Men holding hands in the Street

[girlfriend44]

Saw two men walking along hand in hand earlier and I admired their bravery and thought hope nobody starts on them.
Have seen women before but not men?
Do you think they were brave. Would you be scared for them if they were your sons?
Brave men. Perhaps it's something we will see more of in the future?

Oh this has frustrated me. The fake naïveté- ‘do they not know?’ You know as well as anyone else that donor sperm is often used by same sex couples - the children might be very young, perhaps their PARENTS haven’t had that conversation with them yet. And secondly, takes a bit more than being a sperm donor to have the title of father IMO.

Why would children know who their parents’ sperm donor was? Is this what you really believe? Are you 12?

@Meraas I’m 31 with a cousin who had 3 children with her ex husband and is now married to a woman. You do know all lesbians don’t use sperm donors, yes?

But why assume OP hasn't?

Louise0701 Glad you're back. Can you pick up the point upthread about why you thought the actions of the airport official/whoever wasn't homophobic?

You were asked how many times that incident had happened to you, and whether you - given your comment - thought it was standard practice.

@Meraas
why do you assume she has? Why should the airport official assume she has?

@Baoing i didn’t receive a notification that you’d responded to me so didn’t realise I “hadn’t been back”
Ive been asked many times when travelling with my sister / friends / cousins / mum to our home abroad with my children if their father is travelling with me. I just say; “no”, because he isn’t.
Its a complete non-issue but people love to be offended. I’m black so I suppose I could jump about accusing them all of racism for good measure.
so yes, I assume it’s standard procedure and no, I don’t think it’s homophobic.

how many times have we seen threads about women who aren’t married so have different surnames to their children, or ones who have remarried new partners saying about having to travel with paperwork as there are rules around travelling if child arrangement orders are in place. It’s well known.

These officials are no doubt ensuring child abduction laws aren’t being broken or court orders not adhered to. You know, doing their job.

The poster says she was questioned for 45 minutes, sounds like they weren't happy with a simple no.

Why did you want to know whether her children know their biological father?

Ive been asked many times when travelling with my sister / friends / cousins / mum to our home abroad with my children if their father is travelling with me. I just say; “no”, because he isn’t

Just asked then. Not questioned for 45 minutes. And you said 'no,' and that's that.

What happened to the pp was completely different. Given the pp's description of the incident and your experience in your own words, I have zero idea why you compared the two.

This is what you said. ^^

It’s quite normal for gay women to use donor sperm. And yes, for the children not to know their fathers.

Just because your random cousin is now married to woman, I mean, so what?

its all a bit 'I can't be homophobic, my uncles neighbor's dog knows someone who's gay.'

Can’t even imagine blinking at this. Seriously, OP?!

And now perhaps take the time to RTFT.

Gay people have come on to say they agree - it is brave - because they still experience homophobia all the time.

Did you actually read the OP's post, or just react to the title? If you read it and still responded that way then I think that shows how little you understand about homophobia.

As the mother of a gay adult son, I can tell you that the unfortunate and disgusting reality is that, yes, the two men that the OP saw were brave to be holding hands in public.

That obviously shouldn't be the case, but it still is.

My DS1 lives in what's considered a very liberal city and yet there are still a vocal minority (and that's if you're lucky - i.e. they're only vocal, not physical) of bigoted wankers there too.

ffs

Not RTFT so sorry if this is out of step.

I’m actually shocked this is the first time you have seen this. I’m not a fan of snogging in the street (any combination) but hand holding is something I’ve seen for decades. There are some areas in the UK where the may need to be brave, but those are the places a single woman and other vulnerable people are also being brave.

I have just got of a long holiday where other passengers were in the 50-90 age range. There was proper ballroom dancing each night with two gay couples who joined in and were amazing. No one batted an eyelid at them dancing. The same applies to weddings I’ve been too.

yes it's very clear you haven't rtft

there is nowhere in the UK that it isn't brave. homophobic abuse happens everywhere

You say no one batted an eyelid but you did notice them.
No one is going to make a scene at a ballroom dance are they.
It's the cowards who say it in passing in the street and the silent dirty looks that you may not pick up on.
Many many first hand experience posts about this if you take time to RTFT before commenting.

Actually, , I think ignoring the issue and brushing g homophobia under the carpet or as something of the 1960s/1970s etc is a bigger issue

Yabu. My colleague was trying to get me to fast track a single dad through our system as she thought it was amazing that he had stepped up to look after his kids. I told her I'm not praising him for raising his own child and asked if she wanted me to fast track the single mums on our waiting list. She said we'll no, that's expected of them. Reminded me of your post as its old school thinking that shouldn't even cross your mind.

Well*^

How “brave” they are, really depends on “where” they are tbh. Hopefully more people won’t bat an eyelid anymore, but unfortunately verbal and physical attacks on LBTQ+ people are far more likely than cis and heterosexual couples. The more people do it, the more it’s becoming accepted though, and hopefully the better it will get in the future.

The reason I noticed was because they were such good dancers not because they were a same sex couple.

homophobia exists everywhere

‘Louise0701 · 22/08/2022 18:00
@Anewdayanewdawn do your children not know their fathers? I get it was probably a bit inconvenient if it held you up but it’s hardly homophobic. It does need a male to make a child.’

it is homophobic when we, a married couple, travel with our children and are stopped and questioned by authorities who don’t like that fact, and despite being given answers and shown passports still don’t want to let us travel.

The only reason that we were stopped and questioned was because we’re a LGBT family. That’s homophobia.