man who has claimed authority to decide what counts as legitimate feminist discourse. It becomes clear to me that Johnston is positioning lesbianism as more than a sexual orientation - it’s political. From this perspective, Johnston’s words and actions aren’t chaotic at all; they are an early articulation of a worldview that portrayed lesbianism as the most committed form of women’s liberation.
Just two years later Johnston published Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution. In it, she calls for a break from men altogether, framing relationships with men as evidence of political compromise and lesbianism as a feminist imperative. This ideology comes to be known as lesbian separatism, and Johnston’s book is later revered by many as its manifesto.
This is precisely where bisexual women become collateral. By treating any attachment to men as political contamination, separatist thinking created a framework in which bisexual women were rendered inherently suspect.
To be clear, Johnston alone was not responsible for the full architecture of this ideology, nor for the decades of tension that followed. But her work did help crystallise a political imagination in which lesbianism was deemed the most feminist sexuality. By contrast, bisexuality was cast as a site of doubt. This had implications for movements globally.
Biphobia in Community Archives
In 1973, the Melbourne Radicalesbian Conference was held in Sorrento, Victoria. In a written account of the conference, Chris Sitka recalls that the paper on bisexuality was the most controversial at the entire event. Sitka writes:
“Our resentment towards the Bisexual paper stemmed from the fact that we were reclaiming our lesbianism. That was the oppression we were fighting. Bisexuality might only be possible after the revolution. Meanwhile bisexuals were only trying to reap the privileges of heterosexuality while enjoying the benefits of lesbianism.”
These impacts reverberate far beyond the 1970s, shaping enduring patterns of biphobia, gatekeeping, and the persistent questioning of bisexual women’s legitimacy in feminist and queer worlds. The May 1993 issue of Lesbians on the Loose offers a vivid record of how lesbian separatist thinking rippled through community discourse over the decades, shaping who was seen as legitimate, who was welcomed, and who was pushed to the margins.
In a piece titled In Two Minds, the author acknowledges that bisexual people have been invisibilised in gay and lesbian communities. However, they also argue that bisexual people benefit from heterosexual privilege, and claim that when a woman comes out as bisexual her partner at least “knows what the risks are,” meaning the presumed possibility that she might leave the relationship for a man. The author also asks, “What are bisexual rights anyways… how much energy do we want to put into coalition with bisexuals and how much are they prepared to work on our issues if we do?”
Here we see the author contending with the idea that bisexual people’s marginalisation is somehow justified - that exclusion is a reasonable safeguard, suspicion is a form of self‑protection, and that bisexual people must prove their political value.
Research That Challenges Old Assumptions
It’s important to note that research has found that bisexual and pansexual people have high rates of poor mental health compared to gay, lesbian, and heterosexual counterparts. Research has also found that bisexual people in relationships perceived as heterosexual have poorer mental health than those in same‑sex relationships. These findings directly unsettle long‑standing claims that bisexual people benefit from heterosexual privilege.
The same May issue features another piece in which the author goes to the Leichhardt Hotel to ask lesbians if they would date a bisexual woman. The responses are eerily similar to rhetoric I’ve seen across dating apps in recent years, with a majority saying that they wouldn’t. These responses range from:
“I don’t want to go out with someone who has part of their energy directed at men.”
“Women who like women have a better understanding of women. If they have an understanding of men it doesn’t count.”
“No definitely not. It’s too dodgy. Emotionally risky.”
The continuity across decades is striking. Even on mainstream LGBTQIA+ social media pages today, bi+ women continue to be excluded, shamed, and treated as if our presence somehow destabilises queer communities. The influence of separatist thinking remains recognisable.
“The same anxieties. The same gatekeeping. The same wariness”
Solidarity as Resistance
These ideas don’t go unchecked though. Directly to the left of the piece from the Leichhardt Hotel is an article written by two women from the South Australian Bisexual Network. In it they insist that bisexual people are not a threat to lesbian communities but essential partners in collective struggle, writing:
“In our joint struggle against the worldwide patriarchy, we need as much power as we can get. This is available to us as solidarity.”
They argue that bisexuality is not a liability and that coalition building is what enables communities to resist patriarchal violence. In doing so, they offer an alternative trajectory — one that understands power as shared, relational, and built through connection. It’s always telling when bisexual people are made to argue for their own inclusion, a demand that has long marked the fault line of queer movement politics and the policing of community boundaries.
In her article Bisexual women and the “threat” to lesbian space: Or what if all the lesbians leave, the late Dr Sharon Dale Stone reflects on her experience in separatist movements:
“It is wrong, I am persuaded, to categorically dismiss bisexual women as inherently untrustworthy — a threat to lesbian space…”
These words open a door that separatism has tried to bolt shut, and that is exactly why solidarity matters. When separatist spaces treat bisexual women as a threat, they aren’t just policing identity or community — they also narrow the political imagination for LGBTQIA+ liberation altogether. Solidarity is the antidote to that narrowing. Solidarity recognises that lesbians and bi+ women are shaped by the same patriarchal structures, that our struggles are entangled and our futures interdependent. Our work towards liberation is strengthened by showing up for one another.
“Solidarity is the antidote to narrowing our political imagination”
Intertwined Futures
We see evidence of this all around us. From Stonewall to the first Mardi Gras. From responding to HIV/AIDS to showing up for trans rights. Lesbians and bisexual women have always been in movement together. Our struggles are intertwined.
I think about all the friendships and love that have held our communities together — the quiet, everyday solidarities that never make it into the archive but shape how we survive. The ones who sit beside each other at organising meetings, take to the streets together, or maybe even fall in love. When lesbians and bisexual women choose each other, we enact a kind of solidarity that is both political and deeply personal. It’s a reminder that our futures are linked, and that the work of liberation is strongest when we refuse the narratives that tried to keep us apart.
