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Are you friends?

Yes! Of course we are friends. We are even best friends. We know almost everything about each other. We spend more time with each other than anyone else. We enjoy each other’s company. We talk for hours, we laugh about the most stupid jokes (and some good ones as well). We can be who we really are—in the joyful moments as well as in the sad or stressed ones. We live together. 

But we are so much more than what you are assuming. We also sleep in the same bed. We love each other—not platonically, but romantically. We share more with each other than we would with friends—however close we are with them. When we are holding hands, we don’t do so as friends, but as partners and lovers. And we certainly don’t kiss each other as friends.

So while we would appreciate when people would accept displays of affection as natural and shareable with everyone, this is probably not the reason why people think that we are not a couple. Presenting as rather femme, we are too easily mistaken as heterosexual women. Because lesbians look a certain way, right? Short cropped hair, no makeup, checked shirts. And while some lesbians might correlate with this stereotype, we also know (of) straight women who look exactly like this stereotypical lesbian. And we are sure that not all of them are just 'transitioning.'

At the same time, we know a lot of lesbians (and womxn loving womxn) who 'look straight,' but are not. As we know gay men who don't 'act gay,' straight men who do 'act gay.' And we love this diversity! We love when people are comfortable (enough) with themselves to be who they are. And we wish that we could normalize asking instead of assuming people's gender and sexual identity. Why not ask whether someone has 'a partner,' instead of asking women about their husbands/boyfriends and men about their wives/girlfriends? Why not ask which pronouns to use? Asking isn't (and shouldn't be) too difficult.


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