Bisexuality is a unique identity. It is neither straight nor gay/lesbian, nor is bisexuality a hybrid of, or middle ground between, the two (Voss et al., 2014). The term bisexuality is complex, and scholars have different views on what it means to be bisexual. Early studies defined bisexuality as an attraction to both men and women (Eisner, 2013). Swan (2018) described bisexuality as a collective term for a sexual orientation that includes sexual behavior or emotional attraction, emotional attachment, desire, or fantasy for both men and women. This definition emphasizes that attraction to bisexual individuals is not only based on gender but also on romantic and emotional affection. Another important definition is that bisexuality is not an equal preference for men and women. Early on, Weinberg et al. (1994) found five types of bisexuality: pure type, mid-type, heterosexual leaning, homosexual leaning, and varied. Only 2% of bisexual men and 17% of bisexual women showed a true equal preference for men and women (pure type). Thus, there were important group differences among bisexual individuals.

Both young women and men were found to have considerable sexual fluidity (Katz-Wise, 2015). Sexual fluidity is defined as the ability to depend on the flexibility of the situation in sexual response (Diamond, 2008). This flexibility allows individuals to experience changes in same-or opposite-sex desire at different times. Women’s sexual fluidity is different from that of men. Diamond et al. (2020) identified four types of sexual fluidity in women. Women’s sexuality is more likely to change than men’s and change over time and in different social contexts (Peplau and Garnets, 2000). Diamond (2003) found that over 5 years, more than a quarter of women gave up their lesbian/bisexual identity during that time: half reacquired a heterosexual identity, and a half gave up all identity labels. In addition, with sexual fluidity, females’ identities could become more complex because socialization teaches women to derive their identity from relationships with others and to seek sexuality in the context of emotional involvement, which could lead to greater variability in female identity as these relationships change (Rodríguez Rust, 2000).

Sexual prejudice is a particular form of homophobia and biphobia that occurs in sports contexts. Sexual prejudice refers to all negative attitudes based on sexual orientation and is always directed at those identified as gay males, lesbians, or bisexual individuals (Herek, 2000). Sexual prejudice was also evident in sports (Anderson and Mowatt, 2013; Piedra et al., 2017). In a national sports and society survey based on sexual prejudice, about 1 in 3 adults believed sports were not welcoming to LGBTQ athletes; nearly 40 percent reported experiencing sports-related abuse (Knoester and Allison, 2021). Baiocco et al. (2020) indicated three prejudice-related factors in exploring sexual prejudice on the sport scale: open rejection, denial of visibility, and gendered performance. These factors revealed traditional sexual prejudice, a belief that lesbian and gay athletes should be treated negatively because of their sexual orientation; a belief that sexual orientation is a private issue and should not be discussed; a belief that gay men are less competitive than heterosexuals, or a belief that lesbian women are not suited to play sports that are more suited to girls. Pistella et al. (2020) found that the experience of coming out in the family context could prevent the internalization of sexual prejudice, which may facilitate coming out in other life contexts. Meanwhile, studies have also found that sexual prejudice is closely related to cultural context (Piedra et al., 2017) and race (Walker and Melton, 2015). This leads to a belief that findings of sexual prejudice could vary by culture and race.

