I started high school in 1999. My sister was a senior and I was a freshman. My sister at the time had a girlfriend and most of our small school knew she was gay. I was not gay at the time. I know that’s hard to understand, but I truly wasn’t. I was into guys. Anyway, my sister faced a lot of shit for being gay in a small town. She never complained about any of the discrimination she faced. She never talked badly about other people at the time. She just took it. I was angry for her. Because we are very different people, and her way of handling situations was not at all how I would have liked to handle it. But she had to do it her way, and she did. It sucked being powerless. And unfortunately that would not be the last time I felt that way.

Fast forward three years. I am now the senior. I still am not gay. I know, it’s weird, but I really wasn’t. I was dating a boy and I was definitely still heterosexual. My sister graduated three years earlier. But it’s a small town, and people don’t forget. I would sit in  history class and every day some boys in my class would make “gay” comments and then crack up, and literally point and laugh at me. I was not gay. My sister was. Every day I would fume, and I, unlike my sister would have done, would stand up and tell them to shut the hell up in the middle of class. Then my teacher would get mad at me for interrupting class. After a month of this I finally yelled at my teacher in the middle of class, “Are you ever going to do anything?” and he got angry and basically said no. His exact words were, “I shouldn’t have to be the authority figure here.” Which looking back is super messed up because he was the authority figure. I stormed out of his class and went straight to my guidance counselor. I didn’t visit the guidance office very frequently. Maybe twice in four years. But I had known my guidance counselor since I was ten because he was also my sister’s guidance counselor.

I told him the situation. I cried, and I told him how some other kids brought in a bible to show me where it specifically says “Man shall not lay with man”. I told him the guys in my class were making derogatory statements to me daily. I needed help. He asked me how far I wanted to take this. He suggested I withdraw from the class so as not to make a big deal about it. He said he would put me in an independent study and it wouldn’t affect my GPA at all. I remember I instantly stopped crying, because I realized he wasn’t going to help. I mean he was, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t going to help me fight this. He was telling me to let this go, sweep it under the rug, hang in there until graduation. Don’t challenge those guys or my teacher because it could have lasting repercussions.

I remember feeling embarrassed, ashamed, and scared. If some one I knew since I was ten didn’t have my back then who did? I remember I left his office and got into my car and drove away from school. I couldn’t do it. I cried a lot that day. Then I went back the next day, and I told him with swollen eyes that I would do what he suggested. Because what else could I do? I completed an independent study with a different teacher, and I never spoke to the other history teacher again. Except one day he asked me for a hall pass when I was walking by his classroom and I gave him the middle finger.

As a teenager there is already a feeling of powerlessness in almost every situation. Because adults always win. But as an LGBT youth or even a sibling of an LGBT youth there is a sense of vulnerability in addition to being powerless. There are so many adults willing to help nice little White kids. But that list dwindles when you are a minority. Thinking back there is one teacher I can remember from high school who would have been “safe” for me to talk to about my sexuality, the bullying, and my sister. After I graduated I found out other teachers were gay but none of them were open during my school years. That one teacher who was there for my sister and I was not gay, but openly supportive of all kids. But she couldn’t solve everything. I wanted desperately to fight that battle. I wanted to go to the Principal and tell him everything that was happening throughout my high school years, but the teenage code of not being a snitch was strong. And when I finally got overwhelmed with it all and reached my breaking point I was told to essentially sweep it under the rug. I sort of understand now why that was his advice. We literally had five months of school left, and I would be making some serious allegations against students and a teacher. I was accepted at that time at a prestigious college, I was in the top ten of my class academically, and I think he truly wanted me to just try and get through my last semester of school. I don’t feel he was malicious in any way. I can see now he was trying in his own way to protect me from a protracted unpleasant battle. But at the time it felt awful.

I’m all grown up now though, and I have some things to say about that experience. To the guys in my high school history class; I forgive you. I hope you have grown into better human beings; better men than the boys you were. To the one teacher who did not take a stand for an LGBT youth being bullied on a daily basis in your classroom- I hope above all hopes that no other child has suffered because of you. To the bystanders who saw it all and said nothing- I hope you speak up in future if you are a witness to bullying. To my sister- rock on with your bad self, I have no regrets about my life and neither should you. To the one teacher who created safe space for us both…thank-you.

