Response to "But Are they Queer?"
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(What I didn't write was - Xtra West - perhaps you could hire some more people who do not identify as cisgendered homosexuals?)
A lot of homosexuals forget that the word "Queer" was coined in part to unite the wide range of ways of living outside the norm - undoing some of the damage wrought by psychiatry, which defined homosexuality as an illness, distinct from breaking other gender norms. And I know many one-woman/one-man couples who are definitely Queer.
Some are gender-variant, and when not holding hands (and sometimes even when they are), get read as gay or lesbian. If one of them acts gender-normative, and the other does not, the "normal" one may still be ejected from the hetero club on account of hooking up with a swishy dude who might be mistaken for a woman, or a woman who's too butch, and who may be mistaken for a man.
Sometimes one or both are bisexual. If they're both bisexual, one of the things they have in common is constantly taking flack from hets for being too homo, and flack from homosexuals from being too het - homosexuals who refuse to date them, and then who condemn them for sleeping with the other sex rather than choosing a life of bisexual celibacy.
Sometimes, one or both people are transsexual. Your relationship might be hetero, but bigots won't see it that way. Remember Pvt. Barry Winchell, murdered by his coworkers for going out with a transsexual woman?
Or they could be poly - many forms of which are still illegal in Canada.
Or they could be more than one of the above.
All of the people in these couples can be targeted by anti-queer laws, slurs or fists, just as much as anyone in a same-gender relationship.
Think also of norms of dating based on race, religion, ability, class and age.
What unites us as Queers is breaking with the assumption that everyone should be heterosexual, cisgendered, and live in a suburban bungalow with 2.5 children.
(What I didn't write was - Xtra West - perhaps you could hire some more people who do not identify as cisgendered homosexuals?)
A lot of homosexuals forget that the word "Queer" was coined in part to unite the wide range of ways of living outside the norm - undoing some of the damage wrought by psychiatry, which defined homosexuality as an illness, distinct from breaking other gender norms. And I know many one-woman/one-man couples who are definitely Queer.
Some are gender-variant, and when not holding hands (and sometimes even when they are), get read as gay or lesbian. If one of them acts gender-normative, and the other does not, the "normal" one may still be ejected from the hetero club on account of hooking up with a swishy dude who might be mistaken for a woman, or a woman who's too butch, and who may be mistaken for a man.
Sometimes one or both are bisexual. If they're both bisexual, one of the things they have in common is constantly taking flack from hets for being too homo, and flack from homosexuals from being too het - homosexuals who refuse to date them, and then who condemn them for sleeping with the other sex rather than choosing a life of bisexual celibacy.
Sometimes, one or both people are transsexual. Your relationship might be hetero, but bigots won't see it that way. Remember Pvt. Barry Winchell, murdered by his coworkers for going out with a transsexual woman?
Or they could be poly - many forms of which are still illegal in Canada.
Or they could be more than one of the above.
All of the people in these couples can be targeted by anti-queer laws, slurs or fists, just as much as anyone in a same-gender relationship.
Think also of norms of dating based on race, religion, ability, class and age.
What unites us as Queers is breaking with the assumption that everyone should be heterosexual, cisgendered, and live in a suburban bungalow with 2.5 children.