Despite as a subgroup of LGBTQ, unlike homophobia and transphobia, bisexual individuals experience a unique biphobia (Tavarez, 2022). Biphobia is prejudice, fear, or hatred directed at bisexual individuals. It takes the form of denial that bisexuality is a genuine sexual orientation or negative stereotypes of bisexual individuals. First, one form of bisexuality denial stemmed from a binary view of sexual orientation. An individual is either heterosexual or homosexual, with no position in between. Another denial is that bisexuality is an attempt rather than a natural sexual orientation (Yoshino, 2017). Denial of bisexuality can lead to bisexual erasure. Bisexual erasure refers to a lack of acknowledgment and ignoring the clear evidence that bisexuals exist, including not recognizing the category of “bisexual,” recognizing the category but excluding individuals from it, accepting an individual’s bisexuality as a stable identity but stigmatizing it (Yoshino, 2017, p. 203). In response to biphobia and bisexual erasure, bisexual individuals could develop internalized biphobia. People with internalized biphobia often hide, feel like impostors, or constantly question their sexuality. Swan (2018) identified bisexual stigma, cultural understanding of bisexuality, the desire to fit in with the heterosexual or homosexual community, and denial as reasons for bisexual individuals not identifying their bisexual identity. Additionally, studies showed that bisexual women are more likely to hide and not reveal their sexual identity for fear of rejection (Wandrey et al., 2015; Roberto et al., 2020).

For bisexual people, experiences of discrimination, bisexual invisibility/erasure, and lack of affirmative support for bisexuality have become hidden traumas that affect their physical and mental health (Ross et al., 2018; Arnett Iii et al., 2019). For instance, bisexual people suffered significantly higher rates of depression and anxiety (Ross et al., 2018) and poverty than lesbians and gay men (Badgett, 2018). Furthermore, increased anxiety and depression and response to negative life events may lead bisexual individuals to have a higher risk of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) than heterosexual individuals, gay men, and lesbian individuals (Dunlop et al., 2020). In addition, studies found that bisexual women showed a higher likelihood of frequent mental distress and overall poor health than lesbians (Fredriksen-Goldsen et al., 2010) and were at significantly greater risk for multiple substance use behaviors relative to lesbian (Schuler and Collins, 2020).

Research on bisexuality-related issues in sports is particularly limited; only a few studies have been conducted in the last decade. Anderson was one of the first scholars to explore the issue of bisexuality in sports. Anderson and Adams (2011) interviewed 60 male soccer players at three U.S. universities and found that these athletes considered bisexuality a legitimate, non-discriminatory sexual identity. Nevertheless, female bisexual student-athletes’ experiences in sports context may be different.

First, finding female bisexual participants in sports is difficult because the sexual orientation of female sexual minorities is fluid and continuous. The most common terms used for sexual identity in studies of female sexual minority individuals in the sports context are “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual,” and “queer.” In some studies, lesbian student-athletes used “gay” instead of” lesbian” (Stoelting, 2011; Melton and Cunningham, 2012; Mann and Krane, 2018). It seems female minority student-athletes preferred the fluidity of “gay” and tended to identify more with the continuum regarding sexual orientation (Fynes and Fisher, 2016). In a case, Ravel and Rail (2008) interviewed 14 Canadian female athletes who self-identified as lesbian, bisexual, and queer, observing that sexuality was often constructed as fluid, ever-changing, and resistant to the heterosexual/queer dichotomy. For these women, casual constructions of sexuality undermine notions of fixed identity while downplaying the “once and for all” process of coming out.

Secondly, women’s same-sex attraction may be related to the sports context. Davis-Delano (2014) interviewed 56 women who had at least one same-sex relationship by age 30 and found that sports nurtured and hindered the development of these relationships. If homophobia is prevalent on the team, it hinders the development of same-sex relationships for females. Conversely, sports fostered female same-sex relationships because women could demonstrate their abilities in sports, and there was a lack of a heteronormative atmosphere in women’s teams. Although these participants did not self-identify as lesbian or bisexual, this study revealed a subtle relationship between women’s same-sex attraction and the sports context.

Thirdly, the sports context may be more pressure on female sexual minorities than on gay males. Anderson and Bullingham (2015) summarized former studies of female sexual minority athletes and argued that women’s sports teams appear more hostile to sexual minorities than men’s teams. When a female athlete came out in a team sport, cultural suspicion of homosexuality was likely to be projected onto other female athletes because there were many lesbians in sports. The fear of becoming lesbian can fill the team with a homophobic climate. This is consistent with earlier research that female athletes with masculinity were labeled as lesbian, thus denying women’s success and dividing women’s teams (Krane, 1997).