To any LGBT youth being bullied reading this please comment so I can reach out to you. You are not alone. There will be times when you have to let it go, and move on, and sweep it under the rug. But there will be times when you can take a stand and fight. Seek out those who support you, and whatever adversity you may face now I promise it will pass. None of it is worth taking your own life.

In the current climate of our country LGBT youth are especially vulnerable. They live daily with fears that normal teens don’t have to worry about. Please be mindful of this and be that supportive adult, teacher, friend, or parent. Be the safe space.

And in closing, this happened seventeen years ago. I still remember much of it vividly. Bullying leaves lasting marks on people. Bullying literally has a mortality rate. Youths kill themselves due to being victims of bullying. Speak up, speak out, and be kind.

Before the Supreme Court ruling allowing gay marriage federally, people asked me why gay marriage was a big deal. Here’s some of what it meant to me.

When I was twenty-two and my wife and I started dating. We did the cliche lesbian thing where she moved in almost immediately. After four months together she started to have some health problems. Nothing serious, but it made her and I realize that if she were ever to have serious health problems I would have no “claim” to her, and in fact her immediate family (who had kicked her out literally to the curb when she came out) would have more of a say in healthcare decisions than I would. Whether we were together for two months or twenty years the same rang true. Without a legal document binding us together our relationship didn’t matter. It terrified me that she would get into a car accident and I would show up at the hospital only to be denied seeing her by her family. So at the ripe ages of twenty-two and twenty-three she and I sat down with a lawyer and had a healthcare proxy and living will drawn up for her. It was two hundred dollars. That is a lot for two girls one still in college with no financial support from her family, and me fresh out of college and paying rent for the first time ever. She kept a copy in her car and at home. I did too. Heterosexual couples likely don’t think about this stuff, unless their immediate family has cut them off for some reason. But hospitals are also less likely to bar a heterosexual partner from seeing their significant other than a homosexual partner. I can tell you from experience there are hospitals all over the country that would bar me from seeing my wife without my legal piece of paper saying to let me the fuck in prior to gay marriage. Even post gay marriage in conservative areas gay couples still take the steps described above to protect themselves in case disaster strikes. When it was state by state we would still all need this documentation because if we travelled to states that didn’t have gay marriage we could face the situation described above. We travelled with healthcare proxies and living wills whenever we left out state. Federal gay marriage allowed me to breathe a little. I could now travel outside of my state and be recognized as her wife anywhere.

Then there were the taxes. We were married in our state for about four years prior to the federal gay marriage ruling. For four years we filed the most fucked up taxes imaginable. For four years the IRS sent me letters telling me how I fucked up my taxes, and for four years I refused to do it any differently because it just pissed me off on principle. Here’s how it went. I filed “single” federally for both of us. Then I had to make a dummy “married” federal tax return in order to file “married” in our state. Then we would get a state tax return of a certain amount of money. That’s where the IRS got mad. Because you have to claim a state income tax return on a federal return, but it was never clear to me who I should file it under because we received our state back as married, so it came to both of us. The IRS would then send me a letter that I never claimed that return as income. However they never sent my wife a letter. For some reason they decided I took all of the state income tax return even though it was split between my wife and I. For four years I called the IRS. I sat on hold for several hours combined, and I always spoke with Ms. Queenie. I explained my sad story to Ms. Queenie every year. I then asked how the IRS decided I got the full state return when I clearly filed jointly under both my wife and I. Ms. Queenie was always very polite, but ultimately she would tell me to just do what the IRS was telling me to do. Claim it fully under myself as income and pay what I owed the IRS. Every year for four years we had the same discussion. Every year for four years I posted on Facebook about how this system made no sense. How was it I could be married in a state but not the country? How could I step out of my state and all the sudden not be married? Why would I live in a country that didn’t respect the decision and court ruling made by my state? And why didn’t the fucking IRS make my wife claim half the income tax from our state? Why did they pick me? Did I knowingly break the law by not reporting my state income tax. Yes, sort of. I thought it didn’t make any sense, and I didn’t know who to claim the income under because as stated above our federal was two single returns. And I couldn’t get the IRS to admit that the money from our state went to BOTH of us, not just to me. Quite frankly that pissed me off. How could the IRS decide our relationship, our joint state return didn’t exist?

