Earlier this week when we met with our realtor to make an offer on a new house, he asked us to sign a disclosure form about the customer vs. client and realtor-to-client agency agreement. “Didn’t we sign this already?” we asked, confused.
He grew unaccountably flustered. “Well, you signed it,” he told my wife, and then turned to me, “but you didn’t. I didn’t think it mattered, because I assumed you were sisters.”
We get this all the time, and we are not alone. It happened twice in one recent day to my college roommate and her partner, who are expecting twins this summer. The author of this article on same-sex parenting says this mistake happens so often, she has developed an acronym to describe her response: EOTS — Explaining of the Situation.
Somehow, I thought our Situation would become more obvious to outsiders once we had a baby, but clearly that is not the case. It’s not as if Penelope and I look all that much alike. She’s skinny, I’m… not; she’s got straight light-brown hair, I’ve got thick, wavy dark hair; our facial features are different, our bone structure is different, our mannerisms are different. If there is a resemblance (apart from the fact that we’re both white girls), we don’t see it. Yet the question persists, whenever we meet new people, and even the presence of an adorable toddler who calls us “Ma” and “Mumma” hasn’t helped to correct the misconception.
Generally when we correct people, they react pretty well. New England is, after all, the birth place of civil unions and a stronghold of marriage equality. Gay families have been in the news here for so long that we’ve lost our novelty. Ten years ago when the civil union legislation first passed in Vermont, the rednecks festooned the Green Mountains with “Take Back Vermont” signs (something which amused and infuriated Penelope, whose family first arrived here in the 1700s, well before Vermont was even a state), but that kind of open homophobia is rarely encountered now. I’m sure most of the people who owned those signs haven’t changed their tune, but they’ve been shamed into silence. I know we’re a lot better off than lesbian couples all over the country, for whom the safest answer to the question, “Are you sisters?” is probably, often, “Yes.”
Yet just because we don’t have to brace ourselves for a possible confrontation every time we answer the question doesn’t mean we don’t resent having to answer it, and I’ll tell you why. I bet 99% of the people who ask it don’t think we’re sisters at all. They know exactly what we are, but they’re embarrassed to ask outright, and they think asking if we’re sisters is somehow more polite.
Think about it. You see two women out together, perhaps sharing a meal or a drink, or walking down the street, or sitting next to each other at the airport. If they’re not touching, you probably don’t make any assumptions at all. Maybe they’re friends or coworkers, maybe it’s girls night out, maybe they’re strangers who happen to be walking in the same direction or waiting for the same flight. You don’t know, and you don’t need to know.
Now, what if you see two women together, and something about them tips you off to the fact that they are more to each other? Maybe they stand a little too close, or finish each others’ sentences. Maybe it’s something about the way they look at each other, or the way they refer to themselves as “we,” or the fact that the kid with them calls them both “Mom.” Suddenly, you’re dying to know exactly what their relationship is! You think you know, but geez, you’ve never met real live lesbians before! You don’t want to offend them by saying the wrong thing (what if they’re dangerous?!), but you just have to know. So you ask, “Are you sisters?,” because that’s a safe question, right?
One of these days, I’m going to design a t-shirt for the dyke set to wear when we leave the house together that says, “Trust Your Instincts: We’re Not Sisters.” It will spare us all so many awkward conversations.
-C.
Mmm. I don’t mind explaining about being trans, because I want people to know, and people who know more are less prejudiced. I hate being called “sir”. And EOTS only hurts if it raises your own stuff. “Have you had the operation yet?” is more of a pain: I am entitled to respect.
I agree that people who know more are less prejudiced, and you’re right, I’m happy to educate well-meaning people to be less prejudiced. I guess I just get frustrated by explaining the situation when I am certain that it doesn’t really require explanation — most of these people know exactly what’s going on.
Thanks for reading!
Oh, and-
I might ask the question, just to make sure, because I was encouraged to see you openly together. I have courage, I gain openness.
Woo hoo we got a shout out!!!
I would agree with your theory that 99% of people know what’s up, except for the fact that we get asked this literally everywhere. Northampton, Boston (in a sandwich shop in JP his evidence was that we have the same eyes), NYC, South Beach…but Provincetown takes the cake. Multiple questions in Provincetown. One guy was so sure that he insisted, “There’s nothing wrong with being sisters!” It doesn’t happen to us down here in Florida any more or less than it does other places. And you would think the question would be less common in the gayest places in the US. I really can’t figure it out. We just laugh about it and think it’s cute. It gives people who are bored at work some excitement, I suppose, and I like to connect with nice people even if it’s a little ridiculous.
