I’m a lesbian - AMA

[Gisty]

no idea if this will generate loads of questions or none, but go ahead

You're not confused, you're just being mildly homophobic. HTH.

I'd like to know: how on earth do we change things so that people don't blithely claim that homophobia is a thing of the past? Do you think that gay rights activists have actually been too successful with the whole 'gay is normal' message, and it's made people genuinely believe homophobia doesn't exist any more? I feel as if there's been a real increase in this sort of thing in the last few years. Would you agree?

My second question: how do you and your wife negotiate when you disagree about parenting? Do you always have equal priority, or is there some sense that the mother who gave birth has a bit more 'pull'? And how did you decide who would try first?

In your experience, how much do women’s bodies vary sexually? I’ve only slept with one woman and was like ‘whoa, that is very different to how I’m wired’ and I’ve always wondered if that was unusual!

@SarahAndQuack what interesting questions.

It’s sort of a nice problem to have, when well-meaning straight people think there is no homophobia anymore, because most of the obvious gay bashing has stopped. I do sometimes look back and think, wow when I was born the aids crisis was in full swing and when I went to school gay was an insult. I learned the word lesbian when a boy at school told me it meant a girl who wanted to “do sex with everyone she saw, even her mum and her brother”. So on the one hand, look how far we’ve come, but on the other, look how recent that all was, and lets not just blot out all memory of it because we could go back (I hope not) and the people who are now being told there is no homophobia lived through that and it scars.

I do worry about my kids sometimes and if they are going to experience discrimination at school for having gay mums. Especially if they are at school with kids that are hearing things from parents that perhaps are more old school or grew up in less tolerant cultures. I hear things have changed in schools, but I don’t know yet and I feel a sort of bizarre guilt for having inflicted difference on my kids.

I do think a lot of people (especially online) chose to not see or dismiss the less obvious homophobia that LGB people live with, either because they genuinely don’t see it, or don’t want it to be there, or have some bizarre tribal instinct to deny it and try to explain why fellow straight people who they don’t know aren’t being homophobic. I don’t know what to do about it, other than to ask straight people to adopt a default stance to believe LGB people if they tell you something is homophobic even if it doesn’t look / sound that way to you, because WE KNOW.

Re kids and parenting. We try to discuss parenting things away from the kids and agree on a common approach / stance beforehand. If they surprise us with a new parenting challenge (all the time) and we differ in our instinctive response we have a standing agreement not to challenge each other in their hearing and discuss it later. We try not to let who birthed who affect our parenting too much but it does in some ways because the baby is still a baby and needs things like to be breastfed to sleep that just can’t be subbed by the other parent. And realistically I have to spend more time with the baby, so my wife spends more time with the toddler and we end up being “experts” in one kid each just because of the time spent. I think this will even out once the baby is older as with the toddler we found once he stopped breastfeeding it mattered much less who gave birth to him. I do wonder whether it’s going to matter to the kids. Do you have kids? How do you and your partner handle this?

Wife is a couple of years older so she went first.

Quite a lot I guess, probably more than men’s bodies / responses differ. They say sex is a little bit more in the mind with women, don’t know if that’s true or not but it feels sort of right

My LO said she wants a wife in her autism assessment. She's 10. She doesn't know that I know. Shall I tell her to save her the trauma of "coming out"? If so how?

Thanks for such a thorough, thoughtful answer!

I know what you mean about worrying about the children experiencing referred homophobia. How old are your kids? My DD has had a little bit of it at school (very carefully handled by school), and it is sad. There's also a lot of the clumsy, but actually rather damaging 'ooh goodness I didn't know which mum to approach for a playdate so, erm, we didn't invite your DD' kind of stuff. Do you find that?

I think I am more of a cynic than you about 'well-meaning straight people'. I do know some people genuinely think there's no homophobia any more, of course. But I also think there's been a backlash, and people who claim that homophobia is over really mean 'I wish the gays would stop making a fuss; it's only really rarely that someone's actually beaten up for being gay, so you have it good'.

That's terribly sad about how you learned the word 'lesbian'.

So interesting what you say about your children! It's a closed book to me because we only have one child, so we've never dealt with the same situation. My DD is my partner's biological child. She's my world and I find it hard to imagine having a biological child and it being different.

@RMNofTikTok I mean who doesn’t want a wife. Most straight women I know would like one . My wife and I would quite like a third wife to share out some of the ironing and cooking with, and the extra wage wouldn’t hurt either.

Seriously though. If she’s ten I wonder whether she quite knows what she’s saying / what it means? Then again perhaps she does. People do know at different ages. Either way I expect the best way you can make sure her coming out (if she does) isn’t traumatic is to find some subtle but unmissable ways to let her know being gay is fine and normal that you’d be totally fine with it.

I was of the opinion until recently of - oh that’s nice that you’re gay nobody cares!

That was until recently when I worked with a gay guy in Poland who lives with his Russian partner and has experienced such awful homophobia and is fighting to be himself and for his pride chapter

Homophobia is real and alive and kicking - I see him and his struggle

Sorry op no question but fascinating thread and thanks for starting it - hope the baby sleeps through

"@RMNofTikTok I mean who doesn’t want a wife. Most straight women I know would like one . My wife and I would quite like a third wife to share out some of the ironing and cooking with, and the extra wage wouldn’t hurt either.

