DEKALB, Ill. – Despite a $18.3 trillion federal debt, U.S. taxpayers are paying for research to determine the health effects of so-called “microaggressions” on bisexual women.

“The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between microaggressions and mental health among racially diverse bisexual women,” Wendy Bostwick, associate professor of nursing and health studies at Northern Illinois University tells the Northern Star.

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“I am also one of the first people to ever get an (National Institutes of Health) grant to specifically look at the mental health of bisexual identified women.”

NIH will be paying $371,538 for Bostwick to conduct the study, which will consist of analyzing 125 women from the Chicago area.

“Study participants will fill out a survey each day for 28 days. Questions will include whether they experienced microaggressions that day, as well as questions about substance abuse, moods and other life factors,” NIU Today reports.

The Northern Star describes “microaggressions” as “comments, slights or insults that are related to an aspect of someone’s identity and occur in daily life” that are related to one’s “gender, race or ethnicity.”

Bostwick believes bisexuals suffer from more physical and mental health issues than others that identify as LGBT.

“Bisexual women experience a different kind of discrimination – a more subtle form that accumulates over time. It’s not one off-handed comment, it’s constantly hearing those messages not just from strangers, but from family, friends, partners, the media, the larger society,” she says.

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One of Bostwick’s collaborators, University of Illinois at Chicago professor Tonda Hughes, tells the paper, “This innovative study is well positioned to help us better understand the unique stressors that contribute to physical and mental health disparities among bisexual women.”

Ulysses Arn reports Bostwick’s previous research has found much of the microaggressive behavior comes from others identifying as LGBT. From Bi Net USA:

In a recent paper, my colleague and I discuss 7 bisexual-specific microaggressions that emerged from our focus groups. Including those mentioned above, which we termed hostility, denial/dismissal, and unintelligibility, we also identified microaggressions related to hypersexuality, dating exclusion, pressure to change, and LGBT legitimacy. Probably the most common microaggression had to do with the women’s place within the larger “LGBT” community. A number of women talked about how they felt a requirement to prove they were “gay enough” to legitimately be a member of a community that, at least in name, included them. Others told of how even at events that were labeled as LGBT, there were unwelcoming, or even hostile comments about bisexuality.

According to NIU Today, “The NIH recognizes the importance of Bostwick’s work” because of the $371,538 to fund the study.