Alternate Scenario #2

Here's the next scenario:

Let's say that Natasha, as Jonathan, came to me nearly three years ago and said, "Honey, I love you so much. You are my soul mate and I would never ever do anything to hurt you, but I have finally come to terms with the fact that I am a Transsexual and I have to transition to become a woman as fast as i can. It's literally killing me inside and every moment I try to resist it, I feel like it's tearing me apart. I know you married a man and you're not a lesbian, but I really have to do this and I'm so sorry if it hurts you. It's not what I want."

Wow! What a doozie! I would have been in a state of shock, you know? I mean, I was a little shocked, although after I thought about it, I really wasn't that surprised. It's like when you know something is going to happen but when it actually happens, you're not quite prepared for it.

And then, I would think about what my husband said to me. Here's what I would have heard: "Honey, I love you, but what I need is far more important than what you need and if you find that you can't go on this journey with me then, while it makes me very sad, it is what it is."

I said this before... Really?

I would be thinking that I was immensely mistaken when I thought this guy was my soul mate.

But then, I would also think that everything was really pretty perfect except for this. So, how could it be that we aren't really soul mates? How stupid am I to have been that blind? But I still love him. I can't just turn that off. Yes, he has broken my heart into sharp, shredded fragments, but I can't just turn off what I've felt for the last (at that time) seven years.

As Jonathan's best friend, I would want to see him become a her and to be happy, even though he clearly did not care as much about my own happiness. And, with the kids being there and all, I wouldn't want to fight about the selfishness he was exhibiting. I would be so very, utterly torn.

I probably would be looking into the future and planning for that time when we would no longer be together and, living in the future as I really did for a time (see my earlier posts), I would have shut myself off from the present. I would be biding my time until he would become a she and we could separate.

In our situation, that would have been a big problem because together, we make a decent but barely sufficient wage. Separately, neither of us would make it. We would have been forced to stay together for, probably, several years. Now, I could have gone to my parents' house to live with the kids, but Natasha would have been pretty bad off. Considering this scenario, I probably wouldn't have cared that much, but she would not have been able to provide much in the way of child support. Oy!!! The things I would have had to consider!

Just think: If Natasha had been that selfish, that would have rubbed off on the kids. In our real situation, when I started to shut down, I realized that the kids were being affected. They were not seeing their mommy try. I wasn't trying. And if Natasha had been this selfish to progress without consideration of us, the kids would have had me not trying and their daddy becoming a girl without concern for them. Talk about bad signals! It was because of the kids, mainly, that I forced myself to look at the situation objectively enough to see how I was behaving. If Natasha had followed this Scenario #2, I don't know that I would have been brave enough to look into reality that way.

I don't like this scenario at all. I'm done with it.

Alternate Scenario #1

Welcome to the first of a potentially infinite number of entries in my new, Alternate Scenarios series. Not all of my future posts will contribute to this series, but I have a feeling that many will.

This series of posts are and will be inspired by Natasha's verbal commentary to me about other blog and forum posts she has read elsewhere. No names are ever shared with me, so I will have no names to share with you. These posts she comments to me about concern situations that involve partners or spouses, which is why I thought it would be appropriate to comment about these situations here.

So, on with the show! Today's scenario, "#1," is subtitled, "Post Facto (After the Fact)."

Let's say that Natasha, as Jonathan, had determined that he was a TS and, fearing my reaction, began HRT without telling me. After a few weeks, the fact that she was hiding not just one big secret but TWO, she wondered when and how she should tell me. After all, who knew when the HRT would begin to show, if it hadn't already?

Here's my first thought on this, from my spousal point of view: How selfish! Really?

I know perfectly well how difficult just coming to terms with being TS can be, but when a person is married or in any kind of committed relationship and the partner is not consulted IMMEDIATELY upon discovery of the situation, the TS is inherently being selfish. Who are you thinking about when you keep a secret that involves someone other than yourself? You are thinking only of you and that you might lose out, be left or kicked out, be yelled at or cursed. You are not thinking of the promise of honesty you made with your partner. You are not thinking about her/his feelings or what's best for that person when you keep a secret: especially one so life-altering for both of you. I'm not knocking those fears. Nobody wants to lose. Nobody wants to be yelled at or kicked out. However, if you truly love someone (besides yourself), you owe it to that person so know the truth as soon as the truth is realized.