Minority stress theory (2003) was often applied to LGBTQ-related research. Several studies have adapted the minority stress theory as a theoretical perspective to examine the experiences of LGBTQ athletes in the sports context (Symons et al., 2017; Hartmann-Tews et al., 2020). Meyer (2003) found that stress might impact the health of LGB people through distal to proximal stress processes. Distal stress processes are prejudicial events, discrimination, and violence from the outside world directed toward LGB individuals. Expectations of rejection, concealment and internalized homophobia are proximal stress processes; they are the LGB individual’s experiences of discrimination and violence. Most importantly, this theory also explains the process of minority identity development and how minorities shape their identities in these experiences. Past research has shown the applicability of the theory in bisexuality-related research (Arnett Iii et al., 2019).

China’s attitude toward LGBTQ-related issues determined the lag of its subgroup research. China removed homosexuality from mental disorders in 2003 (Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders, 2003). However, the Chinese government remained silent on LGBT issues, which has led to various forms of discrimination and prejudice against LGBTQ people. More than 18,000 Chinese LGBTQ people responded to a United Nations survey of LGBTQ-related issues in China. Half reported experiencing discrimination or abuse in school, the workplace, and, most often, within their own families (United Nations Development Programme, 2016). In another national survey, Wang et al. (2020) also found that Chinese LGBTQ people reported particularly high levels of discrimination from family and society. In China, the focus on LGBTQ-related issues is still on HIV prevention of gay populations, while lesbian and bisexual females individuals are neglected. One Asian scholar indicated that, in Asia, the patriarchal context, coupled with heterosexism, has led to ignorance of female lesbian/bisexual activity in countries like China (Ayutthaya, n.d.).

Therefore, given the prejudice against women and sexual minorities of the prevalence of heteronormative culture in sports contexts, the unique identity and complex situation of bisexual females, and the lack of Asian perspectives in the literature. This study aimed to explore the phenomenon of female‘bisexual identity from the perspectival experience of female bisexual student-athletes in the Chinese sports context. The research questions for this study were:

What are the perceptions of female bisexual student-athletes within the sports context regarding bisexual identity?

This study is a case study of an ongoing, university-funded qualitative research program focused on sexual minority student-athletes’ experiences in China. In this study, we specifically focus on the experience of female bisexual student-athletes in the sports context.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was adopted to explore the experiences of female bisexual student-athletes in the sports context in China. IPA is a qualitative approach based on phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiographic IPA Focus on personal meaning and sensemaking for people who share a particular experience in a particular context (Smith et al., 2021). In addition, IPA lends itself to studies focusing on identity and a sense of self (Eatough and Smith, 2017). Therefore, IPA was considered an appropriate method to explore female bisexual student-athletes’ perceptions and experiences regarding bisexual identity in sports participation. Furthermore, The COREQ checklist was used for the report of this study (Tong et al., 2007).

Reflexivity is vital in qualitative research and is an ongoing process that continues throughout the research effort (Olmos-Vega et al., 2022). This study emphasized reflexivity throughout the process, and the first author also presented personal reflexivity with the guidance of Clarke and Braun (2021).

The research team consisted of four women and one man. The researchers worked as Ph.D. students and professors in the Faculty of Education Studies and were all trained in qualitative research. The first author (MX) is a Chinese female Ph.D. student whose major is physical education. MX has received systematic qualitative training and is proficient in qualitative analysis software (NVivo). MX is a former student-athlete involved in long-term varsity competitions and currently working as a coach. Lesbians were common on women’s teams, and the college sports context seemed to provide an inclusive and safe space for sexual minority women. This phenomenon has attracted the interest of MX. Although MX was a student-athlete before, she tried to avoid the influence her experience had on this study. In addition, Participants were informed of the first author’s work background and the study’s objectives during the recruitment.

