Bisexual Women's Discrimination and Mental Health Outcomes: The Roles of Resilience and Collective Action

Using an additive intersectional perspective, this study examined the roles of antibisexual discrimination and sexist experiences in relation to bisexual women's psychological distress and well-being. In addition, group- (i.e., feminist and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer [LGBTQ] collective action) and individual-level (i.e., resilience) protective factors were examined in these respective links. A total of 304 predominantly White, bisexual women participated in this study. At the bivariate level, results suggested that both antibisexual discrimination and sexist experiences were significantly related to more psychological distress. In addition, resilience and involvement in feminist and LGBTQ activities were related to more psychological well-being. When entered into a hierarchical regression analysis, sexism was uniquely positively related to psychological distress, whereas resilience and collective action were uniquely negatively related to distress. In addition, resilience moderated the sexism-distress link, such that the positive relationship became nonsignificant at high levels of resilience. In addition, resilience and collective action were uniquely positively related to psychological well-being. Results demonstrate the importance of attending to the role of discriminatory (i.e., antibisexual and sexist) experiences in bisexual women's lives. Moreover, results suggest that resilience may be an important individual-level protective factor that may aid in bisexual women's psychological health. Public Significance Statement Results from this study suggested that both anti-bisexual and sexist discrimination enhance psychological distress among bisexual women. In addition, individual- (i.e., resilience) and group-level (i.e., LGBTQ and feminist collective action) protective factors were related to less psychological distress and more psychological well-being. Last, results suggested that resilience may be an important variable to attend to in bisexual women's lives, as it also buffered the link between sexism and psychological distress.