Journal of Bisexuality

ISSN: 1529-9716 (Print) 1529-9724 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjbi20

Bisexuality, Bad Girls, and Bullying

Susan W. Woolley

To cite this article: Susan W. Woolley (2020) Bisexuality, Bad Girls, and Bullying, Journal of
Bisexuality, 20:1, 40-65, DOI: 10.1080/15299716.2020.1711840

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15299716.2020.1711840

Published online: 14 Jan 2020.

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JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY
2020, VOL. 20, NO. 1, 40–65
https://doi.org/10.1080/15299716.2020.1711840

Bisexuality, Bad Girls, and Bullying

Susan W. Woolley
Department of Educational Studies, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Bisexual-identified students face ongoing challenges such as proper femininity; sexual
denial of their identity, negative stereotypes, biphobia, and harassment; gender
sexual harassment at school. Stigma and denial of bisexuality regulation; ethnography;
secondary school
contribute to the erasure and invisibility of bisexual people,
resulting in limited role models and positive representation for
bisexual youth. Based on three years of ethnographic research
in a U.S. public high school, this article examines how social
regulation of gender and sexuality work to reinforce notions of
proper femininity and uphold cis-heteronormativity.

“I get sexually harassed all the time. I just really don’t care. Tim, who I don’t like,
slaps my butt, calls me a whore and a slut like all the time, but everybody does,”
said Cristina.
A handful of the girls smiled and exchanged knowing looks, some choked back
laughter, others coughed or cleared their throats, and a few girls uttered, “Yeah,” as
Cristina spoke. Rolling her eyes, Alea stood up and exclaimed, “I need a bathroom
break!” as she left the group.
“I mean, do you really not care, or … ? [ … ] What do you guys do in those
situations?” asked Ms. Rogers.
“You push the guy!” responded Denise.
“That’s what they want. Go tell a teacher that you are being grabbed in the halls,”
instructed Ms. Rogers.
“I mean, I don’t think a guy would do anything like that, like I said, if you were not
giving him attention. I don’t think he would just walk up to you and (making a
grabbing motion with her hand), ‘Hey Cristina!’ You know what I mean?” Autumn
said directing her response toward Cristina.
“I don’t give them attention though,” Cristina retorted.
“If you are showing something off or if you’re dressed a certain way or acting a
certain way then I’m sure they think, ‘I can do what I want to her because she’s like
that,’” explained Autumn.
“Or it’s your reputation … ” Liz added.

CONTACT Susan W. Woolley swoolley@colgate.edu Department of Educational Studies, Colgate

University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346, USA
ß 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
 JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY 41

“What Autumn said. Yeah, I think people treat you the way you carry yourself. Like,
if you carry yourself a certain way, people will treat you a certain way” Jamila said.
[field note SSC4.12.10A, audio-recording and transcript #VN520012Bc, April
12, 2010].

This conversation between Cristina and her classmates was reflective of the
ongoing gender and sexual regulation that Cristina faced every day at
school. On this particular day, Ms. Rogers had taken the girls1 to the
library to discuss sexual harassment and assault while the boys had a work-
shop with a man from a community rape and domestic violence service for
women. Before Cristina could even finish her account of a classmate grab-
bing her buttocks, the girls jumped into doubting her story and blaming
the incident on her behavior and dress. Many of the girls looked at each
other as if to communicate a shared disbelief or evaluation through their
eyes, and their laughter indicated that they were not sympathetic to
Cristina’s experiences of sexual harassment. Instead, Cristina was accused
of giving too much attention, showing off parts of her body through
skimpy or revealing clothing, and having a reputation that invites such sex-
ual advances and assault. While some of these accusations were veiled as
“dressing a certain way,” “acting a certain way,” or “carrying yourself a cer-
tain way,” it was clear from this and other conversations that “a certain
way” euphemistically referred to Cristina’s sexual identity, gender presenta-
tion, and expression of her sexuality.
In this article, I engage the research question: How do the experiences of
bisexual-identified cisgender girls inform our conceptualization of bullying or
harassment in the context of everyday social regulation of femininity and
heteronormativity in school? I begin by outlining literature about “proper
femininity,” sexual harassment and LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-
gender, intersex, and queer) students, the unique experiences of bisexual stu-
dents, and bullying discourse and gender. Next I discuss my research
methodology and positionality. I argue that femininity for bisexual-identified
cisgender girls is highly regulated through physical contact, sexual harass-
ment, and discourse. I examine stereotypes of bisexuality, the role that the
denial of bisexual identity plays in its erasure, as well as how questioning
individual choices in dress and behavior operates to de-legitimize and stig-
matize bisexual girls. Finally, I discuss the implications of my findings for
educational practice and policy.

Literature review: Gender and sexual regulation in schools

Proper femininity
Social evaluation of girls’ respectability and performance of “proper femi-
ninity” can have social effects and consequences. As research demonstrates,
42 S. W. WOOLLEY

girls position themselves and others in social hierarchies through regulative

discourses around sexuality, appearance, and behavior in order to construct
and uphold notions of idealized femininity (Kehily, Mac An Ghaill,
Epstein, & Redman, 2002; Ringrose & Renold, 2010; Youdell, 2006).
Performing proper femininity within heteronormativity means that girls
and women must be objects of male sexual desire or face social censure
and suspicion since transgression of heteronormativity constitutes gender
transgression as well (Butler, 1990/1999; Fuss, 1991; Rubin, 1984/1993).
Performing proper femininity means that girls are expected to be nice,
good, moral, caring, nurturing, sexually innocent, and respectable (Driscoll,
2002; Kehily et al., 2002; Renold, 2005; Ringrose, 2008a; Tolman, 2002;
Walkerdine, 1997). Regulating female sexuality and femininity through
dress occurs in social interaction as well as in law (Whisner, 1982).
Through institutional apparatuses like school dress codes and decency laws,
schools and society determine what constitutes “immodest” and inappropri-
ate dress, the limitations of accepted skin exposure, and authorized sanc-
tions for violations of such codes. The precept that female sexuality incites
violence calls for regulating female appearance and sexuality. Victim blam-
ing (e.g., “What was she wearing?”) works to legitimize sexual harassment
and sexual assault as “normal” responses to the temptation of women’s
bodies and clothing.