But according to this scenario, the damage is already done. Jonathan knows and he's begun HRT without telling me. I'm referring to Natasha as Jonathan because this is how I would still recognize her to be if this were the case. So, Jonathan has been on HRT for a few weeks and if I know him at all, I'll notice some emotional changes that I just can't put my finger on. I'll ask him if something's wrong and he'll either say that nothing's wrong or that his job or something is really starting to get to him. In that case, I'll probably focus on those issues and try... ultimately in vain... to help him. So the hole he digs for the both of us gets deeper. I become frustrated because I can't help him and he continues to get more emotional and his secret gnaws at her, which puts her further on edge.

Finally, Jonathan decides to tell me. He sits me down, the kids are out of the house, and he tells me that he's TS. How long has he known? What, a few months? And he hasn't told me until now? How do you think I'd react? Do you think I'd trust him? And then the pieces would suddenly fit together and I'd conclude that his emotional outbursts were his fear of telling me. And I'd say as much, but since this would be the come-clean day, he'd tell me that he's been on HRT for weeks.

Really?

When do you tell your partner after you've already begun treatment? ASAP! And you understand that you have broken your vow of honesty. You understand that you made your situation that much worse by keeping these secrets from your partner. Especially with the HRT, you chose, without consulting with your partner, to take drugs to alter your body and body chemistry to make you physically into someone your partner did not choose to be with. Ultimately, you have broken her/his trust and if you expect acceptance and open arms after that, you are dreaming.

This is not to say that it won't ever happen. You might convince your partner, after a time, that your fear of losing him or her drove you to secrecy. But here's the thing: the drugs were your selfish decision to continue on a path of no return ALONE. It's one thing to know for a time that you are TS. I can understand that. It's entirely different, however, when you voluntarily take medications... potentially dangerous medications... without including your loved ones. That says to me that you care more about your own path than that of your partner and family (especially if you have kids).

The bottom line is this: if you do love your partner at least as much as you love yourself, you should never have popped one pill without your partner's knowledge. He or she may not consent, and if that is the case, then you have to decide which road to take. What is more important to you: following the draw of your true self or resisting and respecting the wishes of your partner? You must assess the nature of that relationship. Are there already other problems in the relationship? Would it be better for everyone if you did not stay together? Do you trust in the bond of your relationship that your partner would eventually understand and support you? Do you put yourself through that, continuing to fight to keep the relationship in light of your changes? Whether you are just discovering that you are TS or whether you have already begun the irreversible journey in secret, you owe it to those who love you to be truthful and then face those consequences, because all of these what-if questions will happen at any point on the journey. Natasha told me at the beginning, mainly because she can't and doesn't want to keep secrets from me (unless it's about presents!), but also knowing that I could have made the spot decision to leave with the kids or kick her out. She trusted that I loved her enough to work past the changes and she was right. Perhaps a person keeps a secret or two like this because he or she is NOT confident in the strength of his/her relationship.

Natasha could have been wrong. There was a time when I didn't want to stay. It was a rather long time, I must admit. But I also could not deny that I loved the person I married and if she was, indeed, my best friend, who was I to stand in her way of finding inner happiness? Would I stop being a friend to someone I wasn't married to? Of course not! So, if I actually went ahead and MARRIED a best friend, wouldn't it be even more ridiculous to just give up the relationship because of something she could not help? Fortunately for the both of us, I gave myself time to work though my feelings before deciding whether to give up or not. But trust me: if she had begun HRT without me knowing, I'm very certain that we would not have a future together. Lying is lying. Withholding information like that is a slap in the face. She would have demonstrated that she did not trust me and that she was probably lying about all manner of things. Trust would be lost. And would I ever get over that? I don't know. Our friends and my family would probably have convinced me that I could never trust her again. It would have been like cheating. Knowing me, though, I might have consented to couples therapy. Either way, our futures, and those of our children, would not be as certain as they are today.

When do you tell your partner? NOW!

Status Quo

October 3rd, eh? That means for the past two months, things have been "status quo" for us. This means two things: first, the issues we've been having are still on-going and second, the happiness we share is still on-going. Good and could-be-better. But really, we've settled into something of a good place.

Natasha still has those moments of dysphoria that make me crazy. They don't make me angry or anything: just frustrated. I can't do anything to stop them and I can do anything to prevent them. Just last night, for example, I put my foot on her lap. It came to rest at the wrong place, between her right thigh and her left, and she got quietly upset for a moment. It wasn't anybody's fault, but it happens. Even more so, she still has these moments when nobody's touching her or saying anything either. Something triggers a thought and then POOF, there's the bad moment.

