On Monday KK and I attended our first birthing class. The content was fine. Our fearless presenter used lots of partner language and attempted to make everyone feel welcome – there was a single mother and a woman with her sister as birthing partner there as well as us. Being queer in this context was not my favorite experience ever.
My sister was super enthusiastic about us attending a birthing class. “I loved the lesbians in our birthing class. It was awesome to see different kinds of families getting ready to have babies. Everyone should have at least one gay couple in their class!” But I don’t think that our classmates really felt the same way. While they weren’t rude there was some strange male posturing going on.
“No, really, I do know you have external genitalia. You really don’t need to spread your legs that wide in the chair. I’m not interested in your wife and I don’t care if you are gay. I see your concern, but lesbians in your vicinity really don’t emasculate you. I promise.”
In the end it made me question the choice of OB practice that only works with the local Catholic Women’s Hospital. The doctors have been fine, but I’m starting to wonder if KK and I are going to have issues when we go in to deliver. Thankfully both of our families “get it” and my mom plans to be there for the birth. I feel confident that should something happen to me, my mother’s “mama bear” instinct will defend KK’s place as mommy to the end.
Last night we shared this with a good friend of ours at bible study. KK said, “This class made me realize that we’ve surrounded ourselves with only awesome people. I forget that there are some seriously homophobic straight people in this city.” What was interesting to me was the combination of our friend’s outrage that the class wasn’t more comfortable with us, and her simultaneous desire to defend our classmates. Privilege is a weird beast in real life.
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22 August 2012 at 4:28 pm
Jill
Amen and amen about privilege and being weird. I’m so sorry you had that experience (we had similar experiences in multiple birth classes in Atlanta when we were expecting our son, but here in our small Midwestern city, we were in a very very welcoming class when expecting our daughter. Go figure.).
I hope that your experience at the hospital is only positive, but have you considered asking straight up (ha–see what I did there?) what their policies are for lesbians? The last thing any of y’all want is for there to be stress or focus that is not about supporting the delivering of the child and the bonding of your growing family. \
23 August 2012 at 10:28 am
meridith
We had an odd birthing class experience – some of the posturing, yes – but mostly just flat out ignored as if we weren’t even there. It was weird to be in a room full of families due the same time but to be invisible. If I had delivery to do again, I might have asked one of our mothers to be there. The advocacy portion of birth was something I hadn’t anticipated. Not because we are gay but because all patient care requires advocacy at times. Frankly, I had to do a fair amount of advocating for her even in a great hospital and I was lucky to find a couple of strangers who were surprising advocates for me. All that said, you’re incredibly savvy to be so aware of this so quickly!
29 August 2012 at 1:16 pm
Kate - allthingsrelative
It’s good to know that it’s not an unusual experience. As much as I wouldn’t wish it on anyone it’s also nice to know we weren’t alone in this.