I'm a lesbian marrying a man

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/29/im_a_lesbian_marrying_a_man/

I was in a bar in Chicago when I told a close friend of 20 years that, despite being a lesbian, I was marrying a man. My friend and I hadn't seen each other in a while, but we fell back quickly into our old intimacy — those long, rambling conversations we used to have in coffee shops all over Minneapolis. When the subject shifted to an activist group she was part of, I said I'd be glad to help, if they needed a lesbian on their board. She laughed, dismissively. "You can't call yourself that anymore."

Of all the weird reactions I'd gotten to my engagement, that one pissed me off most.

I had not been not surprised when my fiancé's friends — Washington insiders with the respect for convention that city inspires — expressed shock when they discovered I was a dyke. We came from different worlds; with my long brunette hair and short skirts, I hadn't read as queer to them. But no one had presumed to relabel me, to retrofit me to their categories — at least, not to my face.

But here was my fabulous Portland pal, trying to claim me for the Bi-Het team (which sounded like a synagogue rather than a sexual identity, and certainly not my own). She wasn't the only one: An ex-girlfriend and a sophisticated poet cousin said the same thing, as if my lesbian license had been revoked.

So let me be clear, since I can't be the only one: I am a lesbian marrying a man.

This is not semantics, or splitting hairs; it is fundamental to who we are — my fiancé and I. Immutable as height or eye color.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Fuck it. I'm a motherfucking six-and-a-half foot tall gladiator with a ten-inch uncut penis. DON'T TRY TO RETROFIT ME TO FIT YOUR CATEGORIES.

[Doktor Howl]

I am a beautiful fairy princess, and this makes it official.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

[quote source="the comments"]
danicastone Aug 4, 2014
The problem here is in people who are not in the bisexual community, and don't identify as bisexual, defining bisexuality in a way that lets them keep their old identity. Instead of learning what people who do use the label, who understand it deeply from within their history and culture and community and shared experience, mean by "bisexual".

In the bi world, "bisexual" doesn't just mean being equally attracted to all genders. Or being "as a rule, attracted to men" as well as women. It very frequently - maybe even most often - means "I simply fall in love with people and don't hold their gender against them."

There are also scores of Kinsey 4.5s in the bisexual community - people who are, as a rule, with people of one particular gender, but who are sometimes attracted to others, who dated others in the distant past, who have dated or married people whose gender identity changed, or who just are open to the possibility that they might be drawn to someone different.

The best analogy might be the "straight" woman who falls in love with another woman but doesn't want to give up the privilege and emotional security that comes with continuing to call herself straight.

It's hard to give up the idea of your identity as fixed and secure, and to give up the familiarity and security and visibility and sense of normalcy of being straight... Or even of being gay, compared to being bi. It's easier to deny those people's reality and define them as whatever will keep them different than you. Even if that means perpetuating their invisibility and "otherness" by writing articles like this one.[/quote]

So much this goddamn it.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Identity issues are gay.

[Eater of Clowns]

Identity issues are gay.

[Cain]

Commonly held definitions are lesbian-exclusionary.

[Junkenstein]

There's a strong reek of bullshit throughout that.

His friends are mostly astronauts, charmingly cheerful guys, who seem to be straining to seem like ordinary guys, when in fact they have done truly extraordinary things: They have left the fucking planet; they have orbited the earth. When they hear that I am a writer, they are kindly enthusiastic and look up my work online. Then, one by one, the men come to my fiancé and say, with evident concern, "Do you know that she's a lesbian?" "Yup," he says. "I know." Their wives are a little less friendly after that, but they are scrupulously polite.

If it's actually legit and they do get married, I've got a fiver on less than a year, probably not even 6 months.

I know plenty of people who identify as bisexual; I am not. The term simply doesn't apply. I am not, as a rule, attracted to men. I simply fell in love with this person and didn't hold his gender against him. That won't change because of our vows, any more than my eye color will. My fundamental coordinates are unaltered.

Denial. It's not just in Egypt.

I've been changed by this love: I am calmer, fatter, pregnant. But my fundamental coordinates have not changed. It is precisely because our love makes room for us to be who we are, rather than cutting us to fit convention, that I want to spend my life with him, as I'll affirm when we stand before the rabbi and say, I do.

Total lesbian behaviour. Obviously all these people are mad for suggesting she's anything other than Queen Dyke of Lesbiana.

I'm not great with the whole gender/sexual politics thing, but I still say that if it's the biggest woe you're dealing with then you're pretty fucking lucky. Read an article or two about what it's like to deal with say, being gay in most of Africa and the levels of privilege and pretension here are amazing in comparison. Seriously, you're pregnant, getting married to a guy and you're upset because your friends have apparently (somewhat justifiably even) re-labled you? Cry me a fucking river.

I am aware that this is hardly enlightened thinking but I'm struggling to think kindly here.


ETA- The underlined. It's always handy when someone keeps restating something like that because it helps call out what's actually going on. It bet the follow up piece in 6-9 months will be a hoot.

[Reginald Ret]

It would be fascinating to hear her define lesbian.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Junky: lesbians totally get pregnant and have babies.

[hooplala]

Maybe their relationship is non-sexual... and she is fully lesbian?  They just make a good team.  Could be?

My optimism amuses myself, this time.

[Reginald Ret]

Junky: lesbians totally get pregnant and have babies.

They also occasionally get calmer and/or fatter.

[Cain]

Maybe their relationship is non-sexual... and she is fully lesbian?  They just make a good team.  Could be?

My optimism amuses myself, this time.

Through it all, I found it hard to look at him: The wonderful smell of this man made me want to laugh out loud with pleasure

Later, I will realize that he looks a great deal like my first girlfriend

In fact, we fell in love

I've been changed by this love: I am calmer, fatter, pregnant. But my fundamental coordinates have not changed.

So, going by the article, nope.  She is a lesbian who fell in love with a man.  But she's still a lesbian!

She's a pretty decent writer, or so I hear, but damn if she doesn't need to take a basic course in logic.

[Reginald Ret]

Maybe their relationship is non-sexual... and she is fully lesbian?  They just make a good team.  Could be?

My optimism amuses myself, this time.

Through it all, I found it hard to look at him: The wonderful smell of this man made me want to laugh out loud with pleasure

Later, I will realize that he looks a great deal like my first girlfriend

In fact, we fell in love

I've been changed by this love: I am calmer, fatter, pregnant. But my fundamental coordinates have not changed.

So, going by the article, nope.  She is a lesbian who fell in love with a man.  But she's still a lesbian!

She's a pretty decent writer, or so I hear, but damn if she doesn't need to take a basic course in logic.

Doesn't everyone?

[Cain]

Well, yes.  And probably she comes down quite low on the list.

But it's pretty amazing, the mental hurdles one has to jump through to continue to define as a lesbian while in love with a man.  No wonder she quotes a theologian at the end - they excel at precisely this kind of nonsense, ignoring self-contained definitions, creating new ones, appeals to emotion and identity over usage and custom.