More importantly, for me at least, is that in my status quo I was able to return to an issue I had even before Natahs became Natasha, and that was her relationship with her family. It's a really crappy relationship, to put it mildly, and with the predicted tragedy of her father and step-mother's last visit (Natasha asked for their financial help with the surgery and, despite their immense wealth, they said no) she finally came to the conclusion that she needed to distance herself from them. Instead of this realization being a relief, which naturally it wouldn't be, her dead over seeing them again worsened. I didn't think that was possible! The problem at that point was that I was becoming less and less able to handle her depressive moments. I think I've become a little raw over the last two years, not just because of the transition but also because I've overburdened myself with responsibilities. Before the transition, her anxiety over seeing her family was beginning to bother me. I sort of put that on hold for a couple of years, and with the new status quo and then with the transition-fueled exacerbation of the issues Natasha has had with her father since childhood, I was finally forced to voice to her that she needed to see somebody about these issues or I would go nuts in a very bad way.

Sometimes I find myself looking at something in our house and it occurs to me that nothing's really fundamentally changed between Natasha and myself. I know I've said that before, but lately it's seemed even more apparent. That's why I say I'm happy in my status quo. Something interesting happened the other day. I have a picture of Natasha on the day she... as a he... asked me to marry her. It was, even to her admission, the best picture of her in existence. It's on my laptop as a desktop picture. It's been there through two laptops over about ten years. The other day, maybe two or three days ago, I was looking at it and it felt like she looked too different for me to have that picture as my desktop anymore. Maybe it's that her hair is longer or that, if I took that same picture of her today, wearing the same clothes (which she could: the sweat shirt is still in her possession), there'd be boobs pushing at the front of that shirt. But the fact would also be that we would have the same great time now that we had on that day... except maybe for the sex part.

Is it that her gender doesn't matter to me in that I've become something of a lesbian? Nope. Never will be because of that. It's that she is somewhat different in personality, considering that she's a girl and not a boy, but her inherent personality... those things about her that make her my best friend... are still there. In fact, I believe that after her transition is complete and after she can get through dealing with her relationship with her father and step-mother, we might even be better off than when we started. Many of the parenting choices she makes and I don't exactly agree with are right from her childhood. She is by no means a bad parent. It's quite the opposite. However, she projects her own fears and anxieties onto our son especially. He is very similar to her in many ways, but we are not her father and mother and, although she knows this, I can see apprehension in some of her decisions.

Some time ago, I said that I can see a future where she will develop an urge to move on and explore her feminine body as a heterosexual. I can still see that. But I can also see a future where we just kinda grow old together. As I said in the last post, though, I don't look into the future if I can help it. Those futures may very well be out there and some version of myself may experience one of them or both, but I choose to have a happy life with Natasha and the only way I can do that is to be as happy as today will let me. Today, I'm a bit tired and dreading going back to work tomorrow after our super-successful day selling our cookies at the farmers' market yesterday, and I really want to go out to dinner but we can't afford it. Our house needs a good cleaning, too. Other than that, I have no plans to rethink the course of my life in relation to Natasha. I think I'll maintain this status quo for a while. :-)

Happy Holidays!!

Today is the Only Day

We visited our best friends over the weekend. Two of them are like sisters to me and they happen to really be sisters to each other. Truly. I was talking to the older sister, who always seems to be learning some life lesson at about the same time as I, even if the conveyance of that lesson is different, and we got on the subject of taking life one day at a time.

My parents are planners. Generally, they plan as much as they can, but they do recognize that much of life is completely unscripted. My father "expects the worst but hopes for the best," and that was what I learned to do. But I realized in the last several months that living this way in terms of my relationship with Natasha was literally killing me.

I have spent so much of the last 2+ years looking into the future where Natasha and I won't be together for one of several reasons that I limited my own ability to see that today, in this moment, everything is great between us. Sure: when I write in this space I can step back and list the good things and the not-so-good things about what is happening as a result of her transition, but when I was just living my life and regarding her, I looked far off into the future... a future that might or might not happen.

Things might not go well between us in the future, but then, things might end up better than they were before she transitioned. I've mentioned several times her mental condition prior to seeking therapy. It was really, really bad. It was getting to the point where I was unsure if I could handle it. So, since so much of that bad is gone, our relationship... today... is pretty darned great. So why would I spoil today with thoughts of an uncertain tomorrow?