Smith and Nizza (2022) recommended using purposive sampling in IPA studies to facilitate the recruitment of a homogeneous sample; they also suggested that snowballing can be an effective recruitment method when target participants are difficult to recruit. Thus, purposive sampling ad snowball sampling (Merriam and Tisdell, 2015) were used in this study. The study selected participants regarding Swan (2018)’s definition of bisexuality in terms of self-identity, behavior, and emotional attachment. Recruited female bisexual student-athletes had to meet the following criteria: (1) female; (2) self-identify as bisexual or be sexually or emotionally attracted to both males and females, and (3) be involved in intercollegiate sports or have participated in intercollegiate sports (no more than 3 years).

After receiving approval from the University’s Human Subjects Review Board, we asked lesbian student-athletes we knew to contact potential participants. First, potential participants were informed of the purpose and process of the study. Then, if the potential participant is interested and agrees, the contact person will give us the potential participant’s contact information. Then, we would decide whether to recruit and schedule an interview. We contacted nine potential participants, five of whom were rejected due to fear of disclosure. In the end, four female participants were recruited. Table 1 shows the pseudonyms, age, sports, sports status, years of participation in sports, sexual orientation, and interview information.

Notably, in interpretive phenomenological research, saturation is usually not the objective, as the research is more concerned with obtaining a rich personal experience (van Manen et al., 2016). In IPA research, the sample size is not the determining factor. IPA research was conducted in a relatively small homogeneous sample to allow richness and depth of description in the analysis process (Smith and Nizza, 2022).

Due to the sensitivity of the LGBTQ-related topic in China, we used pseudonyms and omitted the names of the universities where the student-athletes competed to ensure their anonymity. This study fully accounted for the participants’ sensitive sexual identity in Chinese society. Before the study began, we contacted the participants and informed them of the general purpose of the study. We also assured participants were voluntary. During the data collection process, we avoided leading questions and withheld sharing personal impressions. In addition, to protect the participants’ privacy, the recorded interviews, photos, and videos were deleted once transcribed. The first author kept the participant’s transcripts on one passworded computer.

According to the scholars’ recommendation for IPA research (Smith et al., 2021; Smith and Nizza, 2022), an interview guide (Supplementary Appendix 1) was designed to help with data collection. The interview questions were drawn from the relevant literature and the researchers’ personal experiences. The interview guide centered on open-ended questions about participants’ thoughts and feelings about bisexuality, perception of bisexual identity, and experiences regarding bisexual identity. Before the official interview, we interviewed colleagues to ensure the interview questions were straightforward and easy to answer, changing some sensitive words at this stage. Then, a short pilot interview was conducted with one participant; minor modifications were made to the interview guide. Two authors (MX & YX) conducted the interviews. MX hosted the interview, and YX supervised the recording equipment. Before the interview, participants signed the informed consent form. Then, the semi-structured interviews began. Participants chose how, when, and where to conduct the interviews. Interviews included face-to-face and WeChat (China social software) voice chat interviews. The face-to-face interview locations were parks and cafes. Each interview lasted between 40 and 90 min and was audio recorded using two cell phones. Two participants were interviewed twice because one participant provided interesting information, and we wanted to go deeper with the second interview; the other participant conducted a pilot and a formal interview. Although we used an interview guide, the purpose of the interview guide in the IPA study is to only provide the researcher with a model (Smith and Nizza, 2022). So, we kept an open mind, flexibility, and focus during the interviews, striving to immerse ourselves in another person’s world, aiming to see the participants’ experiences through their eyes and thus understand how they make sense of the experiences of being female bisexual student-athletes.

