April 1, 2010 (post 2)

It was another 2 post month this month, Blog Readers. Here's the second. The first can be found directly beneath. Take care of you.


Hi Poppets! Can I check in on something with you, please? It’s something I’ve been aware of for years now but has been back up in my face the last month. Why, when we talk about the LGBT community, do we not actually mean the LGBT community? Because we don’t.

My friend, Helen, is bisexual. She has had four long-term, committed, bring-your-partner-home-to-meet-the-family relationships. Two have been with men. Two have been with women. And yes, the last one she had was with a man, whom she married and is still quite happily married to today. She is also still bisexual. He knows it. She certainly knows it. They have an open relationship because, while he is the man she wants to be married to, she is still bisexual, and there are needs he just can’t meet. Mostly, though, their relationship is open in theory alone. Why? Because the attitude is that she is betraying the community by being married to a man; she is, literally, sleeping with the enemy.

My husband, David, still self-identifies as gay. I am the person he loves and I happen to be female. That doesn’t mean he isn’t more attracted to men than he is to women. It means he happened to fall in love with a person, rather than just a gender. However, many of his gay friends have ostracized him, accused him of just “slumming” when he was hanging out with them. I would willingly accept that they just don’t like me – except that the ones who have accused him of the betrayal haven’t and won’t even meet me.

Another friend, Lilo, is bisexual and married, courtesy of Canada, to a woman. Yet she still has to listen to her wife’s friends warn her wife that Lilo will leave her for a man, for the ease of heterosexual life. And not in a joking, fun-loving sort of way, either. They are bitter, spiteful warnings, implicit with, should Lilo leave one day, her wife will only have gotten what she deserved for getting involved with “one of them” anyway.

Excuse me, but what the hell? This makes no sense, Poppets. If what we fight for, what we rally for, is the right to be accepted for who we are and love who we love, why are we not willing to give that same respect to others? Others who we claim to include? Helen still can’t talk openly about going out on a date with a woman because she risks her job if she does (and not because of an adultery clause). David still opted to remove the pink triangle decal from our car before starting a new job, until he gets a feel for how homophobic his new company is. Lilo is still only married because another country gave her that right. They are still facing the ostracism, the less-than attitudes, the danger, the opposition. They shouldn’t have to face it here, among their own community. We should be better than that.

Until next month, Poppets, take care of you – and each other.