Sexual harassment and LGBTIQ students

Sexual harassment acts as a form of social control to maintain and police bin-
ary gender and heteronormative boundaries and hierarchies (Lahelma, 2002).
Research shows that sexual harassment is normalized in schools due to the fre-
quency or daily nature of incidents and the silence in response to such behav-
iors (Harris Interactive, 2001; Larkin, 1994; Timmerman, 2003). Students who
identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning experience more bullying
(79% vs. 50%) and more sexual harassment (71% vs. 32%) than non-LGBQ-
identified students (Gruber & Fineran, 2008). Quotidian sexual harassment
and bullying have negative health effects—cisgender-heterosexual girls and
LGBTIQ students generally have poorer self-esteem, mental health, physical
health, and symptoms related to trauma (Greytak, Kosciw, & Diaz, 2009;
Gruber & Fineran, 2008; Kosciw, Greytak, Zongrone, Clark, & Truong, 2018;
Meyer, 2009). Sexual harassment and bullying have negative material effects—
83% of young women experience sexual harassment and 20% of them avoid
school or certain classes in order to stay away from their tormentors (Harris
Interactive, 2001). Moreover, LGBTIQ students are often targets for school
graffiti, vandalism, and ostracism that put them at higher risk for depression,
 JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY 43

stress, anxiety, dropping out of school, and suicide (California Safe Schools
Coalition, 2004; Kosciw et al., 2018; Meyer, 2009).
In addition to the sexual harassment Cristina experienced as a cisgender
girl, because Cristina self-identified as bisexual, she faced a number of the
challenges that bisexual people may experience both in and out of school.
GLSEN’s 2017 National School Climate Survey found that bisexual students
experienced higher levels of sexual harassment compared to gay, lesbian,
and questioning students, and were less likely to report it (Kosciw et al.,
2018). Research demonstrates that bisexuals are subjected to biphobia,
social stigma, negative representation and stereotyping, as well as monosex-
ism, or the notion that one must be attracted to only one sex (Alarie &
Gaudet, 2013; Berbary & Guzman, 2018; Bostwick, 2012; Bronn, 2001; Elia,
2014a; Hertlein, Hartwell, & Munns, 2016; Legge, Flanders, & Robinson,
2018; Roberts, Horne, & Hoyt, 2015; Wandrey, Mosack, & Moore, 2015).
Underrepresentation in the form of erasure and silence as well as negative
representation and problematic misrepresentation of bisexuality haunt
bisexual people as they may not see themselves accurately or positively rep-
resented in popular culture, literature, or discourse (Alarie & Gaudet, 2013;
Berbary & Guzman, 2018; Epstein, 2014; Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2011, 2014;
Quinlivan, 1999).
Stereotypes such as bisexuality as a temporary transition phase on one’s
way to becoming fully homosexual, bisexuality as just a trend, and female
bisexuality as performed for heterosexual male pleasure damage and limit
possibilities for identity and representation of bisexual people (Alarie &
Gaudet, 2013; Angelides, 2001; Barker & Langdridge, 2008; Pallotta-
Chiarolli, 2011). Stereotypes of bisexuals as hypersexual, unable to resist
temptation, and promiscuous because they have more potential partners
than monosexuals, perpetuate monosexism as well as binegativity (Alarie &
Gaudet, 2013; Berbary & Guzman, 2018). Biphobia and binegativity, or
negative attitudes toward bisexuality and bisexual people, are experienced
in both straight and LGQ communities (Mulick & Wright, 2011). Maria
Pallotta-Chiarolli (2011) found that for the students in her research,
“bisexuality fell into the gaps between the binary of heterosexuality and
homosexuality that informs anti-homophobic policies, programs, and prac-
tices in schools such as in health education, sexuality education, and stu-
dent welfare programs. These absences and erasures leave bisexual girls
feeling silenced and invisibilised” (p. 3). Moreover, the invisibility of
bisexuality in education policy impacts schools’ treatment of bisexual stu-
dents and sexuality education practices (Jones & Hillier, 2014).
Erasure of bisexuality in education has contributed to misrecognition,
denial, and invisibilizing of bisexual identity (Berbary & Guzman, 2018;
Jones & Hillier, 2014; McAllum, 2014, 2018; Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2014).
44 S. W. WOOLLEY

McAllum (2018) conceptualized the misrecognition of female bisexuality as

promiscuous, deviant, and subject to repudiation in her term bi-misogyny.
Bi-misogyny encompasses a range of discriminatory and exclusionary
behavior, from negation and denial of one’s identity to sexual harassment
and verbal abuse (McAllum, 2014, 2018). The long-standing institutional
erasure of bisexuality in schooling has been found to have a negative
impact on the physical, social, and emotional-mental health of bisexual
youth (Elia, 2014a), as bisexual erasure and invisibility enact social and psy-
chological violence (Elia, 2014b).

Bullying discourse and gender

The prevalence of sexual harassment and bullying of cisgender-heterosexual
girls and LGBTIQ youth indicate an urgent need to address sexism, hetero-
sexism, and hegemonic binary gender in schools. The problem, however, is
more complex than a few “bad” individuals who bully. Mayo (2014) writes,
“Research on bullying and bias shows just how ubiquitous and damaging
heteronormativity and gender normativity are, but bias and harassment are
processes that are also ineffective: not everyone bullies, not everyone con-
forms” (p. 48). Whereas bullying is defined as “repeatedly and over time
intentionally inflicting injury on another individual,” harassment is consid-
ered “biased behaviors, intentional or unintentional, targeted at an individ-
ual or no specific targets” (Meyer, 2009, p. 3). As such, key distinctions
between bullying and harassment include the actor’s intentions, the extent
of biased and injurious behaviors, and the intended or unintended targets.
Bullying discourses construct binaries that can pathologize girls who
bully in gendered, racialized, and class-specific ways and place responsibil-
ity for social and behavioral transgressions onto the shoulders of those who
violate normative gender expectations (Ringrose & Renold, 2010). “Wild
girls” are sexualized as non-heterosexual or excessively sexual in a way that
oversteps the boundaries of proper femininity (Currie, Kelly, & Pomerantz,
2009). Any form of aggression demonstrated by girls tends to be marked
and diagnosed as pathological (Ringrose, 2006; Ringrose, 2008b; Ringrose
& Renold, 2010; Walkerdine, 1993) while there is understood to be “a hid-
den culture of girls’ aggression in which bullying is epidemic, distinctive,
and destructive” (Simmons, 2002, p. 3). In this hidden culture behaviors
like gossiping, backstabbing, manipulation, and passive aggression are the
norm amongst teenage girls, but being outwardly aggressive and violent is
what constitutes bullying. As such, Ringrose and Renold (2010) map what
they call, “the ‘normative cruelties’ inhering in heteronormative masculinity
and femininity—practices often sanctioned and required in schooling cul-
tures, but which are glossed over by the anti-bullying framework” (p. 591).
 JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY 45

