To be a bit surprised by the gentle homophobia / othering around us?

[PlumPudd]

Just after some opinions / other experiences really. I’m a mum of two, wife gave birth to our first - our girl and we did some shared mat leave (she did nine months I did three). I gave birth to the second - our boy and am currently seven months into mat leave.

I’ve had a few odd reactions from people when they’ve found out I’m married to a woman. Some seem a little homophobic (very gentle homophobia) some just seem a bit othering. Along the lines of…

• saying I wouldn’t understand about crappy unsupportive husbands and spoil them being able to have a good moan (whose to say I might not have a crappy unsupportive wife at home, I don’t but I could!! Her being female doesn’t automatically mean she’s great)
• saying they would have invited us to a couples outing but it might be odd for my partner because who would she talk to the mums or the dads (1 she’s a mum too, 2 why can we not all just talk together, do the dads have to go off and talk about craft beer while the mums talk about pink ribbons or something?)
• when I describe myself as a mum of two or say I’ve got an older kid, and then later on say that I didn’t give birth to the first one, they challenge me on this phrasing or seem a bit pissed off as though I’ve somehow tricked them and I should have fully explained my exact circumstances right at the beginning of the conversation
• a couple of mums assuring me that it’s fine that I’m gay (I know)
• questions about whether my kids are going to have any male role models in their lives
• occasional comments about my son being dressed in girlier clothing and whether we’re doing this on purpose (yes he is wearing mostly his big sisters clothes so there will be some yellow and purple clothes in there and slightly fewer dinosaurs but this is because it’s cheap, sensible and good for the planet not because we’re gay)

I should say most people have been great and normal and this is just the occasional person, but I’m just a bit surprised to be encountering people who seem to have some sort of (slight) problem with it or think it means I’m not quite one of the club.

So I guess my question is, straight mums - are there any aspects of hanging out with a gay mum that you’d find a bit different or unrelatable? Gay mums, did you get othered at all?

You seem to be talking at cross purposes there though. I get the fear of foot in mouth. But then you say 'we don't have to embrace everything'. This seems to give away some negative feelings towards SS parents.

You need to read these posts again, including your own, if you think we live in a world that's tolerant and respectful. These are real people telling you the very real ways in which other people have not been tolerant or respectful to them and you have just completely glossed over that. Wow.

@Comff I agree with @nearlywinteragain would say just be straightforward. Any awkwardness after that is on the other person.

I will say my post-birth social skills were somewhat limited by the hormones and sleep deprivation so any weirdness from me would probably have been that - I would hate it to have been read as homophobia.

Maybe I haven't explained my views clearly enough but I know that I am not phobic and happen to be a tolerant, polite and respectful individual . Avoidance does not make someone phobic but of course people are entitled to their own opinion. There is no point continuing any interaction as I don't think people understand the nuances of the points I am making.

Just sign off and stop derailing the op's thread then

No, you're just not understanding the 'nuances' you see 🙄

Ahhh ‘we don’t have to embrace everything…’

ie, I don’t ’embrace’ (read: like) gay people, or them having children, therefore I avoid talking to them in case they notice that and tell me I’m a dick.

Makes (homophobe) sense.

However, if were in a situation where I thought I don't want offend as the language these days/prononouns etc etc is difficult to negotiate.
Are you confusing gay with trans?

Just reading back and the phrase 'live and let live' really gives you away too. It's like you're bestowing your agreement for gay parents existence.

That sounds difficult, and I'm sorry people have said these things.

The only point that perhaps you need to think about how to deal with, because I suspect it will come up again, is being the mother of the child you didn't birth. A lot of straight women have both their own children and stepchildren, and I think people try pretty hard not to get that wrong and erase the stepchildren's actual mother in referring to the stepmother (who is often the man's second wife, and sometimes the woman that broke up the marriage) as mum. Obviously this is a completely different situation, because the two women are not in a relationship and may even dislike each other. So I would try to address the language/ terminology very straightforwardly and take no shit or evasiveness about it.

You have not displayed any tolerances respect or politeness. Although the way that you keep saying that you don't want to say anything for fear of offending anyone, then go onto say highly offensive (and homophobic, not sure why you're incapable of acknowledging the first syllable) and acting shocked that people re offended would be funny if wasn't so sad.

That point about not using homo is interesting! What's up with that?

Avoidance does not make someone phobic

So would you say avoiding people of a certain raise does not make someone racist? Of course it fucking does, at least have the stones to admit your bigotry.

I'm not gay but I have several friends who are and they report similar. I think it is mostly ignorance and heteronormativity rather than anything malicious but it gets wearing when it happens repeatedly and I'm not surprised you've become fed up. It shouldn't be beholden on you to be an ambassador because in this day and age people should be over it, but I remember how ignorant I was in the past. Gentle enlightenment made me see differently and it's an approach I use myself now for many things. That said, outright homophobia and hostility should always be challenged and raised with HR.

You have pre-judged gay people as acting irrationally to things you deem not to be offensive, even when it's been explained to you why these have a negative effect on the person.

That's literally prejudice - pre-judging - you think you won't be able to understand them or anticipate how they react to being treated socially, purely because they have the same sort of genitals as their partner.

