I Do?

“Do you want to go to New Zealand to get married?”

Well, it wasn’t exactly a proposal, but the sentiment was there.

Next February my girlfriend and I will have been together for 10 years. We actually started talking marriage after 12 months together and, at the time, I was the one to veto the idea.

Nine years ago I didn't feel that a ceremony which, in the eye of the law, would have only been a shadow of the ones my straight friends would have, was fitting.
I had spent my whole life feeling less. I felt less worthy, less loved, less valued and less respected because of my sexuality and I didn't want something which was supposed to be one of the biggest celebrations of my life to also be less.

A while back I read this post on Lucy Hallowell's blog, which was inspired by this piece by Trish Bendix. Lucy Hallowell writes about the feeling of always needing to be more than or better than to counteract the gay.

This is something I have always struggled with and it is never more obvious than in my work life. I am a yes person. When my colleagues put up their hand and say “No I won't/don't/can't take on more/do that thing/help that person", I say yes.

I say yes because I hate disappointing people and part of me will always be 17 and convinced I am a disappointment. Realistically, I know this to not be true and the energy and proficiency I bring to my regular workload, without having to go too far over and above, speaks for itself. I need to constantly remind myself of this.

So, feeling that we need to make up for our sexuality is what put me on the back foot when it came to marriage. I didn't just want to say “Yes, I'll take the watered down version, thanks”. I put my hand up and said “No. I deserve what everyone else has”.

I know many gay couples who have had fabulous weddings and I have felt incredibly privileged to be part of their beautiful ceremonies. I don't, for one moment, want invalidate their experiences.

When two people love each other enough to say “Let’s share this, let’s declare it to the world”, there is nothing more special. So, my issue is why is the piece of paper different? Those people made the same commitment and yet they are not permitted the same piece of paper as everyone else. This is where I draw the line. I'm used to feeling less, although the past 10 years have made me feel more in a way I never expected, so I want to wait until there is a balance and I can feel equal.

Five years ago my girlfriend and I registered our relationship after our State introduced some laws to offer financial protection to ‘alternative’ couples. The Significant Personal Relationships Register (or, as I like to call it, the Close Personal Friends List) ensures that if something happens to my girlfriend or me, we are able to have full access to the other’s superannuation fund. It’s also a must if you have children and wish to register both members of the couple as the parents of the newborn child.* The registration certificate (a copy of which I carry on me at all times) also allows us the peace of mind that, should an emergency situation occur, we are allowed by each other’s bedside in hospital where only blood relatives or spouses are given access.  

The thing is, though, straight people are more than welcome to register their relationships in the same way, but I don’t know any who have. Why would they choose second rate registration with second rate protections if they could get married and have all of the above covered on the right piece of paper?

So do I want to get married? Absolutely. Do I want to go to New Zealand to get married? Absolutely not. I love my country and my love for my home state is second only to my love for my family. This place is a part of me and while friends are going to other countries to get married and then touching back down in Australia where there union isn't recognized, I want to do it once and I want to do it here.

I don't know how long we'll have to wait, but my one hope is that it happens before my daughters find out that Australia rates us as less than.

My three year old recently said to me “We'll all get married one day, won't we Mama?” This makes me happy rather than filling me with concern. She said it in the same tone of voice she uses when the four of us are in the same room and she looks around and says “I love our family”.

I love our family. This is also something which my girlfriend and I say out loud regularly and whisper quietly to each other when our girls are asleep. Amid the chaos, which is having two young children, we have unexpected moments of calm and there's nothing I like more than looking up to see the same smile I have on my face, reflected on hers. A piece of paper will not affect that in any way. The type of paper and the wording will not change any part of this. It will not change the most beautiful part of my life, but we deserve the same piece of paper all the other families get.

On a day when America have declared it unconstitutional to deny same sex couples equal rights, Australia have put themselves in a position where ,by year's end, our government could well try to strip us of some of the gains we have made in recent years.

So on a day where I'm shaking my head at the state if my own country, another one has given me hope. If things don't start to look up, maybe I'll ask my girlfriend if she wants to go to American to get married because I've already been to New Zealand and if the same is available there before it is here, I might as well get a different stamp in my passport.

 

*The ‘Deemed Parenthood’ law in my state is pretty awesome. It allows both my girlfriend and I to be listed as the parents of our children, without specifying who gave birth to the child. It means gay couples do not need to adopt children born into an existing relationship.

Fractions Of Me: The Smallest Ounce Of Hope

“We don’t know what to do about you girls.” She said. “We’ve never had to deal with this before.”

She just nodded while Sister Katherine stared at her from across the room, on the other side of the school, where nobody would accidently walk in and find them ‘talking’. It felt like a lecture. She was in trouble for existing, and, on the worst day of her life.