Discourses of bullying and harassment individualize, pathologize, and

homogenize problematic behaviors (Currie et al., 2009). Bullying is treated
as an act done by an individual with psychological-adjustment problems;
bullying is pathologized as an epidemic in an otherwise healthy school sys-
tem and society; bullying done by boys is naturalized as “boys being boys”
and serves to socialize and toughen up boys for hegemonic masculinity;
and bullying discourses rely on the trope of the victim (Carlson, 2014).
Discourses of bullying may even unwittingly perpetuate and legitimize bul-
lying “to the extent that they do not bring a critical, cultural lens of a
social-justice vision to the anti-bullying project” (Carlson, 2014, p. 176).
Conceptualizing bullying and harassment within the systems of inequality
that they originate and perpetuate is more generative for the purposes of
social justice and educational equity. That is, bullying and harassment are
situated within white supremacy and settler colonialism—systems of power
that rest on and uphold hegemonic binary gender, hegemonic masculinity
and femininity, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, classism, ableism, monolin-
gualism, nativism, and racism. Bullying and harassment are patterns of dom-
inance embedded in unequal relations of power and control, which affect
everyone at school (Renold, 2005; Smith & Sharp, 2002). Dichotomous con-
structions of sexuality and gender have been vehicles of colonial oppression,
contributing to the erasure of those who transgress or live outside of such
binaries (Robinson, 2014).
Bullying constitutes exposure, repeatedly and over time, to negative
actions that intentionally inflict injury or discomfort on another individual
(Olweus, 1993). The discourse of bullying has shifted focus away from
rights onto the figure of the bully who is an individualized example of the
school’s and society’s problems (Stein, 2003). Because of their focus on
individual acts and actors, however, bullying policies and interventions can-
not address the more persistent and insidious forms of harassment that
occur in schools (Meyer, 2009). Moreover, bullying does not capture the
scope of the marginalization and institutional exclusion that LGBTIQ and
other minority youth experience (Mayo, 2014). The logic of bullying poli-
cies tends to be binary and thus, inherently limited, as if human experience
can be divided into heterosexual versus homosexual, hating versus liking
homosexuals (i.e., you are homophobic or not), and hating versus liking
homophobia (i.e., you are anti-homophobic or not) (Marshall, 2014).
Emerging from this, a gap in the bullying literature indicates the failure
of policy to capture the influences of larger social forces such as sexism,
homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia (Meyer, 2009). In this article, I
attempt to illuminate some of the insidious everyday forms of harass-
ment—gendered and sexualized—that bisexual girls experience in schools
that is not reflected in bullying policy. Bullying policy does not include the
46 S. W. WOOLLEY

daily gendered and sexual regulation and scrutiny of girls’ bodies and dress,
the in and out of group positioning done at the micro-level of interactions,
or the disbelief and denial of bisexual identity, which simultaneously erase
and delegitimize bisexual students’ experiences. My data demonstrates the
ways such regulation of girls’ gender and sexuality occurs in everyday inter-
actions as well as how the denial of bisexuality impacts students’ experien-
ces in school. In order to eliminate bullying and harassment, we need to
dove deeper into the heart of inequality in our society and schools. So,
what then constitutes bullying or harassment when everyday social regula-
tions and unequal power relations work to maintain social hierarchies in
which not everyone is equal? How do bullying and harassment perpetuate
social hierarchies and regulate social behavior? In the case of bisexual girls,
how do the regulation of proper femininity, the circulation of stereotypes,
and the erasure of bisexuality shape possibilities for identification and rep-
resentation in schools?

Methodology
My research is informed by educational anthropology, or ethnography as
methodology to shed light on educational processes and practices (Bogdan
& Biklen, 2007; Erickson, 1992; LeCompte & Goetz, 1982; Spindler &
Hammond, 2000; Spindler & Spindler, 1985). Ethnographic research yields
generative insights into the everyday lives of students as social agents and
as gendered and sexualized subjects in schools (Epstein, 1997; Ferguson,
2001; Goodwin, 2006; Mac An Ghaill, 1994; Martin, 1998; McCready, 2010;
Miceli, 2005; Pascoe, 2007; Renold, 2005; Thorne, 1993; Woolley, 2015;
Youdell, 2005). Ethnographic research considers the school as a key site for
the formation of gender and sexual identity through regulatory behaviors,
exclusionary practices, and penalties meted out for failing at heteronorma-
tivity or binary gender norms (Epstein, 1993; Goodwin, 2006; Mac An
Ghaill, 1994; McCready, 2010; Pascoe, 2007; Thorne, 1993; Woolley, 2015;
Youdell, 2006). Here, I wish to write as an ethnographer informed and
shaped by this lineage of rich ethnographic inquiry done in schools
and education.
For this work, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork for three years in a
public high school in Northern California. During my time at MacArthur
High School I observed and participated in the activities and meetings of
the gay-straight alliance (GSA), a club whose name reflected and repro-
duced the invisibility of anyone under the LGBTIQ umbrella who did not
identify as gay. The students later renamed their club the queer-straight
alliance (QSA) to address such erasure and to encompass more identities.
In addition to interviewing students affiliated with the club, I carried out
 JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY 47

participant-observation in three freshman social studies courses situated

across the school for one year. These courses dedicated a portion of their
curriculum—ranging from a couple days to a few months—to the study of
gender, sexuality, identity, adolescence, sex education, and LGBTIQ topics.
I audio and video-recorded classroom interactions, I photographed stu-
dents’ artwork and visual assignments, and I collected artifacts like student
writing and class work as well as GSA visibility fliers and t-shirts.
Additionally, I interviewed the teachers whose classes I observed as well as
teachers affiliated with the GSA student club. All interviews and classroom
recordings were transcribed into transcriptions that have served as the bulk
of the data set for this study. In this article, I discuss interactions I
recorded in Ms. Rogers’s classroom, which I observed three times a week
for one academic year.
My multi-sited ethnographic study was situated across various sites
within the high school, including the classroom, the student-led GSA club,
and common spaces like hallways, the cafeteria, and the courtyard (Marcus,
1995). I coupled ethnographic research with one-on-one interviewing of
students and teachers as well as focus group interviews with students.
Interviewing calls on participants to elaborate on their responses to open-
ended questions, to narrate their experiences, and to offer their interpreta-
tions (Seidman, 2013). Individual and focus group interviews gave me
insight into participants’ processes of meaning-making and explaining their
social worlds both individually and collectively. Complementing my ethno-
graphic observations, interviews, and artifact collection, audio and video-
recording classroom interactions allowed me to document those processes
in more detail and precision (Erickson, 1992). As cultural and material
records of information, artifacts helped to round out a picture of how
knowledge was generated, contested, and negotiated across sites like the
classroom and the GSA club (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). I coded my data
using emergent codes from the data set in the qualitative data analysis pro-
gram MaxQDA, and I looked for patterns across bisexual-identified stu-
dents as well as across sites for discussion about bisexuality such as the
classroom and GSA club activities. I analyzed language used to discuss
bisexuality and femininity.
The participants in this study include students and teachers in the classes
I observed as well as in the GSA. For the purpose of analysis, I have chosen
to focus on one student—Cristina—and her experience as a bisexual girl in
her school. Throughout this article, I draw on the voices of various stu-
dents—first Cristina’s classmates, and then later, her peers in the GSA who
confirm Cristina’s experience. In addition to Cristina’s experiences centered
in my analysis here, I also look at the experiences of a second bisexual-
identified girl who entered conversation with Cristina at a GSA panel in
48 S. W. WOOLLEY