In awnser to your question, I'd be curious about the situation in the same way I'd be if a heterosexual couple told me they'd used a surrogate. I'd wonder about whose eggs/sperm was used, if the same sperm donor was used for both babies, if you know the donor etc... the list goes on. I wouldn't be so socially inept as to actually ask you any of that though. (And I am not asking, just being honest about the things I'd wonder about because I'm nosey.)

The things you list seem sexist and homophobic to me. The only thing where you could give the benefit of the doubt would be the comment about not having to put up with a rubbish husband, as that could have possibly just been a bad joke.

@Comff please don't worry about it. I've been the non-birthing and birthing mother and I don't think either experience made the early day chat easier! Sometimes there is going to be more explanation of your circumstances but I think most people are searching for common ground - so with the breastfeeding I would have said my wife was breastfeeding and getting DS to take a bottle as well had been a nightmare. I've had a lot of conversations about that! Feel free to PM if you'd like to chat.

In my experience straight parenting really reinforces conservative gender roles- NCT, maternity leave, school gate, mums going part-time all seem to push towards that. But I'm also surprised you're surprised and maybe you have underestimated how heteronormative the world still is. More that than homophobia I think, on the whole. Enjoy unsettling people's assumptions!

I believe that the gender pay gap has a big part to play in that - the lower earner is usually the one reducing hours, and if that's also the person that's physically recovering (and feeding the child, in many cases) it makes it a straightforward decision, practically speaking. Then the childcare stuff all flows from that - the person working less, or not at all, takes that on.

The dads tend to take on more of that in my peer group where the woman earns more/ more equally, I've noticed. Altho since more home working there are more dads at the school gates.

Someone recounts negative/othering reactions they've had from people that stem from them being in a lesbian couple, and loads of posters are rushing in to say "oh, that's not homophobia, sweetie"

I'm a lesbian and it sounds like homophobia to me.

Sone of us are saying that sone of it doesn't sound like homophobia. Sone of it maybe of course.

Not wanting a persons partner at friend events isn't homophobic, when other partners aren't invited either.

Nct splitting groups into men and women is one to fix. Where would they place 2 adoptive parents? In the men's group as non birthing people?

I'm a bi mum and therefore rendered totally invisible by having a husband- I agree with almost everything you've said, (although I would say that toxic masculinity and societal expectations make the average husband about 100% more useless than the average wife).
I still find straight married culture quite strange and I've been moving through it for 15 years now...
When I'm outed (mentioning a previous gf for example) I get a lot of shock and confusion. A well meaning friend was very confused when I explained that I was bi and so was my bestie who had married a women and that no we hadn't been magically rendered straight or gay by marrying our partners!
I think parenthood can mean that you start moving in spaces where people have never thought about this and think they are "nice" but still have a lot of homophobic baggage that they haven't recognised, let alone unpacked and confronted.

OK I have a question about this.

I keep seeing the word "invisible", particularly in relation to people who are bi.

What does this mean for you in practice and what would you like to see change?

I completely get that the specific situation you describe here, i.e. the reaction to being outed as bisexual, could be, I don't know, frustrating? Hurtful? Annoying? Your feelings are your own, and you are entitled to them. For what it's worth, if I discovered that someone I knew to be in a long term opposite sex relationship had previously had same sex relationships I wouldn't find that a difficult concept to understand at all. There might just be a little, "Oh!" of surprise, as in, "Oh, I didn't know that about you", not as in, "That's weird." For me it would be the same sort of reaction as learning that someone I knew well had, I don't know, lived in Germany for ten years as a child.

But in a day to day sense, you're in an opposite sex relationship with your husband, I imagine being bisexual doesn't come up in conversation everyday, is there anything specific you want people to do or recognise about your bisexuality? Or is it just, not saying stupid things or acting shocked and confused when it does come up in conversation?

with the breastfeeding I would have said my wife was breastfeeding and getting DS to take a bottle as well had been a nightmare. --- exactly - just tell it like it is. What is the problem with that?

I'm a bi mum and therefore rendered totally invisible by having a husband ... you are not invisible. You have substance. You exist in the world. Your sexuality is not obvious - but who wants to know? What relevance has it to anyone at all except you and your OH?

I am puzzled by this desire to announce/broadcast one's sexuality. I do not care what people do with their genitalia (as long as no-one is hurt) nor whom they choose to love.

The best analogy I can give you is imagine that you are mixed race but appear white. You are surrounded by people who are casually racist in microaggressive ways, often despite good intentions. Your cultural heritage is different to the people around you and you don't understand all the social rules, but people constantly assume a shared experience because of how you look or worse that you share their racist opinions. When you try and tell people about this experience they say things like "why should it matter if you pass as white" or 'i wouldn't react like that" or "well why would anyone else care about your ethnicity, it's personal". Sometimes when you talk to other mixed race people you are told that at least you don't have to face overt discrimination. This is true but doesn't make the discrimination you see less hurtful.

I don't need to announce my sexuality to everyone around me, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a part of who I am or how I interact with the world. The fact that it is less obvious than for some others does mean that I get to experience casual homophobia (not directed at me) relatively often which does impact me. I also have a different viewpoint about "straight" relationships than a lot of people.

Posting about my lived experience on a thread about dealing with casual homophobia and heteronormativity is hardly a desire to announce/ broadcast my sexuality and it says a lot about you that you have interpreted it in this way.