By Oakley Ayden
Dr. Lisa Speidel’s newly-released book, Bisexuality Beyond Binaries: Celebrating Multiple Bisexual Identities in a World of Erasure, is an academia-meets-anthology piece, offering up a compilation of theoretical research and personal narratives which shine fresh light onto the lived experiences of bisexual people. Speidel (an associate professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Virginia, and a Certified Sexuality Educator) wrote and compiled this book in hopes that it “will help sex therapists, students, and educators enhance their inclusive and supportive practices” and “be of immense interest to bisexual people so they may see diverse realities, celebrating stories of resistance and joy.” For the most part, the book very much lives up to Speidel’s intentions—and often exceeds them.
Bisexuality Beyond Binaries begins with an in-depth breakdown of terminology and historical context shared through an intersectional lens, laying the foundation for further discussion around topics such as monosexism, bisexual erasure, and biphobia. The evolution of the term “bisexual” is explored, with Bi Women Quarterly’s Robyn Ochs’ definition—“the potential to be attracted romantically and/or sexually to people of more than one gender, not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way or to the same degree”—being noted as “the definition most commonly used today.”
While written in an academic style, Speidel’s clear, easy-to-comprehend way of explaining things keeps the book accessible to readers both inside and outside the world of academia. After a thorough introduction to bisexuality, the book moves through 12 different sections, each one addressing how an identity or lived experience intersects with bisexual identity. The areas of exploration are vast, and include gender-diverse identities, intimate partner violence, aging, disability, religion, media representation, non-monogamy, kink, sex work, dating apps, masculinity, femininity, porn, marriage, and mental health.
Each chapter begins with academic-style writing that provides depth and context around the chapter’s subject—all penned by Speidel, with the exception of two chapters (“Mental Health Issues and the Impact of Violence,” written by Speidel and Emilia Couture, and “Disabilities,” written by Katelyn Friedline). Afterwards, each chapter moves into what could truly be described as the soul of the book: essays and interviews from over thirty contributors, all of whom are part of the beautifully eclectic bi+ community, each offering up authentic truths from their lived experiences. From pieces that skew more literary (such as the raw, riveting essays crafted by Janis Luna) to interviews between Speidel and powerhouses within the bi+ community (including an insightful conversation with activist and LGBTQ+ movement elder ABilly S. Jones-Hennin conducted shortly before his death in 2024), the mix of writing styles and perspectives allows readers to experience and understand the vast complexity of the bi+ community.
While the book as a whole is engaging and moving, it’s not without flaw. The section that perhaps holds the most opportunity for improvement is the section on disabilities. While the theology offered up by Katelyn Friedline at the top of the chapter was smart, deeply insightful, and drew interesting connections between bisexuality and disability, the chapter as a whole lacked a bit of the intersectionality and diversity that Dr. Speidel so masterfully included throughout the rest of the book. Most noticeably, there is no exploration around the intersections of disability, bisexuality, and race present in the chapter. And while both personal narrative contributors (Friedline and Shiri Eisner) powerfully shared their lived experiences of being physically disabled, the decision to only include stories of people living with physical/mobility disabilities in a book that is otherwise diversely inclusive gives the false impression that physical disabilities are the only types of disabilities—or the only ones worth sharing stories about. If additional editions of this book are published in the future, it would be worth applying a proper cross-disability framework to this section, adding onto the beautiful pieces offered by Friedline and Eisner with accounts from bisexual disabled folks with sensory, intellectual, psychiatric, neurodivergent, and/or learning disabilities.
The bottom line? While flawed at a few points, this book is worthy of a spot on every bisexual person’s bookshelf. It’s a piece that can be read through chronologically from start-to-finish, or dipped into intermittently as an interest spikes around a particular subject. Through each story shared, bisexual erasure and invisibility are forcefully combatted. But as writer and activist Shiri Eisner reminds us in their interview with Speidel: “Visibility without liberation is dangerous and makes you a target for violence and oppression.” So, as we as the bi+ community collectively take in the power of this book and the voices it lifts, let us also remember to use this collective force as fuel for authentic, intersectional liberation.
Oakley Ayden is an autistic bisexual writer and community organizer from North Carolina in the U.S. Her work has appeared in South Dakota Review, Bending Genres, Ghost City Review, and elsewhere. She lives in California with her two children and too many foster cats.