Sisters? Best friends? Cousins? : Navigating assumptions by the ‘straights’ as a queer femme couple.

As a queer femme woman in a relationship with another queer femme woman, my partner and I are often faced with an interaction with strangers that comes in the form of a guessing game we like to call “sisters, best friends, cousins.” It’s not so much a game as it is the awkward reality of, usually straight, people assuming my partner and I are ‘sisters’, trying again with ‘best friends’, before finally guessing ‘cousins’, but never considering lovers.

This happens to us at restaurants, sport events, on airplanes, you name it. The fact is, we don’t look enough alike to be sisters. Cousins, maybe I suppose. Best friends, well technically we are but that’s not really the point. What I wonder is why people are so quick and confident to assume that two femme women (even when publicly displaying affection) are anything but romantic partners.

These scenarios can be lighthearted and even funny sometimes. The person inquiring, such as a flight attendant, would laugh with us after apologizing for being so naive to not think of the obvious and then send over some complimentary champagne. Other interactions can take on a more negative tone, but even the unmalicious ones can leave us feeling frustrated and unseen. It becomes exhausting to always be correcting others and having your relationship invalidated. 

There are also the instances involving people who do know we are in a same sex relationship but don’t respect it. The constant ogling at any ounce of PDA, encounters with men in bars giving us unwanted attention when we kiss as if two women kissing is a party trick being put on for their entertainment, and the frequent propositions for threesomes.

Is it so unfathomable for society to assume that two femme girls may be together, the same way they think a boy and girl would be? At 14, I went out for dinner with my DAD and the waiter assumed I was his girlfriend! The fact that for some people it’s more normalized to assume a young girl would be dating an older man, then for them to assume two femme women would be together romantically, speaks volumes.

I’ve spoken to other femme women couples and this seems to be a common pattern for them too. Strangers catch on to a connection and are intrigued by it because they cannot place the relationship in their own mind. Two femme women loving one another? They must just be really good close friends. So, I’m left asking why? While queer visibility has increased immensely over the last few years and people are becoming more educated and accepting of queer relationships, I see one major misconception remains: queer relationships do not require a balance of masc and femme energy the way heterosexual relationships do. We are conditioned to accept what we recognize in ourselves, so when straight people see a relationship between two women where one partner presents butch and the other presents femme it is more easy to relate to than two femme women, which is why we are so easily invalidated. This of course isn’t always the case for masc and femme same sex relationships, they too can endure invalidating behaviors full of discrimination. 

These are the experiences my girlfriend and I have as privileged, white, cis, straight-passing queer people. This doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of what so many other queer folk have to deal with day in, day out. In fact in many countries it is still illegal to be in a queer relationship

With pride month passing and in our ever-changing world that needs more love now than ever, we still see that representation matters.  So how do we work toward better respecting those around us and making room for their love without judgment? For starters, don’t assume — didn’t anyone ever tell you it makes an ass out of you and me? It’s always better to ask someone how they identify themselves or their relationship. Keep showing up and keep having open ended conversations so we can continue to make progress for the queer community. Love is love and everyone is entitled to be seen for what they want to be not assumed for something else.

I am in a beautiful, fun, sexy, wonderful relationship with my best friend, but she is also my girlfriend. Oh, and she isn't my cousin, nor my sister, I can promise you that…

To my fellow queer femme women who have been there, I see you. And to everyone else, remember that you are valid, and your love is too.