Assuming Assumers
Posted: November 5, 2008 Filed under: building brick walls, Navel-Gazing | Tags: LGBTQ thoughts, Tales of J, the world as we know it 3 Comments »So, I was at a housing fair today, collecting leaflets, free pens and chocolate.
It’s November, but apparently house-hunting season is already on for next July.
As I went round the stalls, I was talking to a number of different people about the options they might have for couples.
Specifically, I told them that “my partner will hopefully be coming to live with me”.
And they all, to a person, responded by referring to J as “he”.
Some people who read this will know that J – the partner – is indeed male. But I didn’t tell them that. And my hands were covered by the sleeves of my hoodie – no sign of any ring to help them in their assumptions.
It was infuriating me by the time I left the fair – and they weren’t even wrong. I don’t want to begin to think of how angry I’d be if J had been a woman.
Although, I wonder how I would have felt if they’d refered to J as “she” instead. Would it have been better or worse than if they’d called J “he”, and if J had been a woman?
They would have still assumed my sexual orientation, or the gender of my partner, or both, and they would still have got it wrong.
I don’t know. I just know that having J’s gender assumed so constantly in conversation made me very uncomfortable. Why couldn’t they have just referred to him, like I did, by saying “your partner”?
Yes, I completely agree.
To assume your partner is a man is just lazy and heteronormative.
Assuming they are a woman because you looked like some stereotype of a lesbian would be as bad.
I had a thing where I was really not sure if a colleage (male) was gay or straight. Soon enough the answer revealed itself in the pub – by which I mean he talked about the guy he was seeing. I didn’t feel it was polite to ask which gender he liked (or of course, if he liked both) but why not? Why isn’t that OK?
Although in the context of finding a house, it doesn’t matter – as you say, ‘they’ or ‘your partner’ etc. would suffice. Why is it so hard?
Yeah, I’m almost surprised that because you said “partner” that they didn’t assume that you meant another woman. I mostly only hear “partner” used by LGBTQ people who want to make a (good) point about how heteronormative our words for that are, or because the other terms don’t fit their relationship. I’ve only rarely heard it from a straight person.
… because the other terms don’t fit their relationship…
As it happens, this is exactly why I use the word. To call him my “boyfriend” feels childish, but anything else is inaccurate. Of course, I’m not actually straight, so that might influence my decisions!