There are many more reasons that gay marriage is beyond important to me as a lesbian. Having children, and being legal parents of our children is another blog post in and of itself. But honestly for me, the tax situation was my biggest complaint. It really got under my skin. The main one being this. I have stated previously I work in healthcare. I devote my life and career to helping others. I also have a father who is a Vietnam Veteran, and a Grandfather who is a World War II Veteran. My family sacrificed so much for this country and for our freedoms. I give of myself daily to people of all races, sexualities, and religious backgrounds without judgement. It hurt me deeply that I could not enjoy the freedoms my family sacrificed for. It hurt me that I gave of myself selflessly to a society that was not willing to give back. It hurt me to live in a country that I would die for that would not even acknowledge one of the most important and valued relationships of my life. Gay marriage to me represented my country finally putting my family at the same level as every other citizen. It felt to me for the first time that we were truly free. And when I settled down at my laptop with my arch nemesis Turbotax, I actually got tears in my eyes when I submitted our married federal tax return for the first time. It sounds like something so small and simple, but to me it was a freedom we didn’t have before.

One of the arguments I hear a lot from people who are homophobic is around raising children without a father figure. Even people who are not homophobic, but let’s say homo-ignorant, often ask “But they won’t have a dad?” or “So who is the Dad?”. My immediate gut response is one of instant defensiveness because I do not want to think that I am in any way endangering my children or providing them with anything less than the best. When I started this blog I promised myself to uncover the good and the bad, the dark and the light. The darkness around this post is there is a constant fear as a lesbian mom that I am not enough, that my sons will not learn to be good men being raised by two women. They will resent me for bringing them into a family with no father and I will have them in therapy when they are twelve because of their hatred and resentment of my wife and I. There is an insecurity within me that those homophobes who believe in a family consisting of a mother, father, and children are right. When people ask “So what about a dad?” I hear “You know you are not good enough right?” or “You and your wife will never be enough for them.”

I am a fact finder and researcher by nature. I like to know true statistics (thanks ironically to my Dad who makes shit up half the time and the other half knows random weird facts that end up being true- with love Dad!) So here are some facts I found for this article and my own peace of mind.

 The American Academy of Pediatrics writes in an article titled “Promoting the Well-Being of Children Whose Parents Are Gay or Lesbian”– “The US 2010 census found that only 65% of children in the US are living with two biological married parents…Current estimates state 2 million children in the US are being raised by at least one lesbian and/or gay parents…Many factors confer risk to children’s healthy development and adult outcomes, such as poverty, parental depression, parental substance abuse, divorce, and domestic violence, but the sexual orientation of their parents is not among them. Many studies have assessed the developmental and psychosocial outcomes of children whose parents are gay or lesbian and note that a family’s social and economic resources and the strength of the relationships among members of the family are far more important vari- ables than parental gender or sexual orientation in affecting children’s development and well-being.20 A large body of scientific literature demonstrates that children and adolescents who grow up with gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual.

I think the above challenges in a concise fashion all people who argue that my children need a father and relieves many of my own insecurities. My children need to be loved, nurtured, and protected. They need to be tucked in at night, brought to the doctor when they are sick, kissed and hugged when they are sad, and taught to be respectful of oneself and of each other. I agree that potty training them without an adult penis and with very little experience with penises is going to be challenge. But my wife and I will face it. Just as we will face every challenge presented to us parenting our sons. Just as single mom’s do, and grandparents, and auntie’s, and adopted families. The face of “family” has already changed in the United States. It’s time we all caught up with this fact. 65% of children are in homes with married parents- that means a whopping 35% are not. That’s a lot of kids, and that was 7 years ago. The days of a mother, father, and two children are past. We are a beautiful blended society today with stepparents, adoptions, single parents, married gay parents and as long as all of those children are loved and especially as long as my children are loved don’t ask me where their dad is. It’s insulting and demeaning of the family we are.