Seriously though. If she’s ten I wonder whether she quite knows what she’s saying / what it means? Then again perhaps she does. People do know at different ages. Either way I expect the best way you can make sure her coming out (if she does) isn’t traumatic is to find some subtle but unmissable ways to let her know being gay is fine and normal that you’d be totally fine with it."

She's definitely a lesbian, she just probably doesn't realise it yet 😁 I had my suspicions a year ago! To clarify, she's year 6 so almost 11.

What’s the lesbian dating scene like? Is it as weird as straight dating lol!

For me I meet women and have a short term relationship, but then suddenly it ends. It ends as soon as I talk about going to an event as a couple. Then woman cringes and goes into hibernation. There really is lots of conditioning and general low level prejudice.
I have come out to my Uni aged DCs. Saying, I have started dating (after divorce) and it might well be a woman I bring home for a meal or. . . . .
Not put it to the test yet.

Do you sometimes wish you weren't a lesbian?

you could debate any other aspect as to why the did the Ama ?

I’m a lesbian and I don’t - neither do the vast majority of lesbians I know (lots obv). Lesbians are caught up in this conversation because it affects us so much.

Anyway OP - something I worry about is that people think my romantic relationships aren’t really real or deep. That they’re not serious, or just friendships with a bit of fumbling. Do you ever get comments or worries about this?

@Gisty thanks for your response. You make a very good point about subtle homophobia and some people, myself included, not seeing it.

In hindsight, it has been naive of me to thing just because acceptance has become significantly more widespread that discrimination has disappeared. I think I've a very simple brain or something, I just cannot understand why people would give a shit about differences whether it's sexuality, race, religion etc. when it's just one part of a person. I don't get why it has an impact on anyone else. Is it a fear of difference or something?

I like to surround myself with decent people - I don't care about much other than they are decent and good company. I can't think of anything more boring than if we were all the same.

Thanks for taking time to respond.

Do you recognise someone is a lesbian when you meet her? (Without obvious hints like talking about her wife)

@RMNofTikTok Oh yes, you’re probably right then. I’ve got a teacher friend who says she can tell at primary school, before the kids themselves know.

If it was me I’d probably let her come out in her own time still, but create a really supportive permissive environment so that she doesn’t get too worried about what your reaction will be and feels safe to do it when she realises and is ready. You know your kid best though, good luck 😊

@bonzaitree i don’t know, I’ve been off it for a while (ten years) so I missed a lot of the tinder madness that seems to go on these days thankfully. I didn’t find women dramatically better behaved than men though, there was still some game playing and ghosting. Less trying anything to get you into bed though

Fifteen year old DD is a lesbian. I worry. About how she'll find a girlfriend, about how she'll spend her life coming out over and over again, about the assumptions/stereotyping/prejudice she'll face. I'm lucky that, because of the sport I played, I have a lot of lesbian friends around my age - so I can see first hand that none of that means an unhappy life ahead for her. But I met these women as young women - not as teenage girls. The thing I worry about most is this next bit - age 15 to 18. What, if anything, should I do to support her? I realise I should probably be asking a younger lesbian, but you're the one with an AMA!

@ColonelSpondleClagnut I'm answering this as well because I find it funny how it works in my relationship.

I'm a woman, broadly femme, but not super-femme (definitely dress in a feminine way, don't wear makeup that often); my wife almost exclusively wears men's clothes, but isn't super butch or anything (no one would mistake her for a man).

Anyway, my wife does the vast majority of cooking, cleaning and organising in our house. When I head my colleagues talk about their boyfriends being useless when it comes to laundry or whatever, I think that my wife must feel that way about me. It amuses me.

You don't owe anyone an explaination 🤷‍♀️

I came out after a lengthy marriage to a man, with two teenagers and I did it gradually to different groups.

My priority were my kids, family and close friends - does anyone else really matter?

I didn't label myself, I didn't make a big deal out of it, I waited until I was in a relationship and I simply stated that I was dating a woman.

@jenpil yes sometimes. I can see that life might be easier in some ways if I fit the “norm”. No homophobia, no weird - well who would my husband talk too if we hung out as couples, or I can’t talk about my useless husband to you at baby groups - behaviour from straight women. No ogling or fetishisation from men. Someone to carry heavy stuff and do the diy (jokes). My kids wouldn’t have to navigate having two mums and the indirect homophobia that might bring down onto them.

I also occasionally feel sad that my kids won’t get to have a daddy, because I have lovely memories of mine (he was a shit about me coming out but in lots of other ways was a great father), and I do think there are some fundamental differences between men and women and my kids won’t get a male parent / role model. Fortunately they have some nice grandpas and uncles who can sub in a bit.

Mostly though I think it’s great. Not only because my wife is amazing, clever, funny, kind and gorgeous but also because in some ways I just feel inherently a bit safer with women than men and there is something about being with a woman who also innately understands the experience of going through life as a woman and the pleasures and pains and discriminations that is really valuable. Also we can wear each others clothes

I'm what you'd call 'late to lesbian' 🤣

One thing I find a challenge is strength... Or maybe technique... during sex.

Any advice to protect my shoulder, jaw and wrist?

You know you can just scroll past threads that don't interest you and that you don't have anything to ask on, right?

You could see for yourself before your comment that people had things they wanted to ask.