her classroom—Diana. The cases of Cristina and Diana stood out as repre-
sentative of typical experiences that bisexual girls faced at this school and
in society, as well as representative of the larger trends in my data.
My positionality in this setting was as a researcher, an educator, and an
outsider. As a researcher, I was an outsider—or perhaps an “outsider with-
in” (Collins, 1986)—because I was not part of the school community as a
teacher, paraprofessional, student, or parent. My work as an educator for
over a decade at the time of this study shaped my line of questioning and
my interpretations as well as my attention to students’ experiences. As a
white cisgender woman with class mobility and from the ivory tower, I
experienced privilege in this school and was granted access to spaces, peo-
ple, and information. My subjectivity as a queer person who used to iden-
tify as a bisexual teenager greatly informed my understanding of Cristina’s
experiences and perspectives as well as my own interpretations. My age
represented the largest social distance between the youth in my study and
me. I started this research at the age of thirty, and I intentionally dressed
down, wearing casual clothing like cargo pants, t-shirts, and hooded sweat-
shirts, so as to minimize my age and not to be mistaken as a teacher or
authority figure in the school. I drew on ways of enacting a least-adult
identity across age differences and generational lines by trying to not stand
out as an adult—or at least, not as an adult who would discipline, pass
judgment, or offer unsolicited advice (Mandell, 1988; Thorne, 1993). I was,
however, called on by the students and the teachers to contribute from
time to time to discussion and to offer advice on pedagogy, curriculum,
and extracurricular leadership.

Bisexuality and proper femininity in everyday schooling experiences

Proper femininity and the regulation of girls’ bodies and dress
Ms. Rogers picked up the conversation with the girls in the library and asked, “Well,
what if you want to attract attention? Because you’re teenage girls and you are
coming into your sexuality and you want to put on something that is sexy or cute or
this or that? That doesn’t mean somebody can slap your ass. I mean, how do you
deal with that?” Ms. Rogers continued, “What if you want sexual attention, but you
don’t want sexual abuse? You know what I’m saying?”
Shavonne followed, “So you want the attention, you want him to slap you on your butt,
you just don’t want him to be, like, abusing? Maybe there’s no such thing as that … ”
Jamila responded, “Okay. But if that’s what you want, then it’s kind of like you tell
them not to display it all so that other people will go, ‘oh.’”
“Yeah, there’s like a certain boundary line,” Stacey added.
Autumn opened her eyes wide, raised her eyebrows, and looked disapprovingly at
Cristina, “Wear stuff that covers up your legs. It’s too much legs going on around here.”
 JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY 49

Cristina pursed her lips and loudly hummed, “Uh uhh,” shaking her head in
disagreement. On this rainy and cold day, Cristina was wearing a blue dress with
flowered print, a neckline that revealed a bit of cleavage, and a hemline cut at her
upper thigh. She had on knee-high socks and sneakers. The girls looked Cristina’s
body up and down, some rolled their eyes, others made eye contact and exchanged
knowing looks.
They continued the discussion. Jamila asked, “I mean, when girls show off their body
or whatever, like, what is the reason for doing that?”
“Well, I’m asking you,” Ms. Rogers responded.
Liz began, “Maybe they have a low self-esteem problem. Maybe they want attention
but then when they get it, they be like, ‘oh no, no no.’ That’s what you are proving
to guys—that you want that. That’s why you dress like that.”
Denise jumped in, “But sometimes it’s appropriate wearing a skirt like on a hot day
or if it’s nice weather, but not wearing booty skirts on rainy days and cold days. It’s
just like, ‘What ARE you thinking?!’ I see girls in the hallway wearing short skirts on
rainy days, and I’m just like, ‘What the hell are you thinking?!’”
Many of the girls erupted into laughter, some nodded in agreement with Denise.
Here, Denise threw shade at Cristina’s dress, criticizing her for wearing a short dress
on a cold rainy day while speaking as though she was rebuking other girls wearing
short skirts in such weather.
Alea added, “I’d probably be like, I’d probably call them a name, and say ‘oh, they
are taking all of the attention from the rest of us who actually dress the right way.’”
Many students responded at the same time. Some expressed surprise at Alea’s
conviction. “Damn!,” they said. One stated, “Alea is into it.” The girls repeated, “The
‘right’ way?” a few times as they thought about it. “No, Alea has a point,” some said.
Cristina loudly questioned, “The ‘right’ way?!”
“Well, yeah, I mean the right way is to wear pants,” responded Alea.
“Again, the ‘right’ way in quotation marks!” retorted Cristina.
Denise directed her comment at Cristina, “Who the hell wears a short skirt on a
rainy day? Just to show off your legs.”
Cristina said, “I’m wearing a dress. Fuck you guys!”
[field note SSC4.12.10A, audio-recording and transcript #VN520012Bc, April
12, 2010].

This was the second time on that particular day that I heard Cristina swear
at her classmates and dismiss their judgment of her. Cristina acknowledged
the girls were criticizing her clothing choice while talking about the issue
abstractly at the same time, and she called out the girls for judging her and
her clothing. Here, the girls positioned themselves and each other within a
social hierarchy, with Cristina at the bottom as the object of the girls’
scorn. They focused their attention on Cristina’s appearance and her failure
at proper femininity. Alea upheld a notion of proper femininity that rests
50 S. W. WOOLLEY

on dressing “the right way,” which includes wearing pants and covering up
one’s skin. The girls juxtaposed appropriate and inappropriate circumstan-
ces under which one may wear a short skirt—acceptable on a hot day, but
absolutely unacceptable in cold or rainy weather. Jamila grounded her
evaluation in the importance of modesty or not displaying everything for
others to see and comment on. The girls regulated Cristina’s dress by expli-
citly telling her to cover up her legs and asking her “What ARE you
thinking?!” while wearing a short dress on a cold rainy day. They also
reproached Cristina for showing off her legs and body which takes atten-
tion away from them, even though Ms. Rogers had opened up the possibil-
ity that trying to attract attention is not all bad or abnormal. The collective
admonishment of Cristina’s dress shored up notions of proper femininity
while also buttressing the girls’ social positions within the group as they
rallied together against Cristina.
While all this was happening, Jamila picked up a Rolling Stone magazine
with the cast of the television show “Glee” on the cover. The title said,
“Glee Gone Wild,” and the cast was arranged in an action shot reminiscent
of a Norman Rockwell cover illustration. Sue Sylvester was riding an old
cruiser bicycle, and Brittney was in a cheerleader skirt and sweater with a
pompom on her lap as she sat on Sue’s handlebars. Running behind them,
Finn was wearing a varsity sweater and jeans, and a black and white dog
followed. Mr. Schuester was crouching on a skateboard in his uniform of
sweater vest and khakis. In the center of all the activity Rachel Berry, the
protagonist, was dressed in her typical sexy schoolgirl outfit of a tight
sweater, knee-high socks, and short skirt. In this scene she was on roller
skates, and her short kilt flipped up as she was in skating motion, showing
the skin of her thighs, buttocks, and white underwear. Rachel Berry’s facial
expression was of coy surprise.
Jamila pointed to Rachel Berry and said, “Autumn, who does this remind you of?”
Autumn, Alea, and Shavonne laughed. Stacey chimed in, “Oh, can I see?!”
[field note SSC4.12.10A, audio-recording and transcript #VN520012Bc, April
12, 2010].