In addition to the semi-structured interviews, we also collected data from documents (Creswell and Poth, 2016), which were derived from photos and videos from social media related to the topic of the study that the participants agreed to use, as well as the text of a participant’s chat content with a psychologist. Memos (Merriam and Tisdell, 2015) are another essential data source in qualitative research. We recorded what we heard, saw, and experienced during the collection and reflection process. These additional sources can be helpful in the subsequent contextualization of the data analysis (Smith et al., 2021) and provide the basis for the audit trail.

The data analysis process was conducted by the seven steps of the IPA study guidelines and used the latest term of the analysis process of the IPA study (Smith et al., 2021). Two authors (MX and YX) conducted the data analysis. The first author used NVivo (QSR International Pty Ltd, 2020) to do the coding process, and the other used manual coding.

The first two steps were repeated reading and exploratory noting. After the interview recordings were translated into transcripts by the audio software, the first author (MX) listened to the recordings to correct the transcripts, and another author (YX) listened to the recording again and ensured the recordings were transcribed verbatim. Then, the transcripts were read repeatedly. Repeated readings ensured that the participants were the focus of the analysis and allowed for modeling the overall interview structure (Smith et al., 2021). While reading, some phrases or sentences were coded into exploratory notes. At this stage, we strove to keep the exploratory notes (codes) specific and visible. The next three steps were to construct the exploratory notes into experiential statements, cluster and compile the experiential statements, and name individual experiential themes. We kept an open mind in the process. We strove to explore and innovate so that the final experiential statements be structured together to produce a structure representing the most critical part of the participants’ description. An example of personal empirical themes is shown in Table 2. In the last two steps, we continued the same analysis for the other cases and developed the cross-case group experiential themes. All conflicts of opinion were resolved through discussions.

To ensure rigor, this study complied with the IPA quality evaluation guide (Smith, 2011), including an explicit subscription to the IPA’s theoretical principles, adequate sampling from the corpus to show the density of evidence for each theme, and an in-depth analysis of the topics. In addition, this study also employed member checking (Merriam and Tisdell, 2015) and independent audits (Smith et al., 2021). The transcripts and analysis reports were sent back to the participant to obtain additional information and correct it; this allowed for the emergence of a co-constructed meaning from participants and researchers. Moreover, we documented the research steps taken throughout the study, including the initial notes on the research question, the interview guide, recorded transcripts, annotated to trace the process of establishing the analysis, and the researcher’s reflectivity, to make the study process transparent, enhancing trustworthiness in qualitative Inquiry (Carcary, 2009; Shinebourne, 2011).

This theme refers to what bisexual identity means to female bisexual student-athletes, how they understand the concept of bisexuality, and how they view bisexual identity in the sports context. All participants described the struggles in perceiving their bisexual identity in the early stage. Participants perceived bisexuality as an identity of emotional attraction over gender. In addition, participants felt that they still needed to abide by heterosexual norms in the sports context.

Struggle represents the range of feelings that female bisexual student-athletes experience when confronted with their bisexual identity, including confusion, chaos, and worry. Zoe felt that facing her bisexual identity was confusing:

Other participants described bisexuality as a wrong identity. Kinsley said, “I thought bisexual identity was wrong from the start because I do not think people should do that” (Kinsley). Thus, for the participants, understanding bisexual identity seemed to present a significant challenge. The process of coming to know one’s identity was difficult and lonely.

In addition, negative feelings about bisexual identity can have serious mental health implications. Joy thought that constantly thinking about her sexual identity had caused her great stress. Joy mentioned, “I suffered from an eating disorder since college, and I cannot say it was all because of my sexual orientation, but it was a big part of it” (Joy). She described that time as the most troubled time of her life:

While experiencing an eating disorder, Joy was diagnosed with depression:

Joy used “guilty” and “shame” to describe her feelings, indicating Joy could not accept being a bisexual woman. “Guilty” and “shame” is a strong sense of self, yet always concerned with the gaze of others. It is irrefutable internal testimony that Joy was not living up to the standards (heterosexual women) she thought she should and feared that others would discover her bisexual identity. Thus, these fears created severe mental health risks for Joy.

