(Just to be clear for others, yes, I'm in a different-sex relationship, and yes, we've had it recognized by the State. But that doesn't make me any less queer, bi, two-spirited, etc. If anything, it strengthens my resolve to come out all the more, so people do not make unwarranted assumptions about me and those I love.)
Thank you for writing this. I haven't known quite where to stand on the whole NMB issue, but this has given me a great deal to think about. I'm really honored to know you, hermetic, however little I can claim 'know' from our short times together. You're an awesome guy.
Everyone has the privilege of saying vows, throwing a party, and going on vacation. I've been at some really wonderful extralegal commitment ceremonies. Love is awesome and I'm totally with you on celebrating it. That has nothing to do with marriage as a legal construct. So I don't think those people were protesting what you seem to think they were protesting, and I'm not entirely sure those people are the people you seem to think they are. Specifically, bisexual people are conspicuously missing from your analysis. We have that privilege and also we don't, depending on a throw of the cosmic dice.
sinboy and I had a lovely wedding. My brother officiated; my mother made the cake; my girlfriend knit the handfasting ribbon; my godmother astonished us all by jumping up to dance the Charleston. We are very definitely married. Only two entities were explicitly disinvited from the ceremony: my evil ex-stepfather, and the state of New York
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I probably would have been quite glad to march with that group. That's the "us" I identify with. So you are talking about me, or people like me. I am that person who has actually given something up. I am that person with het privilege intact. And if I were marching with that group, you would look at me and see a straight person. You want to talk about real sacrifice and ethical quandary? I am never automatically part of the queer "us", no matter how many women I kiss or how many times I buzz my hair, because I am a woman whose live-in primary partner is a man. That's what I've sacrificed. That's the ethical dilemma I live with every day, this question--as you say--of whether following my heart means betraying my people. And it hurts to be invisible again and again and again, to realize that I would be invisible (or, worse, make people uncomfortable by looking like something I'm not) in the middle of Pride of all places, to have my queerness not count and then to be told that the subsuming of my identity is "not unfair". What does that
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I'm of different minds on how I want to reply to this.
First, I should say this: I understand how frustrating and painful bisexual invisibility is. I share your pain. If you felt hurt by my words, then I'm sorry.
2nd: but what of that invisibility? You're complaining--albeit your right--of the fundamental unfairness of the situation of that invisibility. But in my opinion, complaining about it changes nothing, since by the nature of how our society works most of the time, bisexuals will perforce present as either straight or gay. Unless we take to wearing symbols all the time to signal our sexuality, we are going to be only partly seen, almost always. That sucks. But, there's only so much complaining about it that I can a) do, and b) put up with
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(Just to be clear for others, yes, I'm in a different-sex relationship, and yes, we've had it recognized by the State. But that doesn't make me any less queer, bi, two-spirited, etc. If anything, it strengthens my resolve to come out all the more, so people do not make unwarranted assumptions about me and those I love.)
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Yeah. I take pains, in life, to make my bisexuality apparent as needed. It's not always germane, but when it is, yeah, it comes up.
So, um... thanks.
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Thank you for writing this. I haven't known quite where to stand on the whole NMB issue, but this has given me a great deal to think about. I'm really honored to know you, hermetic, however little I can claim 'know' from our short times together. You're an awesome guy.
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Thank you. I really enjoy knowing you, too.
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Also: really? (I totally win a kitten!) I love this medium, precisely because of these kind of interactions.
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Aw, that's all right. I take 'em where I can get 'em. To be brutally honest: I'm a cheap everything. ;)
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sinboy and I had a lovely wedding. My brother officiated; my mother made the cake; my girlfriend knit the handfasting ribbon; my godmother astonished us all by jumping up to dance the Charleston. We are very definitely married. Only two entities were explicitly disinvited from the ceremony: my evil ex-stepfather, and the state of New York ( ... )
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First, I should say this: I understand how frustrating and painful bisexual invisibility is. I share your pain. If you felt hurt by my words, then I'm sorry.
2nd: but what of that invisibility? You're complaining--albeit your right--of the fundamental unfairness of the situation of that invisibility. But in my opinion, complaining about it changes nothing, since by the nature of how our society works most of the time, bisexuals will perforce present as either straight or gay. Unless we take to wearing symbols all the time to signal our sexuality, we are going to be only partly seen, almost always. That sucks. But, there's only so much complaining about it that I can a) do, and b) put up with ( ... )
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