“There’s people out there doing more than me…”: Activist burnout among bisexual college students within LGBTQ campus spaces.

Abstract

Queer-and trans-spectrum students continue to struggle with hostile campus climates. As a result, queerand trans-spectrum students may engage in on-campus activism to push their institutions to address cisheterosexism on campus. Bisexual students experience invisibility, marginalization, and exclusion in both heterosexual and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) spaces. Though not surprising that bisexual students experience hostility within predominantly heterosexual spaces, their challenges within LGBTQ campus spaces are especially concerning considering these spaces should be inclusive and supportive of their bisexual identity. The purpose of this study is to examine bisexual college students' experiences engaging in identity-based activism within LGBTQ campus spaces. Based on interviews with bisexual college students who participated in LGBTQ activism on campus, I considered two questions. First, what were the costs of engaging in LGBTQ activism as bisexual students within LGBTQ campus spaces? Second, considering these costs, what sustained them in continuing their activist work within LGBTQ campus spaces? The findings of this study revealed that most participants experienced at least one of the three components symptomatic of activist burnout as a result of their engagement in LGBTQ campus spaces. Participants shared their challenges engaging in these spaces stemmed from two main causes: (a) identifying as bisexual and experiencing biphobia within LGBTQ campus spaces and (b) being overcommitted to their activist work within LGBTQ campus spaces.

Activist purpose orientation: Definition and predictors

“…Furthermore, central to our discussion is that activist purpose should similarly engender greater hope (see e.g., Bronk et al., 2009) among purposeful individuals. Burnout is common in activists across domains (Gorski, 2019; Tavarez, 2022), and this burnout can lead individuals to feel hopeless (Chen & Gorski, 2015), or doubt the efficacy of their activism (Gorski & Chen, 2015). By bringing about greater hope, activist purpose will assist individuals to avoid burnout and instead see opportunities around the obstacles they face in their pursuit of social change.…”

A systematic literature review on bi+ college students using an ecological lens.

“…Patton (2011) shared the experiences of a Black student whose racial identity was more salient than his sexual identity. Likewise, the literature articulated bi+ people’s intersecting political identities (Worthen, 2020), sometimes also exploring activist identities of bi+ people, such as Tavarez’s (2022b) exposition of activist burnout among bisexual people because of their engagement in LGBTQ campus spaces that were not bi+-affirming. Last, the literature articulated bi+ students’ integration, reconciliation, and negation strategies of one’s faith and sexual identity (Hughes, 2015; A.…”

“…A robust body of literature (i.e., 20 publications) provided evidence for the marginalization bi+ students experience, including by fellow queer people. In particular, the literature detailed the marginalization of bi+ students in LGBTQ+ spaces (e.g., Kay, 2022;Prieto Godoy, 2020;Tavarez, 2016Tavarez, , 2022aVaccaro, 2006). Waling and Roffee (2017) spoke to a "hierarchies of queerness" wherein bi+ people who are read as straight are excluded from the LGBTQ+ community (p. 311).…”

Burnout through the Lenses of Equity/Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Disabled People: A Scoping Review

“…There is "professional or full-time activism and leisure activism as well as workplace-based and community-based activism" [6] (p. 375). Existing research on activist burnout [6,[130][131][132][133][134][135][136][137][138][139][140] addresses topics including human rights [130], social justice [130,134], animal rights [6], bisexual college students [136], racial justice [133,135], youth activists [130] and references [141,142] mentioned in [130], feminism [131,143], academic women activists [138], peace [144], climate activism [145] and campus activism [146]. Vocational burnout theory is one theory applied to studies concerning activist burnout [6].…”