June is LGBT Month. How I Live Out.

[jessicasteiner]

I had a rather awkward conversation with a taxi driver today.

I came out as a lesbian when I was in highschool. I got together with my wife more than 14 years ago, while I was in university. I don't really care if that dates me. From the moment I decided to come out of the closet, I committed to be open and honest about my sexuality, and to answer any question I was asked. I figured that education would be the only way that I could work towards avoiding prejudice.

Over the years, it's worked pretty well. My parents were already pretty accepting of homosexuals before I came out, and quickly accepted me for who I am, though there were some pretty personal questions before I got there, and my mother spent some time very worried about my future.

I've never had a problem at any job, or in my current profession. I find that being honest and simply talking about my wife the same way I would talk about my husband if I were straight, without making a big deal about it, forces my casual acquaintances into a social position of not making a big deal out of it, as well. I've had coworkers come to me later and thank me for my attitude, saying that it made it easier for them to work through it and come to see me being with a woman as normal, because I treated it as normal.

Just as planned.

In November of last year we purchased a house and moved into a more rural town than any we had lived in before. We've met many of our neighbours, some of whom are also LGBT. It's a wonderful neighbourhood and we really love living here. Nevertheless, while it hasn't changed our behaviour, but compared to Vancouver, Chilliwack is white-washed and conservative, though they're only an hour's drive apart.

Today I had occasion to take a taxi home from the courthouse, and my driver and I got to talking. I mentioned my wife, and the driver hastened to mention that her roommate was trans* and going to be going through sexual reassignment surgery, and furthermore that while "some people" might be taken aback by me mentioning that I had a wife, she didn't have a problem with it. "Oh good," I said.

Then she asked me if she could ask a personal question. She asked me "How do you know which one of you is the husband, and which one is the wife?"

"We're both the wife," I said. "Oh," she said. "That makes sense."

I didn't know people really wondered about that.

I feel good that I had the opportunity to talk to that woman and answer her question. I hope that it made some small difference for herself in accepting and overcoming those last vestiges of homophobia.

If you have any similar stories, I'd love to hear them.

Comments

[idgiebay]

Yeah, people do actually wonder about that... I don't deal very well with that question, to be honest (although I often hear it phrased as "which one is the man and which one is the woman?"), but I recognize that I need to stop my knee-jerk reaction of wanting to punch the speaker in the face whenever I hear it. I'm sure it reflects in my tone, and that doesn't exactly do anyone any good!

I want to be the type of person that people can ask questions of--and I think I am, for the most part--but certain things really get to me, and I don't know how to curb my initial anger. (For example, when Tif was getting her last tattoo, the artist asked her what the gay community thought about a political topic. She calmly explained that, overall, the gay community felt a certain way but that by no means reflected the way everybody in the community feels... Whereas I, having a seething hatred for generalities, would have said something like, "I don't know; how does the STRAIGHT community feel about it?" in a way that would probably not welcome further conversation.)

In all likelihood, if I had been in your position, the conversation with the taxi driver would have turned out very differently (or stopped before it even got started; my response to confrontation is either fight or flight!).

How do you all stay so calm? :(

[jessicasteiner]

I have to admit, I had a bit of an inward knee-jerk "WTF" reaction, but I think I covered it pretty well. I guess the main way I stay calm is because I know that if I get upset, it'll only make things worse. I remember when I was pretty young, I had some pretty stupid opinions about homosexuality, too.

So I sort of feel like when people ask dumb questions, it's not because they mean to offend someone, but because they're just ignorant. It's harder to get angry at someone who genuinely wants to learn.

Gender Normative rant ;)

[(Anonymous)]

"How do you know which one of you is the husband, and which one is the wife?"

This is a question that irks me no end. My sister is in a lesbian relationship and has often had to field the question 'so who's the guy in the relationship?' Can people asking this question not appreciate that there are two WOMEN together for a reason, that they don't want to be in a relationship with men and therefore there is NO guy but two FEMALES in the relationship? Similarly I have seen gay friends teased for being the 'wife' in a gay relationship. WTF!? They're two men in relationship because they like men! Even the sassiest of queens is still a man with another man in an all MALE relationship for a reason! I find it really strange and perturbing that some see homosexual relationships as a gender normative role-play where one of the partners 'naturally' assumes the role of the opposite sex.

It seems many hetero individuals are still struggling to overcome gender normative ideas of how relationships should work i.e dominant man + submissive female where the man works and the female covers all domestic chores. Is this the 1940s? In straight relationships where the woman is the bread-winner and never bakes cookies she's termed an 'emasculator' and if the man is a stay at home dad who does the cooking then he should have his penis license revoked. Even when these sorts of jibes of meant jokingly, they speak to a far greater gender normative assumption in our society that is only very slowly changing on the larger scale.

Suffice it to say that this sort of in-the-box, blinkered thinking drives me crazy. Rant over.

[jessicasteiner]

I totally feel the same way. I don't have much brain this morning, but as a divorce lawyer I can confirm that in the vast majority of cases, heterosexual marriages still conform to the traditional gender roles, even when the wife works outside the home. Out of 700 files we've worked on since I started working in the legal profession, there were maybe a handful where the father would primarily care for the children, and even fewer where the man did it in addition to working. Overwhelmingly, the woman either didn't work, or worked but also did nearly everything for the children and household. This idea that homosexual relationships need to be organized in the same way, with an identified 'wife' and a 'husband' who fulfil these roles in that way I'm sure speaks to the idea that a marriage can't work without each of those roles being filled. Yet people are just people, and have interests and different skills and aren't simply defined by the labels you want to slap on. I think our world would be better in a million ways if that were recognized, like, ever.