Djinni and I are engaged. I popped the question just about a month ago. I have spent every single day of the last nearly two years thinking about how I want to spend forever with her. And now I get to. For years and years and years I was vehemently opposed to marriage as an institution... what was so great about this contract that I legally couldn't sign because of how I'm wired? Now, 6 years after the Obergfell decision that "gave" me the same rights as everyone else toward marriage, I see why it is important. I value its meaning. Heck, I'm even pushing for us to get married in my very progressive Lutheran church. I did fail to realize that with a proposal comes the need to plan a wedding (I'm conveniently starting a doctoral program in the fall so much of this will be left to my Love to plan, lol). There is a TON of planning that goes into one of these things- I'm a throw a spur of the moment party kinda gal who asks her friends to bring a 6 pack and meat of their choice to grill. I'm grateful that D loves to plan these kind of things, because I suck at it. I am excited to walk through the process together with her, though. I want to be involved, this is just way out of my wheelhouse. My areas of expertise include appetizers (giant nacho/totcho table?!?), dessert (Funfetti cake and artisan ice cream?!?) and music choice (must include "Somebody's Getting Married" from the Muppets and all the 90's love ballads from every genre).
Getting to my point.... Last weekend D mentioned that there was a bridal show in town. The very first thing I asked was "does it say anywhere that it is queer friendly?" This is important. Also important is that I look "traditionally" lesbian. Short hair, I dress fairly masculinely, etc. Ain't no femme-ing up this old boi. I needed to know that I would be safe at this bridal show. We live in Colorado, home of the Masterpiece Cake Shop, you know, the one that took not selling cake to people like me all the way to the Supreme Court and won. I don't want to attend an event that doesn't want me, and more so I don't want Djinni to have that kind of experience leave a tarnished mark on our wedding planning process.
I've been out and proud for almost 20 years. At this point homophobia stings, but mostly rolls off my back. Despite a shitty cake shop in a shitty suburb, we are lucky that Colorado is fairly progressive and D and I have not encountered any issues. And I intend to do everything in my power to keep D from ever having to feel the pain of exclusion, or begin to look for the signs that people are judging us because we are together. So we didn't go to our first bridal show. Heteronormativity kept us from what should have been our first foray into the world of wedding planning.
Before we go further, let me define this naughty word that stirred up so much "drama" and "trolling" according to others. "Heteronormativity, predicated on the gender binary, is the belief that being heterosexual (which is attraction only to a different gender) is the only normal and natural sexual orientation. Since it is based on the conception that there are only two genders, heteronormativity does not accurately reflect the reality that gender exists on a spectrum and that attraction to only similar genders or to all genders exists and are normal."(https://www.verywellhealth.com/heteronormativity-5092451)
Yes, weddings are inherently heteronormative BECAUSE QUEERS HAVE NOT BEEN LEGALLY ALLOWED TO DO SO UNTIL THE LAST SIX YEARS in the US. 1 in 6 young people currently identify as queer (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/02/24/gen-z-lgbt/). This is far greater than the 1 in 10 myth that still comes up (for fuck's sake people, do some reading if you're going to spout things like you know them). Using these numbers, we can assume that roughly 16-17% of marriages will be queer somehow, even if they don't look it on the surface. While it's not the majority, it's still a significant number of people who will be engaging in non-hetero weddings. This is actually a significant number of people.
Yet, they aren't "weddinbg shows" they are "bridal shows". Let's not even get started on how many men don't get to engage in the planning of their own wedding because heteronormativity dictates that they let the women do it. I joked above about D doing most of the planning, and while she will be because she loves it and I will be teaching and in school full time, I know that I still have input and that it's not weird for me to want to help plan. Heteronormativity harms everyone- straight folks, queer folks, cis-folks, trans folks.
We are attending an LGBTQ+ friendly wedding show in July and are both looking forward to it. I'm a little intimidated by how many rainbows will be there (Djinni's the rainbow lover, not me) but I'm grateful that there is a place where we can both feel safe to plan our wedding, and where we know that we won't be denied services because there are two brides. Here's the thing though- even though it is specificially for queer folks, straight people are welcome as well. No one is denied entry or service, which is a direct result of being NON-heteronormative. I won't have to hear people ask my fiancee over and over who her husband is, I won't feel like I need to protect her from being discriminated against, I won't feel judged for being there in my cargo shorts and Chacos (I'm so grateful that cargos are back in style....SO many pockets), and I can hopefully taste cake with the straight couple in there shopping for their own wedding.
A group of us who hopped in the thread after someone said something homophobic were labelled trolls who shut down a thread because we want drama in the name of "advocacy". Fuck that. I don't want the fucking drama. Just like above, I want to fucking be able to taste the cake without listening to assholes deny the legitimacy of my (or my queer siblings) existence, and point to their own superiority. Here's something- maybe, if you don't want drama, don't say things that are shitty and wrong. People can have whatever opinion they want. I'll debate those till I'm blue in the face. But when you conflate "opinions" with judgements about somebody's actual existence, I'm going to hop my queer ass in there and make a stand, and derail it if needed. Police your own people if you don't want others to do it.
I met the love of my life on this website, yet it still blows my mind that there is so much accepted transphobia, homophobia, and racism that is accepted here. Glossed over, and when people call it out they are labelled trolls and rabblerousers. Excuses are made, we are asked to just accept peoples' "opinions" about our very real lives, and asked to be good little gay stewards of the kink lifestyle. Thank God that is not how we do things anymore. You all have no idea how hurtful it is to read that someone really thinks that their life is more "normative" than yours because they choose to stick their (bio) dick into a (bio) vagina. You hide behind your middle school concepts of science and your Sunday school morality and forget that there are real people whose lives are affected by the very words you choose. So yeah, if I have to keep "trolling" (okay Boomer....) to make sure that other people like me on this site know that this isn't tolerated, then fe, fi, fo, fum motherfuckers.
The Cage operates like the bridal show I talked about above. My queer ass can get in the door, get some funny looks, but be generally allowed as long as I behave. The minute I try to get a piece of cake from the Masterpiece Cake Shop that everyone else can get cake from, I'm told to quit making a big deal over things, to accept their opinion and their right to discriminate becuase I chose to attend this event where I might not be welcome. But here's the thing.... I'm not going to deny my Beloved the opportunity to attend another bridal show because I'm scared again, just like I'm not going to stop making waves when someone's saying homophobic things.