Participants agreed that emotional attraction was the primary prerequisite for entering a relationship. For example, Kinsley said, “I think it’s the emotional attraction that makes me accept women […] I do not want to think about gender” (Kinsley). Similarly, Nicole stated, “I did not know what bisexual was at the first time, but I knew I cared about that person, that intimate relationship, and that was the most important thing to me” (Nicole). Joy also indicated that the most immediate attraction to her was emotional:

For female bisexual student-athletes, the emotional attraction seems to be the primary prerequisite for entering a relationship. At the same time, participants all described intimate emotions with women that seemed to be warm and trusting.

Despite being explicit about their bisexual identity, some participants reported having to conform to heterosexual gender roles in the sports context. Like many lesbians, female bisexual student-athletes either chose to be a “T” or a “P.” Those terms stand for the prevalent lesbian gender roles of butch and femme, especially stand for the tomboy and tomboy’s wife in China (UNDP and USAID, 2014). Femme refers to non-heterosexual women who behave and look feminine, while masculine non-heterosexual women are referred to as butch (Luoto et al., 2019b).

As the team captain, Nicole considered her role as, first and foremost, that of a “protector.” She believed the character should “remain tough and not allow weakness.” At the same time, most of her teammates considered her to be a “T”:

Unlike Nicole, the other three participants felt they were often treated as a “P” because of their feminine appearance. Some participants felt this male and female role between women was acceptable:

Notably, the protector role described by Nicole and the security needed by Kingsley and Zoe was related to the male role in society. It appeared that heterosexual norms were deeply entrenched in sexual minorities and subconsciously influenced the intimate relationship patterns of female sexual minorities.

Joy described her incomprehension with this phenomenon: “This is a bit unacceptable to me; we are both women; why should our pattern of loving imitate heterosexuality? It destroys the essence of our identities” (Joy). When asked why participants obey these binary heterosexual norms, Nicole argued that “this perception is a result of culture, and that Chinese culture lacks education on diversity, and that people only know the male and female roles, even if they are lesbian […] you have no way but to accept that” (Nicole). Nicole also expressed her dissatisfaction with the phenomenon:

According to the participants’ descriptions, bisexual identity is an invalid identity. One’s sexual orientation is either homosexual or heterosexual; no matter how hard the participants try, bisexual identity is unimportant and unrecognized.

The invalidation of bisexual identity is first demonstrated by the fact that female bisexuals were often treated as lesbians in the team. Joy found that she was the only bisexual student-athlete on the team, and the other teammates considered themselves lesbian or heterosexual; she found no place for bisexuals:

Joy added, “People do not like bisexual women that much. A heterosexual teammate told me that ‘it’s not good to try everything.’ So, being treated as a lesbian is the easiest way” (Joy). Similarly, Kinsley said, “female bisexual student-athlete is often be considered as ‘easy’ woman, so if I’m perceived as a lesbian, it’s the safest and most comfortable solution to simply be a lesbian” (Kinsley). These descriptions expressed the participants’ tolerance and dissatisfaction with lesbian identity. On the one hand, female bisexual student-athletes wanted to fit in with the team; on the other hand, fitting in as lesbians made them hide their bisexual identity.

Some participants described their experiences of being rejected by the team for attempts to come out as bisexual:

Not only do the teammates not recognize bisexuality, but some participants also believed that bisexual identity did not last long:

Kingsley used “normal” to describe heterosexuality. When we assume something is normal, anything beyond that boundary becomes abnormal. Even though Kingsley accepted her bisexual identity, it may be that in Kingsley's subconscious, bisexuality is not a normal identity. Similarly, Zoe assumed that “if I can like women and fall in love with men, then why don't I choose the easy way?” (Zoe).

