Category: relationships

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Domestic Partner Benefits Considered By WI State Supreme Court

So this happened in Wisconsin today: arguments were made to & for Wisconsin’s domestic partner benefits & registry.

At issue is whether domestic partnerships create a legal status that is “substantially similar” to marriage and therefore violate the state’s 2006 constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Gov. Jim Doyle signed the state’s domestic partnership registry into law as part of the 2009-2011 biennial budget. Domestic partnerships grant same-sex couples limited benefits, including visitation rights in hospitals and the right to inherit each other’s assets.

Julaine Appling, the executive director of Wisconsin Family Action, a socially conservative organization that opposes homosexuality, unsuccessfully petitioned the Supreme Court to take jurisdiction in an original action in 2009. The domestic partner registry has since been ruled constitutional by Dane County Judge Daniel Moeser, with that decision upheld by a state appeals court.

The appeals court ruled that, when considering eligibility requirements, formation requirements, rights, obligations, and termination requirements, “the ‘legal status’ of a domestic partnership is not ‘substantially similar’ to the ‘legal status’ of marriage.”

The idea is this: domestic partner benefits offer a few basic rights to same sex couples which come nowhere near what marriage bestows, but these wingnuts have taken the case to court in order to prove that even something as simple as hospital visitation “mimics” marriage which is expressly forbidden by the state’s super-DOMA.

Of course the problem is that Wisconsin has a super DOMA in the first place, and it can’t be challenged, even, until 2015.

Honestly, the whole fracas is embarrassing, especially now that it’s obvious which way the wind is blowing, but these conservative wingnuts are digging their heels in deeper now that it’s apparent they are losing the war (even if/when they win the battles).

*sigh*

Honestly, it’s like living in the Dark Ages, but cheers to my friends Kathy & Ann who are willing to stand up for their rights.

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Trans Oriented / Trans Attracted

Call me old school, but I still prefer Trans Am. BUT, check it out! Straight dude comes out as straight! No, as a trans inclusive straight guy.

I’ve had enough of this shaming. It’s created a disgusting culture of trans-attracted men using trans women for sex but never forming a committed relationship with them. Most trans-attracted men are only trans-attracted at night. Then, during the day, they run back to their heteronormative relationships with cis-women of whom they are not ashamed.  Even men who are in committed relationships with trans women will often tell those women that they could never introduce them to their friends or family. Imagine a woman who has been to hell and back trying to transition into who she really is only to be told by her lover that he is ashamed to be with her.

I’ve had enough of this shaming, too, so may there be legions right behind him.

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Coming Out Straight?

Really, has it come to this? Lifelong lesbian moves to SF & starts dating & having sex with men.

Except the title’s all wrong since it’s part of a series about bisexuality, in fact.

Still, I loved this:

As if the hot boi in the bow tie and suspenders would suddenly leap up and pronounce me a fraud between Le Tigre mashups.

Because of course that hot boi in the bow tie could very well be a fraud in ‘not queer enough’ sense she’s making reference to, and really, who cares anymore? Does anyone care? & Yes, I know they do. I know lesbians who married men who got endless shit about it, got called sellouts & worse. I know that to some people I am not queer enough & never will be.

But it’s so, so tiresome, all of us always explaining and defending our authenticity. So how’s this: what if we all just leave labels out of it & have sex with who we want?

I know, that’s just nuts, isn’t it?

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This Just In: Relationships Fail.

This is a pretty miraculous little article about relationships but moreso, about love, and about the limits of intimacy. It blew me away. She starts at a place that most people would consider pessimistic, but the older I get, and the more couples I have known, the more I feel that she is just stating the obvious.

So let’s take a hard look at why relationships never seem to pan out. I mean, really—have you ever seen a functional relationship? There are some that seem to be functional, or possibly even very good, but we never really get to know too much about them. Then later, we discover the seedy underbelly—often when the couple splits—and are disillusioned all over again.

This one had domestic violence in it. That one has been a sexless marriage for the past 10 years. This one had one partner lying and cheating on the other. That one was more of a business arrangement, waiting patiently until the kids were out of the house. The list goes on and on.

So, um, yeah. There’s that.

Then she talks more about the why, and here’s it’s not hard to tell I found this in a buddhist journal:

Relationships are based on the fallacy that I exist, you exist, and that my happiness, connection and fulfillment can be met by something from the outside—that there even is an outside.

That might sound esoteric, but stick with me.

When we look at our experience we can’t actually find a “person,” or even a “self.” In any experience we can find what we call color, the sound of a voice, the experience of a touch, etc. Without a belief in a self, other or time—which are all just thoughts and images in the mind and have no substance—all we have is this moment. Continue reading “This Just In: Relationships Fail.”

