After reading Jennifer Finney Boylan's wonderful piece in today's New York Times, I was curious about how other families deal with the transition of a spouse. Specifically not in their own relationship but how they communicate that to the rest of the world. HRC's Associate Director of Diversity Allyson Robinson penned this piece in response to my query:
"So...what are you now?" It's a question my wife and I get asked all the time. It started when I began the public phase of my transition and we went from being perceived as a heterosexual couple to...well, to what? That's why people were asking the question. They weren't sure how to perceive us. What they really wanted to know was this: "How should we think about your relationship now? Should we think of you as a lesbian couple?" The fact that people feel the need to ask these questions says something about the work that remains in the struggle for full marriage equality. It demonstrates that, despite all the good work that's been done, many people still put committed same-sex relationships in a different mental category than committed heterosexual relationships. They see us as "differently married," as Jennifer Finney Boylan puts it so delicately in her wonderful op-ed piece. But what they often miss in their rush to categorize our relationship, Boylan continues, is what really matters. "Whether a marriage like mine is a same-sex marriage or some other kind is hardly the point. What matters is that my spouse and I love each other, and that our legal union has been a good thing - for us, for our children and for our community." Today, when people ask us The Question, we like to respond with a question of our own: "Does it matter?" Do the labels we impulsively seek to apply to others' relationships really matter at all? Love matters, surely. Healthy couples and healthy families matter. But labels...not so much. If marriages like ours and Jenny's can help people understand that, then that's a good thing, too.
