In the long run it is the only way we're going to get any respect from ourselves or anybody else.

Just out of curiosity, how long did it take for the car dealer to have an ah-ha moment?

This is one of the things I like about being married, when I say, "My husband, Johnny," there is no ambiguity. I love my husband, and I love proclaiming him so, so it all works out. I haven't met someone who's batted an eyelash yet.

In fact, because an Omaha Steaks salesman was so helpful (it was his first week on the job and he accidentally disconnected me, I called back and bought $200 dollars worth of steaks for a friend's birthday.

I told him why, and said the world has enough hate in it and I liked the way he didn't even hesitate when I said "my husband."

He simply replied, "I know about hate."

Money well spent.

I couldn't help but laugh about the car dealer because while I'm mostly het, I have a lot of lesbian friends and years ago went along with one when she was car shopping. At the Subaru dealer the immediate assumption was we were partners....ah those stereotypes.

Great stories.

I say we raise the bar even higher. Let's normalize PDA as a community. It may be easy to ignore "My partner, X," but it's hard to ignore someone making out in front of you.

I'm from the old days when we used to use the term lover. There was no getting around the nature of the relationship with it. But there was also no differentiation between someone you slept with twice, or someone you were in a long term committed relationship with.

Then people started using "partner" to indicate the latter, and I thought it was a pretty euphemistic, if not sanitized and closeted. Partner is really associated with business much more than personal relationships. That said, having aged a bunch, "lover" now sounds too crude and personal to my ears.

I now use ther term partner myself, lacking any better description for the person with whom I've lived and loved for ten years.

Before my transition, nobody ever thought I was joking about being gay, BTW. Actually, most people didn't really have to ask at all.

That's exactly how I handle it too, Michele. Living openly and without hesitation takes care of the "coming out" part.

I just finished serving on a jury this past week in federal court in Manhattan. We were all required to answer questions publicly when we were seated. The third question was who do you live with and what is your relationship? I debated silently a bit until it was my turn, and said, with no special emphasis "I live with my wife." Nobody blinked an eye and nobody asked about it. They heard it, because I had lunch with one of the other jurors and she heard it. But they just didn't care all that much.