Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think being mistaken for a lesbian is nothing to be offended about

106 replies

NancyShrew · 30/10/2013 15:10

Two of my mutual friends (a and b) were out shopping for baby clothes for a's impending baby (she is 32 weeks! Grin). In one of the stores one of the shop assistants assumed that a and b (both married) were a couple and mentioned it to them in conversation. She was swiftly corrected but a brought this up over coffee with a couple of other friends last week and seems pretty offended that anyone could think she's a lesbian. I really don't see the problem?

Also another mutual friend c commented that "b does look like a lesbian" in response up this! What does a lesbian even look like?!

OP posts:
ifyourehoppyandyouknowit · 30/10/2013 15:55

If you saw a pair of women (one heavily pregnant) coo-ing over baby clothes together, why not make the same casual assumptions that you would make if you saw a man and woman in the same situation? I probably wouldn't bring it up in conversation as it's hardly relevant to the purchase of baby clothes, but what's wrong with thinking that?

LynetteScavo · 30/10/2013 16:00

The thing is, it is really hard to tell a lesbian (although I have an amazing gay-dar Wink)

The lesbian parents I know don't look like lesbians (although one does have short hair Grin).

I wouldn't be offended. But then I know I don't look like a lesbian Grin Wink

LynetteScavo · 30/10/2013 16:03

I once randomly looked at a pushchair in a shop (it wasn't a pushchair shop, it was a clothes shop something like Benneton, and they had their own brand pushchair on display) Anyway, I was about 19, with no tummy, and the shop assistant asked if I was pregnant.

I was a bit offended, mostly bemused.

Original poster
NancyShrew · 30/10/2013 16:05

What hop said. I personally don't see it any more strange than people assuming you and a male friend you were out with were a couple, which I believe happens a fair bit!

OP posts:
fabulousathome · 30/10/2013 16:08

Slightly off track, my DS has moved to Brighton and I get some very strange looks when I tell people.

As it happens he is not gay and has a good job with a big company in the area. When I say he is very happy there I get some funny smiles.

garlicvampire · 30/10/2013 16:09

No, it's bonkers to be offended. Your friends clearly hadn't thought that maybe the assistant is a lesbian, or maybe her mum is, so it seems normal to her? Daft friends.

I've been incredibly flattered on occasion, to be chatted up by really gorgeous lesbians! I reckon it's a massive compliment Grin Have also just told women "I'm straight, sorry". One got offended, so I reckon she must be an arse anyway. I mean, men who get offended when you turn them down are arses, aren't they?

I used to play lesbian with my best friend (in our thirties, not kids.) Loads of people assumed we were, so we'd snog each other in public. Was a giggle.

Faerieinatoadstool · 30/10/2013 16:22

I was stereotyped as a lesbian for a couple of years at school because I wore Dr martens and an ex once said I shouldn't wear an open blazer because it made me look like a lesbian.
I have very long hair and am petite and slim.
Both times were meant as insults but I really didn't care what people presumed and I still wear both

EndoplasmicReticulum · 30/10/2013 16:31

This happened to me several times when I was younger. It did not bother me.

I often get mistaken for a vegetarian as well. (what does a vegetarian even look like? Who knows?)

My husband used to be mistaken for a girl. He had long hair. But was otherwise completely unfeminine.

ShowMeYourTARDIS · 30/10/2013 16:46

I don't get offended. When I had short hair I got flirted with by women on the bus a fair bit. More uncomfortable than anything else. I feel the same when men do it too though!

I really don't care if people think I'm gay. When I meet someone, their sexuality is typically the last thing I care about.

morethanpotatoprints · 30/10/2013 16:52

Once again its the stereotype.
I know lesbians who are very butch and dress very similar to men, with not a tiny bit of feminism about them. No jewellery, big boots, dungarees, short cropped hair and you'd have to look twice to see if she was male or female.
I have a friend who is a lesbian and she is more feminine than me and so girly its sickening. Silky scarf, make up, jewellery and tea dresses with heels.
WTF does it matter what you dress like, look like or whether straight or gay?

LurcioLovesFrankie · 30/10/2013 16:57

This has happened to me on a couple of occasions - once when out with my sister (we look nothing alike and were arm in arm) and once, even more amusingly (though perhaps understandably), when my female cousin came with me for moral support to an open day at an IVF clinic. I think all three of us found it funny. Echoing what many have said upthread, my gay friends (male and female) come in all shapes and sizes and degrees of butchness/femme-ness (funnily enough, just like my straight friends).

motherinferior · 30/10/2013 17:02

I was quite amused recently at a party when several people automatically assumed a pregnant friend of mine was my partner. Mainly because they said in this self-consciously delicate way that perhaps I'd rather sit next to my friend.

motherinferior · 30/10/2013 17:03

Ooh, I like 'he's moved to Brighton'.