Life can be short. I'd prefer to live forever, but that might not happen. When it comes to the success of our relationship, I believe that much of how this all turns out will be determined by how I live today. If I focus on something horrible that might not even happen, how can I possibly fully appreciate what I have today?

Today, everything in my personal life is wonderful!

It's my financial life that sucks. :-)

Choice

Ladies, especially those of you who commented on my last post, I'm not going to continue the conversation there. I'm going to say what I have to say and you all can talk it out if you choose to in comments, but I will not argue about it any more. As Anne said, we all seem to have our own definition of "choice." I'm frankly a bit surprised at the level of denial about this particular concept and that made me angry

But let me tell you this: When I said I didn't have a choice about whether or not to support Natasha's transition, OF COURSE I HAD A CHOICE. That's called an "expression."

However, many of you seem to think that there is some kind of controlling force out there in the universe that caused you to have this problem and thereby rendered you powerless to move your life on one direction or another.

The question is not whether I have known other TS than Natasha before. That's completely irrelevant to the topic of free will. I do happen to know the stories of several of you. I know that some of your relationships did not end well. I now that some of you are still struggling to hold on to those relationships. I know that some (a far smaller number) had no barriers to your transition. You all have different stories.

But it does not matter what your situation is. EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD HAS FREE WILL. Every person in the world must make a choice every single day at every moment. No matter what their situation. Little kids starving around the world were given their situations and what they might be able to do about that might have LIMITED choices, but they choose how to DEAL with their situations every moment.

You, my TS friends, have a choice. Perhaps you don't want to hear this, but there is only one definition of choice. I had a choice about whether or not to support Tasha. Each of you and each of your partners had a choice to make. You TS folk chose to follow your needs. I'm not saying that it was wrong.

LET ME SET THIS STRAIGHT. I'm not saying that the choice was an easy one or that it was not the obvious one or the path to least harm or whatever. The fact is that the moments we open our mouths to speak, we pick up a pen to write a letter, we put that letter in the mail or send it over the internet, the moments we put on that obvious piece of clothing for the first time to show the world what we think of ourselves, we are making a choice.

Don't forget that I am a SPOUSE. Perhaps your partner didn't or wouldn't tell you this, or that he or she couldn't find the right words to explain, but for US, your decision (which is a choice) to tell us when you did, how you did, where you did, changed our lives FOREVER. You cannot blame us for feeling this way, whether or not you and your partner had pre-existing problems. The fact is that choice is the at the very center of our pain and fear. It was your choice to tell us that we must process and get over. I'm sorry, but that's the absolute truth. Choice is what makes you feel guilty about having told us. Choice is what we wrestle with when trying to figure out where we stand in our relationships. Choice is what helps us determine to stay and find the happiness we had before or to leave and hope for happiness again.

Perhaps you might not follow my blog anymore because of what I am saying, but that tells me something about your level of guilt. I'm not trying to upset people. I'm representing the spouse here. I'm telling you, with as much impartiality as I can considering the circumstances, what's going on in my mind and my heart. You all, if you haven't done so already, need to do the same, because until you admit to yourself that you made a conscious decision to move forward with your transition, your feelings of guilt and all of those consequential feelings will NEVER subside. Any good therapist will tell you that you had a choice and that you have to own that.

If anyone is still reading this, I ask that you remember that I am not against any of you. If you've been reading my posts, you know that I also don't hold back. I cannot POSSIBLY imagine how you TS folk feel, but then, you can't possibly imagine how I feel. Yet, there are some universal truths out there that we should be able to agree upon. One of these is the matter of choice. If you had a knife in your leg and, as much as it hurt if you kept it in you would ensure the safety of your family, whereas if you pulled it out, while your own pain would subside your family would suffer, you still would have a choice. When someone holds a gun to your head, you have the choice to either do what that person says or attempt to overpower that person. If you can't swim and you suddenly find yourself alone in the water, you have a choice of either giving up without trying or trying your hardest and screaming for help. There is always choice. To say that you don't is an attempt at taking responsibility away from yourself. You can't do that.

So, until the next post... I hop you stick around to read it.

Whom to Blame?

I've been having a conversation with a friend in England (via Facebook) about her situation with her TS spouse. I feel horribly for her because of the, frankly, pretty bad problems she is having because of her spouse's transition. I think that, while quite drastically bad in comparison, her situation is a very good example of what a lot of non-transitioning partners and spouses end up going through, and consequently what causes a whole heap of guilty feelings on the part of the TS.