“Brother Thomas is in talks with a priest at a school in Sydney who is dealing with the same problem there.” She delivered this as though it was meant to feel more like a comforting hug than the slap in the face it really was.
Who deals with teenagers, in any capacity, and has the temerity to refer to them as ‘the problem’?
She played the nun’s words through a second time in the ear splitting silence of the room, because the idea of entertaining thoughts of her own at that point was just too much.

…a priest at a school in Sydney…is dealing with the same [thing] there…
She turned this around because she had to. She needed something to hold onto that day. Through complete despair there seemed to be the smallest ounce of hope because somewhere, two States and several hours away by plane, there were two other girls like her.
When Sister Katherine let her leave the room the light outside stung her eyes, which were still sensitive from having cried all night and most of the day before. The bullying had ramped up again and her girlfriend was in hospital, having tried to kill herself for the second time, and her mother had insisted she go to school.
Walking from the dark, isolated space she headed to her art class feeling some sense of comfort in the fact that at least her art teacher was supportive. Really, she’d always thought she was and, mid lecture, Sister Katherine had told her to be grateful for teachers like Mrs Harrison, so she was.Wandering into the art room where everyone else was already at work and Amber’s station was empty, as it would be, she just wanted to cry. She tried to organise her supplies and find the piece she’d been working on before her world changed, earlier in the week, but she had nothing.Every time she looked to Amber’s corner, where her sculptures took up the entire space, she just wanted to walk out of the school and catch a bus to the hospital and sit beside her, where she knew she should be.When Mrs Harrison approached her, a smile would have been enough. A hug would have been the most support and affection any adult had shown her in months, and she needed that more than anything in that moment.

The reception she received was certainly unexpected.

“So is Amber ever going to be able to come back to this class now? To this school even, because of your…relationship?”

Mrs Harrison spat the last word at her and she just looked at her in disbelief. This was her one supportive adult. This was the person she was supposed to be showing gratitude towards.
“Amber is a very talented girl. She needs this class.” Mrs Harrison was her height and half her weight and probably survived on cigarettes and no food, but she’d always been her favourite teacher.
On the inside she was screaming at the older woman saying “Back the fuck off bitch, none of this is my fault.”

She wanted Mrs Harrison to know that she and Amber loved each other and that their relationship wasn’t the problem. She wanted her to know that it was the only decent thing in her life, but she had no words.
She stood looking at the woman for a long time. Mrs Harrison returned the stare, challenging her to say something back. She didn’t know what the woman wanted from her. She was already broken in every possible way. So her retort, her fuck you to the teacher, was to say nothing.

She looked her in the eye with none of the bravado and all of the hurt until the older woman decided to walk away.

Two Girls in Sydney

There is not one feeling in the world worse than that of being afraid of yourself. Being afraid of the truth which everyone around you seems to believe, but you are trying desperately to turn away from, can be truly terrifying.
Whilst being afraid of myself at the age of 15 and 16 and even 17, I was also afraid of being alone. Not just concerned about feeling lonely, but genuinely anxious about being completely left alone in my world if I admitted ‘the truth’. 
Logically, I now know that so many other people, the world over, were experiencing similar thoughts and fears, but at the time I was sure that it was just me. My Catholic school teachers informed me that they knew of ‘two girls in Sydney’ who were also gay but, strangely, this was of little reassurance.

Reading posts such as Going Back Again, by Lucy Hallowell, makes me want to go out into the yard and jump in my time machine and visit 15 year old Balexi and say “See!”
On the way home from 15, I’d stop off at 17 and tell that girl (and two unnamed and unknown girls from Sydney) that there were tonnes of us and more than just the four my Catholic school teachers led me to believe.

I read things like this with two completely separate streams of consciousness. I’m 15 and 31 and at the extremes I want to laugh and cry at the same time. The part of me which will always be 15 and afraid, that lives somewhere at the back of my mind, manages to take a deep breath and relax into a reassured smile because someone else felt that way too. The present me that has a thousand life experiences, a lot more perspective and has not been truly afraid for a very long time also smiles and thinks "Yes, exactly!"
Even though I still remember vividly what 15 and 16 and 17 felt like, the weight of the positive experiences I’ve had in the past 10 or so years has tipped the balance in the direction of happy.

Had I read even one commentary about survival in the face of self-loathing, fear or Catholic school guilt back then, I think my days would have been a little brighter. Even though the world is changing and, hopefully, support and advice is more readily accessible, we still need to tell these stories on the off chance that a girl living at the bottom of the world, or two girls in Sydney, need to hear it.