While the girls were discussing what constitutes modest dress and the
certain boundary line maintaining the appropriate display of skin, they
were evaluating Cristina’s penchant for short hemlines and criticizing her
for drawing attention to her body. Additionally, here the girls folded in
popular culture through a mainstream representation of heteronormative
adolescent romance and coming of age. The girls used the image of the
cast of Glee as a lens to deflect and reflect their assessment of Cristina’s
dress and behavior, showing off her thighs up to her buttocks like Rachel
Berry. By pointing out the magazine cover to each other and referencing a
 JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY 51

certain similarity between Rachel Berry and Cristina, the girls delineated a
few boundaries—between appropriate and inappropriate dress, between
proper and improper femininity, and between in-group membership as arbit-
ers of proper femininity and appropriate dress and those who fall outside of
the group, whose femininity and appearance are subject to evaluation.

Physical contact, sexual harassment, and “what exactly were you wearing?”
In addition to Cristina’s dress being the object of scrutiny, her behavior and
confidence contributed to her being judged, touched, and sexually harassed
by her classmates. Cristina was clear in her assessment of herself and in her
self-advocacy. In response to the girls’ questioning her clothing choices, she
said, “I have a lot of confidence in myself. So I can wear whatever I want to
wear. Like today, I know it’s raining and I’m wearing a dress. But I actually
like how it feels because I grew up in the rain and shorts, so I’m used to the
cold. I don’t care if it’s raining and I want to wear a dress. If I want to look
pretty, I want to look pretty” [field note SSC4.12.10A, audio-recording and
transcript #VN520012Bc, April 12, 2010]. Rejecting her classmates’ judgment,
Cristina asserted her confidence and her volition in choosing to dress how-
ever she wants. She appealed to what she is used to, what she is most com-
fortable in, and how she may want to appear.
At other times during class discussion, Cristina defended her choice of
dress by saying, “I may wear skimpy clothes sometimes, but that doesn’t
make me a whore and a skank. I wear short shorts and tube tops because
it’s comfortable for me. If she goes around sleeping with a lot of men, you
can call her a slut or a skank, but not if she’s just a tease or wears skimpy
clothes. I’ll admit I’m a tease” [field note SSC2.11.10A, February 11, 2010].
Drawing on slut discourse, Cristina distinguished between being considered
a whore, slut, or skank based on her sexual activity and being considered a
tease based on her behavior and skimpy clothing. She asserted that she was
not a whore or slut, but that she found short shorts and tube tops to be
comfortable.
Cristina often referred to her virginity in class discussions about sex
and sexuality as well as in everyday conversations with her classmates
about sex. Many adolescents talk about sex and sexuality during their side-
conversations in class, their playing and joking with each other, and their
relationships. In such conversations as well as in classroom discussions,
Cristina talked openly about her sexuality, her being a tease as she called it,
and her flirtatiousness. During a peer education panel put on by the stu-
dents in the gay-straight alliance, Cristina shared, “I didn’t realize I was
bisexual until the seventh grade when my friends suggested to me that I
could be because I flirted with like everybody. I thought I flirted with just
52 S. W. WOOLLEY

guys, but I actually flirted with girls, too” [field note QSC4.22.10B, audio-
recording and transcript #VN520026, April 22, 2010].
In my observations in her classroom for one year, I often saw Cristina
playing, flirting, teasing, touching, and bantering with her peers, as most
students participated to varying degrees in such sexual discourse. Some
days students playfully hit and chased each other, and it was not uncom-
mon for Cristina to be involved in such interactions. Physical contact
between the students was commonplace, but undoubtedly had rules and
meanings of their own. One day I noticed Jamila took Cristina’s hands,
and without speaking, cupped one hand and lifted it upward while slipping
their other hands behind Cristina’s back, putting their two bodies in an
interlocked ballroom dancing position. Jamila held onto Cristina’s body for
just a second before Cristina broke the connection. Looking at the ground,
Cristina moved away from Jamila’s contact [field note SSC9.21.09A,
September 21, 2009]. Later during that same class, Stacey sat on Cristina’s
lap as the students did group work. Girls touching, holding hands, dancing,
hugging, or sitting on each other’s laps was not uncommon and was not
typically commented on. Displays of affection were considered acceptable
between cisgender girls, especially if they could also demonstrate their het-
eronormativity and keep the interaction within the confines of compulsory
heterosexuality and binary gender. Sitting on Cristina’s lap or inviting her
to slow dance in class were moves saturated with meaning and more highly
visible because of Cristina’s bisexuality.
Sometimes the physical contact and playful interactions between Cristina
and others took on a more sexual nature or forceful tone. With her mascu-
line classmates, Cristina engaged in more overt displays of sexual contact
and play. One day I observed Jonathan hold Cristina’s arms behind her
back until she squirmed away. He then pulled her arms behind her back
again until she wriggled free. Next, Ryan grabbed Cristina’s arms twice.
The second time, Ryan put his arm around her shoulders, leaned in, and
kissed her cheek. Both Ryan and Jonathan put their hands on Cristina’s
shoulders and neck as she read on the computer. Everyone was smiling,
there was a fair amount of flirting and playing with each other, and the
interaction and physical contact generally seemed welcomed as the three
students sustained eye contact, smiled, and laughed with each other [field
note SSC2.17.10A, February 17, 2010]. I struggled with my own feelings of
needing to intervene as I observed this interaction between Cristina, Ryan,
and Jonathan because the motions were forceful and sexually charged while
it was not always clear to me what was consensual and what may have
crossed any boundaries of consent, if at all.
Some of Cristina’s classmates engaged in close physical contact or casual
touching of her body, although she occasionally moved away from contact
 JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY 53

with others. Like the opening vignette illustrated, sometimes Cristina’s

peers touched her in ways and in places that were not always desired or
consensual. Cristina’s behavior as teasing and flirtatious and her clothing
styles of short hemlines and low necklines made her sexual availability the
subject of inquiry.
As the girls’ conversation in the library died down, Jamila asked Cristina, “So, what
exactly were you wearing that day Tim grabbed your butt?”
“That is exactly the question that I hate being asked!” Cristina retorted loudly.
Everyone began talking over each other—Ms. Rogers asking, “Who cares?” and “Why
does it matter what she was wearing?” and the girls asserting, “It depends on how
short the skirt is,” and “With nothing on underneath, it says touch my ass.”
[field note SSC4.12.10A, audio-recording and transcript #VN520012Bc, April
12, 2010].

