I hate the habit people have of finding new words for the “gay version” of things. For example, a straight person falls in love, and they’re called cute. A gay person falls in love, and they’re an abomination.
Many people say that marriage is a religious institution, and that the LGBT community should have a domestic partnership or other arrangement, but the same rights (or not, depending on how much of a bigot you are). I think it’s crap, and as an American with equal rights to other Americans, I’m getting married. I have a fiancee, not a partner, and she was my girlfriend before we got engaged. She’ll be my wife the day we wed.
The word partner, as used to describe someone that you are in a relationship with, came about in the 90’s. I support the usage in theory, as it helps reject the traditional gender norms that come with marriage and the possessiveness that goes with it. Partner is a “safe word,” and as more people (both people on the LGBT spectrum and those not) begin to use it, it allows those individuals to discuss their relationship without worrying about outing themselves to not so friendly acquaintances. Partner removes the inequality between “husband” and “wife,” it puts both members on equal footing, which as a feminist, I support. It also is a good term to use when members of the relationship don’t fit the traditional gender binary, since wife implies female and husband male.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that "partner" shouldn’t be used, or that civil unions and domestic partnerships are a bad thing. You should be able to determine what your relationship is like, and no one should have a say about it. As for my own, though, I hate when people use the term. It’s like we’re in a business negotiation, and while marriage may have historically began as such, we don’t commonly do things like that in America. Partner doesn’t evoke the emotion that fiancee does. It doesn’t sound romantic, and in a society where approximately 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, I want to keep as much romance as possible in my relationship.
My issue is that people tend to force same-sex couples into the “partner” box. As a woman who is taking a wife, we will both be able to use the term. Thus, there is no built in inequality as can be seen with a heterosexual couple using the terms, and it doesn’t remind people of Brokeback Mountain.
Just as no one has the right to label your sexuality, no one gets to decide what you call your significant other.
And for me, she’s not my partner.
