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A Personal Journey into Gay Marriage in a Heteronormative Society: Or…How Many Times Do We Have to Get “Married” in Order to Have Our Rights in the USA?
Author(s) -
King Kathleen P.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
new horizons in adult education and human resource development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1939-4225
DOI - 10.1002/nha3.10375
Subject(s) - order (exchange) , sociology , citation , gender studies , media studies , library science , law , political science , computer science , finance , economics
Understanding the continuing struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) equality can be difficult for people who have not experienced the issues firsthand. This brief article describes the journey of one woman and her female partner as they repeatedly seek to make their lifetime commitment legal in the USA. Readers will learn new dimensions of LGBTQ discrimination, which continue to endure even in 2009. Sometimes, through the journeys of others we can step back, reflect, and reconsider our perspectives. From medical care confrontations, to humiliation, medical benefits to excessive tax demands and fear of violence, you will realize afresh that the fight for equal rights is not over. This article offers my colleagues a chronicle of one person’s experience across the lines of heterosexual privilege to LGBTQ discrimination. The benefits of such an article are several at least: LGBTQ readers may experience a sense of validation in the disclosure of scenes, issues, concerns, and fears similar to their own. It may also provide those who are or would be allies with a deeper understanding and appreciation of the everyday lives of their LGBTQ colleagues, family members, and acquaintances. The article also serves as a firsthand account that may be used as a spring board for discussions about homophobia, LGBTQ rights, and more. My primary purpose in writing it, however, was in the hope that those who read it may consider the lives and journey shared and determine the part of the solution they can become as we move our world to a greater fullness of both equal human and civil rights. I have decided to share these intimate aspects of life and perspectives by invitation, as part of this theme issue on LGBTQ issues, and because of recurrent conversations with straight friends and colleagues who assume LGBTQ people have all civil rights and no longer experience discrimination. As heterosexual friends or colleagues innocently say to me, “But we live in an enlightened age!” My response is, “If you are heterosexual, yes it is enlightened, but not if you are an LGBTQ person, come live in my life for one week, or listen to these examples...”