No, I think the fact that it happens is “gay places” doesn’t mean anything. Those people should (and I contend, do) know better, but just because they live in a gay-friendly place doesn’t necessarily make them comfortable with gay people. Also, the fact that they’re asking doesn’t necessarily make them uncomfortable with gay people, I suppose. Most people probably have good intentions: Asking two non-lesbians if they are lesbians runs a much higher risk of offending than asking a lesbian couple if they are sisters, after all.
You know, in all the times I’ve gone out with my actual sister, I don’t believe we’ve EVER been asked if we are sisters — which confirms my belief that most people absolutely know better, but are trying to satisfy their curiosity without giving offense.
The topic of the “Take Back Vermont” signs came up today at work. One of my coworkers moved into a new home – in the process of moving and cleaning the basement he found a “giant” 8′x10′ heavy-duty TBV sign behind an old oil tank. Poor guy is trying to figure out how to dispose of it – can’t exactly toss it into the back of his pickup truck and drive it to the dump – or at least he is unwilling to do so. So he’s planning to use a table saw to cut it into many pieces to dispose of it anonymously…Vermont went through some uglies there for a while, but I’d like to think we’re in a much better place as a society now.
Is it wooden? Maybe he could send it through a woodchipper and turn it into garden mulch. I think we’re in a much better place now, too, thank goodness.
Love the shout out
I’m not entirely convinced that the sisters question happens because people know we are a couple or are fishing for information. This has happened to us over the years in Provincetown, Northampton, South Beach (some of the gayest places on earth where people are used to seeing all manner of same sex couples) and it even happened to us at the fertility clinic. (The recent episodes were at Home Depot and an Indian restaurant) I know that the fertility clinic sees many same sex couples as well so it’s not like we were unusual visitors. I think it has to be something in our mannerisms that doesn’t overtly broadcast that we are a couple. Maybe because we are what some like to refer to as “lipstick lesbians”? People do ask my actual sister and I if we are sisters and then typically follow it up with — are you twins or which one is older? (My sister hates that!)
I’m not offended that people ask if we are sisters, I’m just confounded as to why they do it. If I was working at a shop, or a restaurant or Home Depot and two women or two men came to my register I wouldn’t ask if they were sisters or brothers. It’s irrelevant to my service.
One of the episodes earlier this week was at an Indian restaurant that we frequent — they have never before asked if we are sisters, but upon noticing Christine’s pregnancy our regular waitress said “Are you sisters?” I said “No” and then she immediately said “Best friends?” Hahaha. My response… “something like that”
She either legitimately had no idea or was fishing, hard to tell. But best friends certainly is true!
Right now I’m happy to respond to the sisters question with a “no” and leave it hanging — give the questioner something to think about, lol. But I’m sure with two babies Explaining the Situation will take on a whole new level as I’ll have to say, yes these are my children and they have two mothers.
Maybe you’re right, and my employment and life experience just make me jaded. One way or another, though, it is confounding!
you know you’re in orange county (and i’m betting the NEK, too) when you STILL see those frigging signs. it’s like “really, guys, put the torch out. we’re all done with this conversation.”
oddly, i took a few moments to look at the picture you posted, thinking “of course they don’t look like sisters” and then decided that you have pretty darn close to exactly the same smile in this photo and actually could be sisters, IMO.
Yeah, that’s the we’re-both-squinting-into-the-sun smile, but I see what you mean. We actually have very few pictures of the two of us together, in part because we’re both really camera shy and in part because one or the other of us is usually holding the camera. The other picture I could have used was one of our wedding pictures, but that didn’t seem fair, as Penelope’s white dress and our calla lily bouquets might have been a giveaway that we are clearly not sisters.
My partner and I went down and got our marriage license on the first day they were offered in D.C. When we came out of the building (3 hours later) a TV crew asked to interview us. After the interview they said they had been having a terrible time picking the gay couples out of the general traffic going in and out of the building. The chose us because I was holding on of the flowers they had been handing out outside the courtroom. It was a really mixed group of people waiting for licenses, like any line at the DMV but fewer sixteen year olds. It did strike me as kind of sad that even as we were marking this big event, “are you a gay couple?” was a question too potentially embarrassing to ask. But, then I HATE it when people assume I’m my daughter’s grandma and my partner is my mom-so I guess we all have hangups.
Oh, I would hate that, too! It is strange that even in that context, reporters would be embarrassed to ask if people are gay. I’ve never known reporters to be all that tactful to begin with, after all.
I loved your T-shirt slogan: Trust Your Instincts: We’re Not Sisters! Best of luck with baby#2.
Thank you, and thanks for reading!