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Other than this incident I really liked the social worker I talked with today, and I wasn't actively offended at the time so much as irritated, but it was one of the thousand papercuts that you eventually die of (or in the case of being a possibly-persecuted minority, maybe just get really fed up with and snap one day and turn into a towering rage beast).
If I say "My wife" in passing to you, regardless of absolutely anything and everything else you can think of (for example: Finland doesn't have gay marriage, just registered partnership, so the actual government doesn't recognize my marriage, but that's a rage blackout for another day)...
don't later say "your partner" to me.
(For one thing: you don't know my circumstances. Maybe we got legally married in Iowa! Which we did. Maybe we got married by jumping over a broom at an informal ceremony officiated by a Unitarian minister, but didn't do any of the paperwork! We didn't. But for another thing, even if you knew my circumstances, if I consider the person I'm in a relationship with to be my wife and that person agrees with the designation, and we aren't in a court of law or a social security office and you aren't a notary or government official, then it's not your business to question my terminology.)
See also: if President Obama identifies as black, he's black even if his mother was white1.
1. Bonus extra special note to Robin McKinley: FYI, being biracial, which isn't how the President chooses to identify, is still not the same as being "a white guy with a tan". And also, how dark you think his skin is has no bearing on his racial identity, but I do wonder if you also consider all black people with various forms of albinism to be white.
See also: why I can't enjoy Robin McKinley's books anymore, including several of my childhood favorites, so thanks for that.
If I say "My wife" in passing to you, regardless of absolutely anything and everything else you can think of (for example: Finland doesn't have gay marriage, just registered partnership, so the actual government doesn't recognize my marriage, but that's a rage blackout for another day)...
don't later say "your partner" to me.
(For one thing: you don't know my circumstances. Maybe we got legally married in Iowa! Which we did. Maybe we got married by jumping over a broom at an informal ceremony officiated by a Unitarian minister, but didn't do any of the paperwork! We didn't. But for another thing, even if you knew my circumstances, if I consider the person I'm in a relationship with to be my wife and that person agrees with the designation, and we aren't in a court of law or a social security office and you aren't a notary or government official, then it's not your business to question my terminology.)
See also: if President Obama identifies as black, he's black even if his mother was white1.
1. Bonus extra special note to Robin McKinley: FYI, being biracial, which isn't how the President chooses to identify, is still not the same as being "a white guy with a tan". And also, how dark you think his skin is has no bearing on his racial identity, but I do wonder if you also consider all black people with various forms of albinism to be white.
See also: why I can't enjoy Robin McKinley's books anymore, including several of my childhood favorites, so thanks for that.
