By the time Thursdays roll around I’ve pretty much had it up to my eyeballs with people assuming everybody is heterosexual. That’s why I love beach weekends—with all the diversity in this community, gay people get a breather from the insulting assumptions we hear most everywhere else.
And when Rehoboth burst to life on Memorial Day weekend, I counted dozens of reasons why my comfort level is so high. Between an awesome women’s dance at the convention center (even if Bonnie and I were the oldest women on the dance floor), and Baltimore Avenue teeming with gay people, we were everywhere.
Insulting assumptions were mercifully hard to come by. Unlike last week when Bonnie and I were at our local mall and a salesman eyed the two of us, looked at my credit card and asked, “What are you, sisters, or something?”
Now this happens to most lesbian couples I know, even if they’re as different as Jack and Mrs. Sprat. The only exception (and I’m not even including race here) is when only one lesbian has grey hair. Then they ask the embarrassing, “mother and daughter?”
But mostly it’s the sister thing. When one lesbian offers a credit card to pay for purchases for the pair, salespeople make the only assumption they’re conditioned to make: it’s not a husband and wife or parent and child, so these women with financial ties must be, uh, um, sisters!
When the clerk asked if we were sisters or something I wanted to ask if he was a moron or something, but I settled for telling him we were merely “or something.”
Gay people need an ad campaign to let the world know that alternative spousal relationships exist. We could plaster busses and billboards with photos of great looking lesbian couples saying “We’re no sister act.” Or posters of three embracing couples—two men, two women and a mix ‘n match, with copy reading “Just friends? Think again.”
And the first place I’d post them would be hotels.
Recently we checked into the Fairmont in Chicago, where a clerk asked us “Can you make do with one bed or do you want two?”
Boldly, without hesitation, I said “One will be fine.”
The clerk looked at us and said “Are you sure? Because I can get you a room with two.”
“I’m sure,” I said with conviction, “We’ll take the room with one.”
“Well, let’s check a minute,” she continued, tapping on her keyboard.
“Really, it’s not...” I protested.
“Oh! Here we go! I do have a room with two beds,” she said triumphantly, handing me a key.
Invisible lesbians. I don’t think she would have listened if it had been my picture instead of Ellen DeGeneres on Time Magazine with the “Yup, I’m Gay!” headline.
Then there was the gallstone incident.
I arrived at the emergency room with what felt like a Subaru Outback lodged in my gut. I’m doubled over in a triage room chair and they shove a financial responsibility form under my nose asking me to check, among other things, single, married or divorced. I was in no mood to debate. I qualified to check all three, so I did. Hours later, after being told I needed surgery, they got me again.
“Mrs. Jacobs, er...Miss, er, Jacobs...er...” (I guess they read the financial form.) “We’re taking you to X-Ray. Is there any chance you’re pregnant?”
“No, not a chance.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“There’s not the slightest chance you could be pregnant?”
“No. I don’t sleep with men and my biological clock stopped ticking before the lesbian baby boom.”
Now this got her attention, but she couldn’t seem to process the information.
“So you’re sure?”
“That I’m a lesbian? You bet.” Morphine is really good stuff. I never did find out what she checked on the form.
In my pre-op haze I recalled other such indignities. Like the ignorant transmission man who assumed I was scamming him when I brought the car in under Bonnie’s warranty; the insensitive people who ask Bonnie “are you still with Fay?” when they’d
never dream of asking married friends the same question; and the legions of Americans who assume that straight couples are the only ones working hard, paying taxes, and living in the suburbs with station wagons and dogs.
Finally, a nurse came to take me to the O.R. and asked who’d be in the lounge awaiting word of my condition. I gave her Bonnie’s name. “Friend or relative?” the nurse asked. Another trick question!
“Um, relative.”
“Sister? “
“No. Um...”
I finally lost it and whimpered “Spouse....” To her credit, the nurse, with a hint of apology said, “Oh. I guess we need some time to get used to these situations so we can do better.”
Well, the rest of the world should take a lesson from Rehoboth. Capping the weekend, Bonnie and I were half a foursome celebrating a birthday at a local eatery. Behind us, two straight couples in their late 60s or early 70s celebrated a birthday too, and we exchanged toasts.
When they asked where we were from, I pointed to the boys and said “These guys have a home here, and we’re from Maryland, but spend weekends here on our boat.”
And lo and behold, the quartet had not a moment’s hesitation processing our non-traditional coupling. And that’s how it should be. No if, and, or assumption about it.