Academic attacks half-baked "LGBT" research

Times Higher Education reports a speech from the University and College Union LGBT Conference given by Professor Ian Rivers from Brunel University, challenging common practice in LGBT research and service delivery:

Services labelled LGBT often serve “G” and hopefully “L”, occasionally “B” and rarely “T”, he said.

“How can we justify the fact that LGBT sexual health usually means gay men’s health? We accept a need to fund gay men’s health projects, but what about lesbian health, transgender health, bisexual health? In trying to be inclusive have we ‘played’ to the lowest common denominator?”

Many BiMedia.org readers will be only too familiar with the ‘lowest common denominator’ approach to lesbian, gay and bisexual work which focuses only on issues of same-sex attraction and relationships rather than reflecting the diversity particularly of bisexual experience. This site and various bi journals have reported time and again on many pieces of research which sought to categorise everyone as either gay or straight, or have included bisexuality in a way that suggests that just before the report was printed a quick search-and-replace operation was done on the draft report. Isn’t it great to hear someone in academia challenging that mindset?