This theme represents the perceptions of female bisexual student-athletes regarding the sports context. All participants agreed that the sports context influenced their sexuality to some extent. In addition, the sports context was relatively inclusive compared to other contexts in China. However, some participants reported negative experiences based on bisexual identity.

Participants all indicated that there was a link between their sexuality and the sports context. First, participants reported that lesbian was common on sports teams, making them feel safe to fall into relationships with women in a sports context. “At that time, half of my teammates were lesbians, and some were dating soccer players” (Joy).

Joy admitted she started to be attracted to women when she found out about her teammate’s romantic relationship. Joy considered the beginning an “attempt” and an “imitation.” There were lots of lesbians on Joy’s team, and she was trying to fit in with the team:

Nicole started dating girls before she joined the team, and it cannot be said that the sports context influenced her sexuality. Still, Nicole said that the people she dated later were basically teammates. Nicole believes, “it was a natural occurrence when dating a teammate on a women’s team […] my boyish appearance is popular in the team” (Nicole).

In addition, participants believed they spent much time with their teammates, such as training and competing. This intimacy can easily progress into a romantic relationship. “I love volleyball very much, and it’s great to have a close lover who can enjoy volleyball with you” (Zoe).

Thus, according to participants’ descriptions, the sports context provided a safe environment for female student-athletes to express their sexual orientation. At the same time, it was easy for female student-athletes to develop emotions beyond teammate feelings before a long exposure. Participants see love with their teammates as a bond representing a team climate of intimacy and unity.

When asked how the sports context was for the participants, all participants felt that the sports context was relatively inclusive. This inclusion was firstly reflected in the attitude toward open lesbians from teammates. For example, “the lesbians were free to express their sexual identity here” (Joy). Moreover, Joy stated, “some were just straightforward, ‘this is my girlfriend,” or yes, I like girls’” (Joy). Nicole also provided insight into this point. “It’s different from society; it’s a place for women to express themselves, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, it does not matter; what matters is that they can express themselves and be accepted at the same time” (Nicole). In addition, “The younger generation is receptive (for sexual minority females)” (Zoe), “[…] in college and on the team, is receptive (for lesbians)” (Kinsley).

Notably, the inclusion attitude also came from the coach. Nicole thought her coach accepted the romantic relationship between her girlfriend and her:

Another aspect of relative inclusion was that participants reported greater acceptance of lesbian and bisexual women than gay men in a sports context. Kinsley stated, “Everyone is acceptable of sexual minority women, right, but the attitude toward gay would be bad” (Kinsley). Zoe explained the different attitudes toward sexual minority women and gay men in the sports context:

Thus, relative inclusion refers to the fact that sports contexts are more inclusive of bisexuality than social contexts. In addition, relative to gay men, participants perceived female sexual minorities to be more inclusive.

Although participants reported a relatively positive, inclusive climate in the sports context, prejudice and discrimination still existed:

Joy described her terrible experience with her teammates:

Joy knew her breakup with her teammate was the main trigger, but dating a man exacerbated her teammate’s animosity. “They did not like me that much from the beginning, and this was the opportunity for them to break that silence” (Joy). Similarly, Zoe described being reprimanded by her coach for dating a teammate: “She (coach) told me that she would not allow this on her team and that we both had to be separated or one of us would have to quit the team” (Zoe). In addition, Zoe thought that man (in sports) was more unaccepting of bisexuality: “My ex-boyfriend (male student-athlete) was devastated when he found out that I liked girls, and then he cursed me on social media platforms” (Zoe).

Although other participants reported not experiencing direct conflict, they would hear some bad comments about being homosexual or bisexual. “You know, sometimes people will imitate or laugh at some lesbian or gay gestures. It’s common […] and as long as it’s not against me, that’s fine” (Nicole). “My parents think it’s a disease, and I have no way to communicate with them” (Kinsley).

Participants experienced direct and indirect rejection regarding bisexual identity. These rejections come from their teammates, coaches, close people, and parents, and these are often the people they want to get support from.