Cristina maintained that she always had to wear shorts under skirts per
her father’s rules and that her skirt was not that short. The teacher asked
the girls to consider if the length of Cristina’s skirt or dress necessarily
called for sexual harassment or invited others to touch her. Engaging in
victim blaming and slut discourse, the girls blamed Cristina and the length
of her skirt for Tim touching her buttocks. These regulative discourses,
which rest squarely on notions of proper femininity, placed Cristina’s sexu-
ality, behavior, and appearance under surveillance and subject to scrutiny.
Regardless of Cristina’s rights, she was blamed for the sexual harassment
and physical assault she endured, the name-calling she was subjected to as
in “[Tim] calls me a whore and a slut like all the time, but everybody
does,” and the access to contact with her body that her classmates—both
male and female—seemed to feel entitled or welcomed to.

Stereotypes of bisexuality limit understanding and possibility

Negative stereotypes contribute to the framing and understanding of
bisexuality and bisexual people, which has real effects in bisexual people’s
lives. Common tropes are that bisexuality is a transitory phase one goes
through on their way to fully identifying as lesbian or gay and that bisexu-
ality does not actually exist, while confusion and internalized homophobia
do (Angelides, 2001). Under these tropes, the narratives are, “you are just
confused,” or “you have not yet come to terms with your queerness.” The
denial or questioning of bisexuality shapes possibilities for identification
and connection. This denial of one’s sexual identity by others also pushed
bisexual-identified students to seek out the community and support of the
gay-straight alliance. The forum of the GSA offered a space for LGBTIQ
54 S. W. WOOLLEY

students to reflect on their experiences, deconstruct and speak back to

harmful stereotypes, and build community.
Stereotypes of bisexuality as promiscuous permeated communities
across the school—a topic the students in the gay-straight alliance often
talked about in their peer-education panels. In the practice of defining
terms like “bisexual” the GSA students typically spoke back to harmful
stereotypes and misconceptions while also positioning bisexuality as
socially respectable in its monogamy. During one panel the students
defined bisexual as “someone who likes people of both genders sexually
and emotionally.” Interrupting the conversation, Cecilia pointed out, “I
would like to say that just because someone is bisexual, it does not mean
they are promiscuous. It just means they can have a relationship with a
man and then a relationship with a woman.” [field note HAQ4.14.10A,
audio-recording and transcript #VN520016Q, April 14, 2010]. Here the
students reproduced gender as binary and sexuality as oriented toward
binary poles, while simultaneously repositioning bisexuality as monogam-
ous, not promiscuous, in asserting that one has relationships with men
and women, but not at the same time.
During other peer-education panels, the GSA students have clarified this point.
“If you are bisexual, it doesn’t mean you are promiscuous or will sleep with anyone
or with two people at the same time. With a lot of people, if you say I’m bisexual,
they ask, ‘Oh, will you have a threesome with me?’ It’s like, no. I mean, it’s your
choice if you want to do that,” said Kathryn.
Cristina elaborated, “People always ask me, ‘So you are bi, right?’ Uh, yeah. ‘So, if I
wanted to have sex with you, would you mind if this girl comes over?’”
“Yeah, I mean it’s perfectly fine if anyone wants to do that, but it doesn’t mean that
if you are bi, you want to do that,” Kathryn added.
[field note QSC4.22.10B, audio-recording and transcript #VN520026, April 22, 2010].

Here the students in the GSA drove their point home that bisexual peo-
ple are not necessarily promiscuous, but are often monogamous. In the
same gesture, the students embraced one’s choice to have more than one
sexual partner at a time, in that, “It’s your choice if you want to do that.”
The students described the ways stereotypes of bisexuals as promiscuous
resulted in bisexual people being asked invasive questions about their sex
practices and their willingness to engage in sexual activity with multiple
partners. The tendency to inquire about bisexual people’s willingness to
engage in a threesome seems to be most commonly an inquiry made by
heterosexual men to bisexual women, as fantasies of “girl on girl action”
shore up heteronormative masculinity and virility (Fahs, 2009). Students
described the greater acceptance of female bisexuality because of heterosex-
ual men’s fantasies about female same-sex sexual activities.
 JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY 55

“I feel like lesbians are minimally accepted because guys like to have their fantasies,”
Fani explained.
“If you’re a girl and you say that you’re bisexual, then guys really go, ‘Oh, that’s so
fun’ or something like that,” Kathryn elaborated.
“Which is where the connotation of bisexuality as promiscuous came from, because of
the guys who wish … ,” Fani added. “There has been many a time where I told some
guy who started flirting with me that I have a girlfriend and I’m not interested. And it
made him that more enthused. He ended up asking extremely personal questions, and
then after all of this, after, ‘I have a girlfriend. No, I’m not interested. I have a
girlfriend. I’m not answering that question,’ then he proceeded to ask me out!”
[field note HAQ4.14.10A, audio-recording and transcript #VN520016Q, April 14, 2010].

Disclosing a bisexual identity as a girl can mean intrusive questions and

propositions from men and boys with fantasies of being included in female
same-sex sexual activity. With popular narratives of men joining and com-
pleting “girl on girl action” in pornography, female bisexuality has become
a source of titillation and a site for affirming male heterosexuality and viril-
ity. Even just declaring a bisexual identity can mean assumptions about
your sexual activity and interest in others including your interlocutor, as
Fani’s experience illustrated.

The denial of bisexual identity: “We know you are not”

During a GSA panel in a freshman social studies class, the students shared
their coming out stories and their experiences of biphobia and homopho-
bia. Students described their classmates’ and friends’ reactions to their com-
ing out as LGBTIQ, and sometimes the subsequent painful consequences of
losing friends as well as family members through alienation. The students
in the GSA also reflected on when they first experienced anti-LGBTIQ bias
and hatred and on their self-realization of their own queer identity or
desire in those awful moments.
Kathryn remarked, “When I was first figuring out that I was gay, I was at a school
dance. And my good friends saw a whole bunch of girls who were just, you know,
kind of like, slow dancing together, kissing a little bit, and they were like, ‘Oh that’s
so weird, those girls are so slutty.’ And it was just really hard for me to see that and
to see my friends’ reaction to it.”
To Kathryn’s point, Diana added, “When I was in ninth grade, I was still identifying
as bi. You know John? Um, he came up to me and said, ‘Diana, we know you’re not
bi. You’re hurting the gay community. Stop lying! Stop it! We know you’re not
attracted to girls, just stop lying to everyone’ … I said, ‘How do you know?’ and he
goes, ‘Because you only talk about guys when you’re with us.’ But that’s because I’m
not comfortable talking about my girlfriends yet … come on now! And people still
say that! … It really kind of hurts when people say that, ‘We know you’re not this.’
How do you know? You’re not me. How would you know unless you were in my
56 S. W. WOOLLEY

shoes right now?” [field note QSC4.22.10A, audio-recording and transcript

#VN520026, April 22, 2010].

