- Conference
- 2025 National LGBT+ Conference
- Date
- 23 July 2025
- Decision
- Carried
Conference believes that bi+ erasure and the concept of the “invisible B” in LGBT+ continues to be a workplace issue for many who identify under the bisexual plus (bi+) umbrella term.
Policies will often refer to the protected characteristic of sexual orientation and provide basic protection from discrimination, but rarely do they include references to bi+ phobia or bi+ erasure. This negatively impacts on the treatment of bi+ people, both as workers and service users.
A TUC report in 2024 identified that “bisexual workers are less likely to be open with anyone at work about their sexual orientation with 39% saying this compared to 14% for lesbian and gay workers.”
Bi+ people can be exposed to offensive assumptions about their sexual orientation, denial of a validity of existence, or inappropriate sexual advances. In addition to this, the Equality Act 2010 as it stands does not provide any protections for our asexual (ace) and aromantic (aro) identities, who are organised in UNISON under the umbrella term a-spec.
These assumptions, and lack of protections can also impact on the care bi+ people receive when using public services such as health care or requesting additional support in the workplace. Bi+ people are disproportionately affected by mental health including depression, suicide and self-harm. These harms are exacerbated by the bi+-phobia and Monosexism (the belief that attraction to people of one gender is more legitimate, more valid, or better).
Sexual and gynaecological health is another area of anxiety, especially for the a-spec community. Bi+ erasure and monosexism amongst many service providers deters bi+ members from seeking prophylactic diagnostic treatment.
At UNISON, we are proud to have a bi+ caucus and our work on a-spec identities leads the way within the trade union movement.
We need to ensure that the protections our bi+ members deserve are written into workplace policies so that there can be no doubt that bi+ phobia, bi+ erasure and ace/aro discrimination will be treated seriously and not tolerated within the public sector.
We call upon the National LGBT+ Committee to:
1)Work with UNISON LGBT+ regional groups to highlight the need for policies to specifically refer to bi+-phobia, bi+-erasure and ace/aro discrimination.
2)Encourage LGBT+ branch officers to review and identify relevant policies in their workplace to check if they are inclusive of bi+ identities.
3)Encourage regional LGBT+ groups to promote the a-spec training to educate branches on the specific challenges our ace/aro members face within the workplace.