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One Date Only

I’m struck by this short piece about a woman who went out on a date with an amazing man only to have him die before they could go on a second one.

Maybe because it is so much about the promise of what love is supposed to be and then wasn’t. Or because it exactly fulfilled the the best possible outcome of a first date and because it was all there would be, it stayed exactly that. No relationship. No arguments. No boredom.

It had to be a profound experience, and a haunting one, and I kind of wish someone like Margaret Atwood would write a poem about it.

Or maybe I appreciate it because so many people were posting this other story about a guy who didn’t know what love was until he had been married for a while, and who now looks on his first affections for his wife as not-love. Every time someone I knew posted that on Facebook I wanted to respond “I call bullshit” so I’m going to do that here instead. Love is only long-term commitment? Love is only changing diapers? Ugh, please. Just what we all need: more smug coupledom from people who need to tell themselves that they have the Real Thing even though they’re busy compromising pretty much everything in order to have it.

I hate that. & I hate that even more as a person who has been in a committed relationship for 15 years, precisely because the early days of wonder and joy really were days of wonder and joy. It’s okay that the start of a relationship is more exciting than conversations about who’s going to empty the dishwasher a decade later. Nobody would ever get married if a relationship started the way it will be in 15 years. You need the days of wonder and joy to be blinded to the compromises that are coming.

And I say that, too, as someone who really does believe in long-term commitments. I think many, many people are happier in them than not. But I also know a lot of people try to stay in a relationship that bores them to tears and frustrates their desires and hems them in on all sides because of schmarmy essays that like that one by the husband.

Call me a romantic, but I prefer the idea of being in love with someone because I am, not because they do the dishes. Call me crazy.

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Love & Shame & Having a Thing for Trans Women

Here’s a great interview with the amazing Laverne Cox and Janet Mock about Mister Cee – who was caught soliciting a trans female – that he loves women, dates women, but occasionally desires fellatio with a “transsexual” – that is, a trans woman.

What’s fascinating is how many people think he’s “just gay” and needs to come out.

Liking fellatio – and he’s unclear if he’s interested in a trans woman blowing him or blowing a woman who still has a penis – doesn’t make someone gay.

Liking men, as a man, makes someone gay (if anything does).

Men who like trans women are straight. Maybe adventurous. Maybe they like penises and women.

They said there is no language for someone who loves trans people, but in fact the term “trans amorous” – “trans am” for short – has been around quite a lot. They’re called trans admirers sometimes, or “transsensual” (which is used more on the FTM end of things).

THAT SAID: plenty of men who date trans women are straight men. Period. End of statement.

Janet Mock talks more about shame and gender policing in her article which is, as per usual, right on.

A very, very long time ago I asked trans admirers to step up.

I’m still waiting.

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Gay Men Stay Gay….

… when they date trans men, that is.

Artist Bill Roundy wrote a comic about what it’s like to be a gay man who dates trans guys is actually pretty damned amusing.

<—– Here’s one snippet.

What we have learned: penis in vagina sex is not always straight/het sex. Genitals aren’t gender. Sometimes men have vaginas. Sometimes women don’t.

Anyway, read the whole thing — his frustration is in every frame but it should help clarify for a lot of people out there who don’t get it.

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New Documentary: Americans in Bed

So this looks interesting:

. . . wide-ranging interviews with subjects who are filmed in the comfort of their own beds, asking probing questions about what people look for in a partner and how they know when they have found it. From a couple that has been together for 71 years to a pair of fresh-faced newlyweds, she encourages her subjects to open their hearts and minds as they share candid and touching insights into their relationships, underscoring the fact that no union is as simple as it seems on the surface.

Each couple gradually discloses intimate thoughts about the sometimes painfully private issues that affect every relationship, including passion, fidelity, family obligations, separation, conflict, negotiation and illness. As they talk about how they met and fell in love, some even surprise each other with feelings long held back, while others revisit old hurts as if they had happened yesterday.

Americans in Bed premieres Monday, August 12 (9:00 ET) on HBO. There’s a trailer here.

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Letter to a Crossdresser’s Wife

And while I was away, Laura Stuart of Express Milwaukee wrote this column in response to a woman who wrote in having found out her husband crossdresses.  I think she does a great job for a short column, and of course I appreciate the mention. I’m wondering what some of you might have to say about the Craigslist ad and photo, though, as that seems a little suspect to me — as it does to the wife. It may just be an urge to be seen, but it may be something else, too.