Ask me how their Mom’s parent two challenging and sweet toddlers. Ask me what I am doing right, and don’t rush to judgement that because there are two Moms I am doing something wrong. I shouldn’t have to defend my family to any one, but here I am. The reality is many people think our family is not a real family and that we are not deserving of being parents. I am not anti-Dad. I have a Dad who I love very much. I am anti-judgement. I decided a long time ago not to judge others, and after I had my sons I doubled my efforts to not judge other parents and I shut other people down who are around me if they start judging parents. I remember one day I thought my nipples were going to fall off (I breastfed twins for eleven months), my wife was back at work, my C-section pain still wasn’t gone, and my sons just would not stop crying. I cried with them. In that moment I realized that parenting is so freaking hard. If at the end of the day your kids are loved and alive then I’m thinking it was a good day. I make mistakes parenting. I lose me temper sometimes when I’m telling my son not to touch the television for the thirtieth time that day. I forget their jackets for daycare some days. But never would I say that a mistake I made is having them. Because I love those little guys even on our worst day, and I wouldn’t want to journey through this parenting debacle with anyone but my wife. So the answer is, my sons don’t have a dad, they have two kick ass Mom’s who love them.

Individual states passed gay marriage before the beautiful Supreme Court ruling. My wife and I were lucky enough to live in one such state, and thus we were married back in 2011. There was a lot that went into planning our wedding. I’ll break it down for you, in case you’ve never planned one- music (we went with a DJ), cake (my priority), outfits (my second priority), photographer, food, venue, flowers (we didn’t have any, because we were married in December and wilting flowers irritate me), guests, and family. There certainly can be other aspects to wedding planning but for us those were the main issues. Venue, food, centerpieces, and music we nailed down relatively quickly…the cake took some time.

I wanted the cake to be delicious but also a decoration. Our wedding was Christmas themed, and I wanted the cake to be Christmas themed with two brides topping the cake. I was wearing a wedding gown, that I loved, and my wife was wearing a suit. It was tailored to look feminine, but two brides in gowns on top of a cake just wasn’t accurate. And clearly a male and a female on top of the cake also was not okay. I decided ultimately to ditch cake toppers. There would be no lesbian lovers adorning our cake. Instead I designed the Grinch cake.

My wife and I started dating in December four years prior to our marriage. It was a special time for us and still is for many reasons. It was the first period of stability my wife had after being kicked out of her parents home. It also was her first Christmas out of her family’s home. My wife grew up being told that she could only listen to orchestra music or religious themed music. The first time she heard Christmas music that was not religious themed was with me, baking cookies, singing loudly to the Grinch Soundtrack- the one with Jim Carey and Busta Rhymes rapping about How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I remember rolling out the dough for my candy cane cookies, covered in flour and peppermint oil; in my happy place listening to my favorite music. I remember looking up and seeing her face. It was a mixture of shock, delight, guilt, and curiosity. I remember I laughed and then asked what was wrong. She told me she had never heard Christmas music before that had a beat, or that did not revolve around the bible story of Christmas. I would also find out that she never saw any movies not based in religion.

Our first month we were together we both experienced many “first’s”. My wife because of her strict upbringing. For me, it was my first time ever dating a woman and I had never let myself be so vulnerable before as I was with her. She was introducing me to a whole new way of life, and vice versa.

There were dark times too, then and in the years to come for my wife. Deep pain and sadness that would erupt from her because of the years of repression and suppression.

At some point that month we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas and that scene, at the end; when his eyes start watering, and his heart triples in size was especially meaningful for both of us. She was feeling and experiencing a new world of freedom and being herself when for twenty years she had to be someone else to live up to her family and her church’s expectations. I was experiencing a new world emotionally, connecting with someone on a new level. The Grinch says, “I’m feeling” in this very squeaky, scared, and bewildered voice. That’s how it was for us both that first year. We were both feeling our way through a brand new world.

The cake was three tiers. Different flavored cake and frosting on each tier of course. It was topsy-turvy like Grinch Mountain. On the top sat the Grinch himself with his sled and Max on the tier below.

Many people that night asked us why we chose it, they loved it, but they wanted to know the story. I told people we couldn’t find two appropriate dykes to top it off so we went with the Grinch. I was not ready to share then what I am now because at the time I could hardly even articulate what it meant. That cake and the Grinch represented to us freedom, new beginnings, and our love. It represented the darkness we both came from, and the light we brought to each other. We cut the cake to the song “This will be an everlasting love…” and I thought there was never a more perfect moment.