Though prefer the fabulous 'friend of Dorothy'.

Smoorikins · 30/10/2013 17:37

I once had a man look me up and down and say 'lesbian' in a really horrible way.

I laughed. I was very obviously 7 months pregnant at the time. That generally doesn't happen via homosexual activities.

I think it was the doc martins and short hair.

ShowOfBloodyStumps · 30/10/2013 17:43

People assume I've a vegetarian all the time. Because of how I look. I really don't understand it. I've been with dh for 15 years and it took MIL at least 7 years to stop making a vegetarian option for me. It happens all the time. What on earth does a vegetarian look like? I've managed to narrow it down to 'it's the way you dress'. I'm none the wiser tbh.

I do wear Doc Marten's all the time, never wear make-up and am a bit of an opinionated feminist. Arguably, lesbian stereotypes when all teamed together. I have never been mistaken for a lesbian. In fact my lesbian friends, plus SIL and her df (female) and friends all laugh at the idea I could be gay as I look obviously straightHmm. It's a running joke that I dress like a lesbian, they don't and I'm apparently a screaming heterosexual to look at. I can only assume that actually people is people is people...

DH was offended to be presumed gay once. Only because after he initially explained to the other bloke in the Jacuzzi who had propositioned him in a frankly filthy way, that actually he was married to a woman said chap winked and said "oh I get it, no need to be obvious, I'll see you in the steam room in 5".

Naoko · 30/10/2013 17:51

I've been mistaken for a lesbian a number of times. Several times by lesbian women asking me out, which was flattering even if I did have to turn them down, and once or twice by passers-by who assumed my (male) DP and I were a lesbian couple, which was mostly just baffling. DP has long hair but is obviously a man. Either way, not offensive...

I don't know what a lesbian looks like either though. Or a vegetarian. I do have a friend who gets really exasperated because people always assume she's a vegetarian and she isn't. No idea what it is about her, she looks very normal.

AnyBigFuckingJessie · 30/10/2013 17:55

I once heard some teenagers tellig each other, "eurgh, there's some lesbians over there". I was with my very long-haired boyfriend.

We thought we'd better avoid looking ashamed, so we didn't correct them. In fact we pretended we'd heard nothing and engaged in Public Affection.

I wonder if any of them cottoned on when they got nearer. Grin

LesbianMummy1 · 30/10/2013 18:10

I have the opposite problem my dp is older than me (14 years) everywhere we go we get oh and is this your mum. Particularly annoying was at my antenatal appointments as it was every single time Hmm

LurcioLovesFrankie · 30/10/2013 18:27

Smoorikins - while I agree my preferred method of getting upduffed would be heterosexual sex, IUI or a turkey baster work (I have several lesbian friends who've had kids)!

I do remember going out clubbing to my town's gay club with my footie team (which was majority gay), and a girl trying to pick me up (million miles from the stereotype, incidentally, very glamorous with long blonde hair). My team mates went into "Chivalrous protect our straight friend" mode, with my team captain solemnly explaining that some lesbians had a thing for picking up straight women to get a notch on the bedpost (like I hadn't met enough straight men with the same modus operandi to recognise it in action), and our 18 year old goalie offering to pretend to be my girlfriend for the evening to ward off the competition.

VerySmallSqueak · 30/10/2013 18:30

I've been mistaken as a lesbian by straight folks but never by a lesbian.

It's rather nice really that the shop assistants' mind is open to the fact that same-sex couples can and do have children.

Lilacroses · 30/10/2013 18:32

Not offensive but sort of funny......I say that as a lesbian myself. I don't know why but I always find it funny when people think I'm straight and that my brother or my friend or even my dad (!!!) is my dp!!

Lilacroses · 30/10/2013 18:33

Agree with you VerySmallSqueak.

crispsanddips · 30/10/2013 18:48

All my long-term relationships have been with women.
Everyone thinks I'm straight.

Sometimes I wish they would presume!

Doesn't help that I live in North America so the term 'girlfriend' is the same as 'female friend' so my bosses/co-workers/new people think I'm talking about my best friend.

Snargaluff · 30/10/2013 18:55

The shop assistant sounds odd. Why would you assume two women shopping together are sleeping together? Were they snogging in the nappy aisle?

I don't think is weird at all. If I saw a man and woman buying baby clothes together I might assume they were a couple.

PoshCat · 30/10/2013 19:16

It's not about being offended as such but I'd rather strangers.didn't assume I as a lesbian because I'm not.
A lot of people assume gay women have cropped hair, boyish clothes, clumpy boots. I know many don't but two women together looking stereotypically "gay" may have assumptions made about their sexuality.