In Kathryn’s and Diana’s stories, the denial of LGBTIQ sexuality and the
homophobic responses of a stranger, a good friend, or a family member con-
tributed to LGBTIQ invisibility and silence. Here Diana was accused of lying,
of hurting the gay community, and of not talking openly enough about her
sexuality. John denied Diana’s bisexual identity and asserted that he knew
Diana’s true sexuality, both of which denied Diana her autonomy in naming
and identifying herself. By refusing a bisexual identity for Diana, John failed
to recognize her experience and sense of self. Diana’s belonging to a group
and history as well as a personal identity was questioned and taken away
from her through John’s words. In response, Diana ended her turn at talk by
asking, how would you know unless you were in my shoes right now?
In the same way, Kathryn acknowledged the difficulty of witnessing her
friends’ averse reaction to girls’ sexuality, and specifically, girls’ same-sex
sexuality. Her friends found the girls’ slow dancing and kissing odd and indi-
cative of their promiscuity, labeling them as “so slutty.” As Kathryn’s friends
reacted to girls slow dancing and kissing, calling same-sex physical contact
and affection “so weird” and labeling “those girls” as “so slutty,” Kathryn
saw herself and her queer desire in a new light and through the eyes of her
friends’ judgment. Drawing on slut discourse, Kathryn’s friends shamed and
denounced same-sex sexuality, labeling “those girls” who show affection for
other girls as “slutty” and promiscuous. The girls’ breaches of heteronorma-
tive femininity marked them as failing proper femininity and subjected them
to name-calling and false assumptions. Such responses were not uncommon
for lesbian, bisexual, and queer-identified girls at the school.
Cristina described other girls’ homophobic and biphobic reactions to her,
“Lots of girls are homophobic. My girlfriend and I couldn’t dress in the
locker room without everyone going to the bathroom for privacy because
they thought we were checking them out” [field note SSC4.26.10A, audio-
recording and transcript #VN520030B, April 26, 2010]. Cristina explained
further, “The girls who are homophobic are like, ‘You’re bi? Ewwww! Get
away from me!’ and they call you names and all that” [field note
QSC4.22.10B, audio-recording and transcript #VN520026, April 22, 2010].
Homophobic and biphobic responses to someone coming out or to displays
of same-sex desire can result in alienating or silencing LGBTIQ youth.
Cristina’s female classmates performed their disapproval by leaving the
locker room if Cristina or her girlfriend were present, indexing their fear
that Cristina and her girlfriend would look at their naked bodies, sexualize
them, and potentially flirt with or aggressively pursue them. The girls called
Cristina names and ostracized her physically as well as psychically by ask-
ing her to “get away” from them or by leaving her presence so as not to
 JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY 57

tempt her. The need to escape bisexuality and its associated promiscuity
took on both a spatial and a social element here—escape association with a
pariah, escape the immediate danger of a bisexual person’s presence, and
escape the confined and gender policed locker room where sexuality lurks.
As Diana articulated, “It really kind of hurts when people say, ‘we know
you’re not this’” because such denial and assertion that one is not who or
what they claim to be are hurtful and damaging. Sometimes the denial of
bisexuality can come from within one’s family and can bring up concerns
of authenticity. In her class writing, Cristina reflected on her own coming
out as bisexual to her family. She wrote:

[field note QSC4.22.10A, artifacts—written reflection by C, April 22, 2010].

Cristina’s use of “still” indicated that her father’s denial of her bisexuality
was something that had been happening over time and continues. Her
scratching of “real” with an arrow pointing to “dad” in her original sen-
tence “my dad still denies I’m bisexual” indexed her modification or clarifi-
cation of this dad as “real,” relating to his authenticity. I do not know how
Cristina evaluated her father’s authenticity, but possible ways may be in
relation to biology, adoption, or some other form of kinship by which she
calls “real dad.” Her dad’s denial of her bisexuality and Cristina’s marking
of her dad as “real” both called on some metric of authenticity. In this class
writing, Cristina reflected on her coming out to her father and his immedi-
ate denial as well as his ongoing denial of her bisexuality:

Cristina expanded, “Most people still do deny that I am bisexual,” articu-

lating the prevalence of the denial of bisexual identity. Her use of “still do
deny” echoed her earlier use of “still denies” and “still does,” emphasizing
58 S. W. WOOLLEY

the ongoing nature of the denial and perhaps some incredulity that this is
the case. Rejecting others’ denial of her identity, Cristina echoed Diana’s
rhetorical question, “How would they know? They aren’t in my shoes”
[field note QSC4.22.10A, artifacts—written reflection by C, April 22, 2010].
While the reflective writing was a useful pedagogical tool for the students
to engage with their questions and what they learned following a discussion
or GSA panel, Cristina also felt comfortable enough to talk about sexuality,
sexual practices, and her sexual activity openly in class. During her social
studies class with the GSA panel, Cristina shared, “I have a girlfriend.
Others say, ‘No, you don’t. She’s your best friend.’ No, she’s not. My father
still denies I’m bi even though I’ve had three girlfriends” [field note
QSC4.22.10A, audio-recording and transcript #VN520026, April 22, 2010].
Here, Cristina spoke to the denial of recognition of her same-sex relation-
ships, her girlfriends, and her bisexual identity, which renders bisexuality
and bisexual-identified people and communities invisible. Cristina’s girl-
friends—seen instead as best friends—remained invisible to her father,
allowing him to deny Cristina’s bisexuality and same-sex relationships. The
denial of bisexuality is commonplace for bisexual-identified people, and
such denial occurs within straight, lesbian, and gay communities. The
denial of bisexuality and bisexual identity reproduces the erasure of bisexu-
ality and, in this way, can contribute to the silencing and invisibility of
bisexual-identified people, enacting a form of symbolic violence.

