“We don’t Have to Live in Such a Constrained World”: Plurisexual Women Navigating Stigma, Bi+ Erasure, Monosexuality, and Heteronormativity.”

Plurisexuality, an umbrella term describing attraction to more than one gender (e.g., bisexuality, pansexuality), has become increasingly visible in Anglo-Western societies. Yet dominant heterosexual-homosexual binaries remain entrenched, contributing to the erasure, stigmatization, and delegitimisation of plurisexual identities. Gendered sexual norms further shape these dynamics, positioning plurisexual women at the intersection of sexualization and invisibility. Despite comprising a substantial proportion of queer communities, plurisexual women’s experiences remain underexplored in qualitative research. This study drew on in-depth interviews with a community-based sample of plurisexual women (N = 20) living in Aotearoa New Zealand. Informed by social constructionist epistemology, a critical approach to sexuality studies, intersectional theory, and critical feminist psychological methodology, we conducted a reflexive thematic analysis to examine how participants discussed their sexual identities and daily experiences, negotiating marginalization within the bicultural context of Aotearoa New Zealand. Findings revealed a governing discursive landscape in which plurisexuality, particularly bisexuality, is constructed as socially unacceptable, shaping what participants felt able to say, do, and claim. Within this landscape, plurisexual identities were experienced as both sites of political possibility and sources of alienation, requiring ongoing cognitive, emotional, and relational work. These findings highlight the distinctive social positioning of plurisexual women and underscore the need for sexuality research that moves beyond mononormative and gender-binary frameworks to better reflect lived experience.