The reaction to Angelina Jolie and Evan Rachel Wood’s allegations is exactly why bisexual women are more vulnerable to domestic violence

When 26-year-old Elisa* started dating her boyfriend James*, she was excited to have met someone who seemed so well-suited to her. They shared a similar taste in music, books and films, and he was well-dressed, witty and bore a passing resemblance to her celebrity crush, Timothée Chalamet. He also seemed supportive of her bisexuality, asking her many questions about it.

However, as time went on, things between them started to change. First, he told her he was uncomfortable with her spending time in queer activist circles, although that was a place where she had found a sense of community and purpose. Then he accused her of fancying her platonic female friends, starting jealous rows when she wanted to spend time with them.

Towards the end of their relationship, he called her sexual orientation repulsive and took naked pictures of her without her consent, claiming he would leak them on the internet if she cheated. Eventually, he started threatening to kill her.

Elisa isn’t alone. Numerous pieces of research have found that bisexual women are more likely to experience intimate partner violence than either straight or gay women. They’re also nearly five times as likely to have experienced sexual assault by a partner or ex-partner than their heterosexual counterparts.

Elisa managed to get out of her relationship with James. But she was reminded of her experience recently when reading about Angelina Jolie, the latest openly bisexual celebrity to be in the press for alleging partner abuse.

A leaked report claimed that while on a private plane ride, Brad Pitt, Jolie’s then-husband, had grabbed her, shaken her shoulders, and shouted: “You’re f***ing up this family.”

Following the news, US entertainment website TMZ dismissed Jolie as “trying to run Brad Pitt’s name through the mud.” The public opinion seemed to reflect this scepticism, with one Twitter user describing her as a: “Another Amber Heard and another home wrecker can’t move on.”

Another ‘out’ bisexual celebrity, Evan Rachel Wood has recently faced a similar backlash after her accusations that ex-partner Marilyn Mason “horrifically abused” her reached the headlines again.

Since Manson moved to sue the Westworld star following the outcome of the Heard-Depp trial, the hashtag #JusticeForMarilynManson has received 1.5 million views, while #IStandWithMarilynManson received 3.3 million. Meanwhile, a recent Twitter post about Wood read: “She’s arrogant, haughty, deceptive, manipulative, and seems to hold onto a lot of hate…a lying, toxic feminist.”

Elisa finds it painful to see this kind of derogatory attitude towards survivors in the public and press.

“It’s ironic bi women are being labelled as untrustworthy,” she says, “given that these kinds of attitudes towards bi women are likely what makes us so vulnerable to this kind of violence in the first place.”

Lois Shearing, the founder of Bi Survivors Network, a support and awareness-raising resource set up to support bisexuals in the aftermath of abuse, concurs. Shearing, who set up the organisation after experiencing intimate partner violence herself, says various factors contribute to the high rates of partner abuse that bisexual women experience. Of these, the negative tropes and stereotypes faced by bisexual women are towards the top of the list.