Hermeneutical Injustice and Bisexuality: Toward New Conceptual Tools

Abstract

Abstract The starting point of this paper is a clarification of the forms that hermeneutical injustice takes for bisexual individuals. While it is often thought that bisexuals do not need special protections or politics because they easily “pass” for straight and thus enjoy so-called hetero privilege, this precise situation is a source of oppression, silencing, erasure, and discrimination for many of them within both straight and gay environments. Bi-invisibility, bi-erasure, and persistent negative stereotypes contribute to specific forms of hermeneutical injustice for this segment of the population. Reflection on these forms, however, as well as reflection on bisexual identity, highlights some problematic aspects connected to the metaphor of hermeneutical “gaps” and the underlying theoretical model that are often used or assumed in research on epistemic injustice. With the aim of clarifying and responding to such difficulties, I introduce Wittgenstein's notion of hinges as a conceptual tool to better understand these phenomena. The case of bisexuality shows that seeing hermeneutical injustice in the light of the metaphor of hinges, instead of that of gaps, helps better grasp its features, its causes, and the forms that it can assume.