My wife and I are in the midst of house buying and selling hell. For any one who has bought or sold a house you know what I mean. We have buyers…we have a house we would like to purchase and well the seller’s being difficult. We are supposed to close in ten days and don’t have anything finalized, and in fact we may have to walk away. Needless to say I’m on my way to developing alcohol dependency and thinking that though I’ve never needed Xanax, now may be a good time to find some.

But let’s back up. Because this post is not about buying and selling hell. Sort of.

About a year ago we put our house on the market. We had several showings and no bites. Three months in I looked at our house with a critical eye. We packed up half our belongings to make it look more empty, we had it painted, and overall I thought it looked good. Then I realized our living room was plastered with pictures of our beautiful family. Professional pictures, framed in lovely frames, tastefully done in my opinion; but I realized that our gay family was on display. I wondered if that was why we hadn’t received any offers. I called my realtor. She is lovely, she assured me in all her years she had not seen that. But she’s kind and compassionate, and I think she would not have told me even if she knew every family coming to look at our house was calling us dykes on their way out.

I stewed on this for a couple days before I approached my wife. I told her my concerns, that our house wasn’t selling because there were pictures of a lesbian family in the living room. She didn’t disagree. She told me she had been having those exact same thoughts.

I remember having this sinking feeling in my stomach. I am by nature cynical and my wife is not. So if she was having those same thoughts that meant there was definitely some truth to them. We were trying to have this conversation around our two toddlers, which was poor planning on our part. Due to frequent meltdowns and normal toddler intrusiveness we tabled the discussion until after bedtime.

Two hours later we were sitting on our couch, in our living room, surrounded by our favorite pictures. Our sons in their newborn shots, the two of us on the beach for our maternity shoot, and their most recent birthday shots at the park nearby. As mentioned in a previous blog post about lesbians and pregnancy, we worked very hard to have my sons. I loved being surrounded by beautiful photos of my favorite people. We faced a decision. Do we take down these pictures to try and make the house more anonymous for potential homophobic buyers? Or not.

We talked about it a lot. There were few different factors that went into our decision.

First off, we didn’t know how long it would take to sell the house. What if it took another year? I’d go an entire year without seeing my pictures? Second, my sons were and are toddlers. There are about a hundred times a day they try my patience. Which means there are about a hundred times a day I need to look up at their smiling faces in their individual 8″x10″ photos in my wall collage and be reminded that they are my happy boys. Because the wild beast in front of me is a far cry from that smiling face. Third, my wife and I collectively reached a point in our lives when we were comfortable enough with ourselves that we were able to say fuck it. Selling our house was absolutely important to us. But if it came at the cost of hiding who we are, when we have both sacrificed so much to be the family that we are, then it was not worth it.

We decided after a long dialogue to keep the pictures where they were. It’s unfortunate that we had to talk about our family photos as a potential turn-off to our house. Normally it’s discussions about the landscaping, the scratch on the floor, or the old appliances. But my wife and I had to discuss the fact that beautiful, professional photos of our family could detract from our home’s value to a potential buyer. It was painful, poignant, and once again brought to the forefront that our life is not the same as other heterosexual people’s lives. Our decisions are harder and our fear of discrimination always lurks beneath the surface.

Rationally we also knew it might have nothing to do with our photos and family composition. Our house has one bathroom. Maybe potential buyers so far wanted two. But being a part of a minority that faces discrimination brings with it a level of paranoia that it is always about our sexual orientation.

Buying and selling houses has so many components. Every tiny step along the way we had to face as a lesbian couple. Our attorney asked if we were legally married. He didn’t know gay marriage “was a thing”. I told him that gay marriage was actually a major legal case at the level of the Supreme Court. Then I thought maybe I need a new lawyer. Every contractor and inspector I spoke with asked what my husband’s name was and when they would meet him. It was small, innocuous things, but they build over time. An ever present reminder that we are different, more vulnerable. And it started with our family pictures.

We are moving in ten days. I packed the pictures today, wondering if the seller is holding off because he knows he is selling his home to lesbians. I packed the pictures lovingly in bubble wrap, hoping that in ten days they will christen a new lesbian home.