Toward an analysis of bisexual stigma and everyday bullying

and harassment
The students in Ms. Rogers’s class reproduced structures of inequality
through normalized ways of interacting that wield power. By judging,
shaming, and name-calling, the students regulated Cristina’s body, presen-
tation, and behavior. They expressed their disapproval of Cristina’s style of
dress and blamed her for being sexually harassed. Engaging in slut dis-
course and victim blaming, Cristina’s classmates shamed her for showing
too much skin and being too comfortable in her gendered and sexualized
body. Normative ideals of proper femininity and respectability call for
modesty and covering of skin, as Alea called, dressing “the right way!”
Cristina’s appearance and bisexuality were the subject of surveillance and
conversation. Moreover, Cristina’s body was touched regularly and grabbed
without consent, for which her classmates gauged her short hemline and
flirtatious behavior were to blame. Cristina faced her peers’ judgment of
her for “dressing a certain way,” “acting a certain way,” or “carrying herself
a certain way,” marking her transgression of boundaries around heteronor-
mative femininity.
 JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY 59

Yet, these interactions are a part of the daily fiber that makes up every-
day lives in schools for youth. These are the “normative cruelties inhering
in heteronormative masculinity and femininity” (Ringrose & Renold,
2010, p. 591). Engaging systems of inequality like sexism, heterosexism,
and hegemonic binary gender in interaction positions students in a social
hierarchy and as belonging in or out of privileged groups. Calling exclu-
sionary behaviors and regulatory comments ‘bullying’ does not get at the
complexity of inequality and identity or of social interaction and adoles-
cent social structures. Discourses of bullying and harassment individualize
and pathologize behaviors rather than examine the mundane ways power
is wielded to marginalize others through stigma and ostracism more akin
to ‘everyday bullying and harassment.’ The construction of bad girls
upholds discourses of bullying that see aggressive behavior amongst girls
to be pathological while ignoring the passive aggressive and evaluative
nature of daily social interactions. Bad girls bully others, but also take the
brunt of bullying practices; Bad girls wear skimpy clothing, but also com-
plain about guys touching their buttocks; Bad girls behave outside the
boundaries of proper femininity, yet their alienation upholds hegemonic
binary gender.
In this context, Cristina was visible and vocal about her bisexual identity
and her sexuality, which also made her more highly scrutinized and seen as
“so weird.” Stereotypes attached to bisexuality stuck to Cristina, such as the
connotations of promiscuity and hypersexual desire. Her peers’ stereotyping
and engagement of slut discourse contributed to the bullying or harassment
Cristina experienced at school. Like her peers in the gay-straight alliance,
Cristina faced others’ biphobia, their fear of her looking at and pursuing—
maybe even potentially converting—straight girls, and their intrusive ques-
tions and sexual propositions which shore up heteronormative masculinity.
Cristina and Diana confronted others’ denial of their bisexuality, including
that of their friends and family members, and the erasure and silencing
such denial can do to bisexual identity, community, and history as well as
one’s sense of self and belonging. Hegemonic binary gender and heteronor-
mativity operated through the regulation of gender and sexuality as well as
the denial of bisexual identity and monosexism. By attaching claims to
authenticity, the students drew their own boundary lines around authentic
identity and representation. In this way, the everyday interactions students
like Cristina and others in the GSA experience at school demonstrate how
ubiquitous and damaging hegemonic binary gender and heteronormativity
can be.
In the U.S., K-12 schooling is compulsory for all children to attend, and
therefore, an important site for the teaching and learning as well as the
regulation of gender and sexuality. Research demonstrates that schools are
60 S. W. WOOLLEY

cis-heteronormative spaces that structure and reproduce heteronormativity

and binary gender (Epstein, 1993, 1997; Mac An Ghaill, 1994; Mayo, 2014;
McCready, 2010; Meyer, 2009; Miceli, 2005; Pascoe, 2007; Renold, 2005;
Woolley, 2015; Youdell, 2005, 2006). Ideally public K-12 schools should be
inclusive of all, yet they also serve as sites for the marginalization of stu-
dents along the lines of gender and sexuality. This article demonstrates the
ways student interactions in schools can articulate and regulate normative
boundaries around students’ dress and bodies as well as their claims to an
identity like bisexual. For girls who do not meet the hegemonic gender
norms of proper femininity and for those not exclusively monosexual—as
in, heterosexual or homosexual—schooling can be an especially vulnerable
space for sexual harassment and social censure. In this way, the experien-
ces of bisexual-identified cisgender girls can inform our understanding of
how heteronormativity and gender regulation operate in schools. Lastly,
schools provide sites of possibility and transformation, connection and
relation, as well as identity formation and affirmation. The GSA panels,
the critical classroom dialogue, and the reflective writing exercises gave
Cristina, Ms. Rogers, the GSA, and their peers the opportunity to reflect
on and deconstruct their own actions and beliefs, to educate about stereo-
types and their damaging effects, and to raise awareness about sexual har-
assment and biphobia. As this article shows, these educational
opportunities provided space for LGBTIQ students to speak back to ster-
eotypes and denial of their existence. By deepening our understanding of
the everyday interactions that marginalize and create hostile educational
environments for some students, we can rethink bullying and harassment
policy to better encompass the social regulation and censure that shapes
bisexual girls’ daily lives in schools. Beginning to recognize the specificity
of bisexual girls’ experiences with gender regulation and heteronormativ-
ity can help to shape critical educational practices and policies that focus
on creating safe, inclusive schools for all students regardless of gender
or sexuality.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the feedback and guidance provided by the anonymous reviewers and the
Editor-in-Chief Dr. Galupo throughout the review and publication process. Also, I am deeply
appreciative of the transcription and coding work that my undergraduate research assistants
did for this project. I would like to thank Stephanie Wu, Julie Nguyen, and Alessandra Devia
for their hard work which was supported by Colgate University’s Student Wage Grant. My
fieldwork in this ethnographic study was supported by U.C. Berkeley’s Institute for the Study
of Societal Issues’ Youth Violence Prevention Graduate Fellowship. Lastly, I could not carry
out this research without the contributions and openness of my research participants – in
particular, Ms. Rogers and Cristina. The views expressed here do not represent those of my
funding agencies, and any mistakes or inaccuracies are solely my own.
 JOURNAL OF BISEXUALITY 61

Note
1. For different activities, Ms. Rogers consciously asked students to segregate based on
their sex assigned at birth or based on their gender identity. In this process, she
worked to raise her students’ awareness of how gender is constructed and how
transgender and gender non-conforming students’ experiences of gender may differ
from their cisgender peers. For this activity, the students separated based on the sex
they were assigned at birth. I refer to them as “girls” here because that is how they
referred to themselves and their gender. The practice of dividing students by sex or
gender has pedagogical implications and problems I discuss elsewhere (see Woolley,
2015 and Woolley & Wiley, 2016 for more discussion).

Notes on contributor
Susan Woolley is Associate Professor of Educational Studies and LGBTQ Studies at Colgate
University. She is currently the Director of the LGBTQ Studies program at her small liberal
arts university. Her research focuses on gender and sexuality in schools and the educational
experiences of LGBTIQ youth, and she is enthusiastic about queer, feminist, and trans
inclusive curriculum and pedagogy. Her articles have been published in the journals
Gender and Education, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Journal of Language and
Sexuality, International Journal for the Sociology of Language, Intersections: Critical Issues in
Education, and Anthropology & Education Quarterly. Susan W. Woolley is a Presidential
Fellow for the Council on Anthropology and Education as well as a recognized Diversity
Scholar by the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan.

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