I think that this may be the crux of the cause of so many spouses leaving the situation. Whether or not a rift in the marriage existed prior to the TS coming out, the fact is that when the transition takes place, at any point along the way, the partner/spouse is forced to change his/her life because of it. Because the partner/spouse did not choose for any of this to happen, and because... technically, the TS is not forced to make any changes at any point (it really is the TS's choice to do something when and where), resentment can rear it's ugly big head.

The big chore for the partner/spouse is where to direct the resentment.

Take my friend's situation. N is British. Her TS spouse, O, is American. They are legally married here in the US, she's lived here for many years, but for some reason the State Department has decided that now that O is legally a woman, their marriage is invalid. I don't want to get into a tangential conversation about whether this finding is correct, because it's not. The point is that N now has two choices to make:

1. Stay in England without her spouse and children for the rest of her life
2. Return to the US with limited domestic partner rights (she'll have health insurance) and without the ability to work, pay taxes, vote, get a permanent driver's license or pretty much anything else a citizen should have by law. She'd be on a renewable, temporary visa forever, with the possibility of deportation at the SD's whim. Essentially, she'd be forced to stay at home and do nothing.

See? I said her situation is extraordinary, but it makes the strong and very sad point that the struggle she's in now is SOLELY because her spouse transitioned.

One can't help but to feel a little resentment toward the TS spouse, even though it's the State Department's stupidity that is to blame.

My situation has similar qualities to it, as does just about every TS partnership. For me, I have to be willing to accept that, "Oh, you're in a LESBIAN relationship," look from people who realize that I use the term "spouse" and "parent" to refer to Natasha. And there IS a specific look. It's a kind of pitying yet curious look. I've had to accept that there is a woman sleeping in my bed with me and not a man. I've had to have conversations with my very young children about why it's okay that Daddy is becoming a girl but that the two of them will not have to change their genders when they are older. Clearly, these and other things that I'm adjusting in my life are not nearly on the same level of awful as those for my friend N, but they do wear a person down sometimes and I have to remind myself on occasion that it's not Natasha's fault.

Many spouses have this argument with themselves. On the one hand, like I said, the TS never really MUST do something. I hear lots of you lovely TS folk out there saying, "Yes. We do HAVE TO do something at some point." But come on. There's that "some point" factor that lots of folks forget about. How many TS folk have had to wait to progress from one phase of transition to another? Natasha had to wait. She's still waiting for her GRS. Perhaps some TS had to wait because the spouse said if you go any further, we're through and that was enough to stop it. This is not to say that waiting for any period of time is easy or painless. But it IS a choice to move forward, even if it's NOT a choice to be Transsexual.

But then, in my situation, Natasha didn't take any step forward until I gave her permission to do so. In reality, however, I didn't think I really had a choice. My spouse was in mental pain and for me to hold her back felt selfish and awful. So, as much as I didn't want to give her permission, I did because I loved her and wanted her to feel happier about herself. I knew what I was giving up and it broke my heart every day, over and over again. It still does sometimes.

Yet, I still resent the transition sometimes, and that's okay. But for many spouses, it's not okay, and here is where the marriage/partnership ends. I know of several TS folk who basically told their partners, "I have to go through this now and if you can't be with me then that's the way it has to be." Frankly, I think that's completely selfish, but perhaps there already was a previously existing issue in the relationship. If there wasn't, there sure would be at that point! If Natasha had said that to me, you bet I wouldn't be here. Throwing an ultimatum like that into someone's face is just plain rotten. Nobody HAS to do ANYTHING NOW (unless, of course, your organs are failing or something else threatens the finality of your life).

So, getting back to this resentment, assuming that the transition was agreed upon by both partners, we cannot help but sometimes to feel hurt by the situation. For those spouses who really do want to stay with their TS partner, it behooves you to sit down and really think critically about what is causing the resentment. If you want to stay in the relationship but are afraid and angry because your life is changing, think about the actual cause of what's making you angry. For me, one of my causes is that even the kindest people still think same-sex couples are strange. I'm angry at the bureaucracy of name changes. I'm frustrated that school forms still assume that when there are two legal guardians of kids, one must be male. For my friend N, she must remember that it's the State Department being stupid. Now, N has a long legal road ahead of her. That is stressful, painful, fearful and a host of other -ful words that will strain her relationship with O. But if they really do love each other and want to be together, then this is the road she must take. Her resentment toward O is that she doesn't have to go through this in the same way that N does, but N knows that's not exactly O's fault. It just gets hard sometimes to remember where to place that anger.

I use an analogy to explain to people why I have chosen to stand by Natasha and I think they understand (I've mentioned this before, so forgive my redundancy). If Natasha had been in a horrible accident that left her completely paralyzed but her mind was completely untouched, I would not leave her. Who would? She might change a bit in personality. It would dramatically change our everyday lives - what we could or couldn't do, responsibilities, job situations, etc - but the person Natasha would still be there. Yes, I've heard that sometimes people in traumatic accidents actually do change drastically in personality. This is different. Natasha knows that if she likes being a girly girl and spends hours in front of the mirror and insists upon buying lots of clothes and shoes and wants to start going out... well, I think we'll have serious problems. But this is not the case.

I would be so angry if something like that happened to Natasha (the accident, not the shoes). I'm sure there would be days that I would just sit on my bed and cry for hours over what had happened to my spouse and the stresses and responsibilities I would have inherited through no choice of my own. But I would stay and deal with it because she would still be my loving spouse.

Natasha feels guilty at times about what I am going through "because of her." I don't tell her not to feel guilty, but I do remind her that it's my choice to be here. One one hand, she is the reason for so much change in my life. Unlike an accident, she consciously chooses to progress with her transition. She knows that it shouldn't be up to me to let her move forward. I shouldn't have to make those kinds of decisions because, truthfully, then I can only blame myself. She is where she is because I have said, "okay." On the other hand, to deny her the ability to be herself in her right body is cruel. So, she lives with some guilt and I live with some unwelcome changes. But that happens anyway, right? Things change. S**t happens! People feel guilty about stuff.

Whom do we blame when s**t happens? Don't sling anything at anybody until you know for sure where to aim.

No Rainbow Connection

Okay, at the risk of upsetting some people (What? Marni? Afraid of upsetting people? NOOOO!), I wanted to talk about the use of the rainbow when referring to a group or organization that supports the LGBT community... or even the LGBTQA community. I'm sure there's a longer acronym out there, too. The more we identify the subtleties between points on the sexual orientation continuum, the longer the acronyms are sure to get.

I LOVE the fact that Natasha is starting a Gay-Straight Alliance at her school. She has joined (because I subscribed to their eNewsletter) GLSEN. But then, she "Liked" this other group on Facebook called the LGBT Geeks of Arizona. That's fine for her, but I can't very well go to any of their events, now can I? I'm straight, after all. There are TONS of these groups. LGBT America. GALA - Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses. LGBT Democrats. Just do a search in FB alone and you could spend hours going though all of the sites.

So, like, I can't be a part of those groups.

Come on, now. I'm being a bit snarky here. You know that.

My point is that the "rainbow" that is utilized in so many sexual orientation group logos is misleading. Heterosexuals are a part of that rainbow. Sorry, but it's true. So, when Natasha decides to play the lesbian card and join these groups, I won't feel comfortable going with her. I'm not the "supportive spouse of a lesbian." That's just insulting to all lesbians. Lesbians don't need support. I'm the "supportive spouse of a transsexual," so maybe if I go under that umbrella, I'd feel welcomed. But then again, as so many people in the TS and TG communities love to point out, Tasha is NOT transgendered, right? That implies a choice to remain gendered masculine in her case, but to have a secondary female persona. That's just not how it is, though.

But here I go, getting caught in the nitpickiness that is the S.O. Rainbow (Sexual Orientation).

Natasha keeps trying to convince me that although I am not a lesbian, I AM in a lesbian relationship. That might be true, but I still cannot even remotely identify with another female's attraction to women. It ain't in me. I've got no problem with it, obviously, but it's like asking a lesbian how they would feel being with a guy. Um... no. So, perhaps I go with Tasha to a group thing that does not include the Straight color of the rainbow. Immediately, I am cast as someone whom I am not: the lesbian partner. Do I really care what others think of me? No. but having not been included in their pretty rainbow to begin with, I feel marginalized.

See where I'm at here? I'm not complaining about minority groups having groups. I'm complaining about my "majority" position among those groups.

In short, I propose that the rainbow only be used for groups that account for ALL S.O. categories. I, for example, consider myself to be a Heterobservant. That means I'm heterosexual who observes and appreciates the attractiveness of the same sex, too. So, I'm not quite on the far, far end of heterosexuality. Just to the left of me would be Heterobstaining, who are heterosexuals who can sometimes feel turned on by the same sex but has no desire to do anything about it. What about them? What is their color on the rainbow? Eh?