Customer: “Are you the manager?”

Me: “Yes, sir, how can I help you?”

Customer: “Are you aware that your checkout clerk just served his boyfriend?!”

Me: “Ah, well, we have cameras at each checkout to make sure our staff doesn’t allow friends or family to take anything they shouldn’t.”

Customer: “You don’t understand. It was… his… boyfriend!“

Me: “Yes, I agree, it’s not good.”

Customer: “Finally!”

Me: “Yes, those two should have been married years ago.”

The customer threw up his hands and stormed out, muttering about sinners.

My wife and I were honored to attend that checkout clerk’s wedding to his long-term boyfriend a couple of years later!

I am a transgender teacher. In fact, I transitioned at the school, and they were very cool with it, helping me to come out to my class and the school as a whole and giving me all the support I could ask for.

I didn’t realise how far they were willing to go for me until the headmaster relayed a conversation he had had with a parent about me.

Parent: “I don’t want my child in that teacher’s classroom!”

Headmaster: “The classes for the coming school year have already been decided. Changing things around now will isolate your child from many of his friends. Why would you want to move them now?”

Parent: “Isn’t it obvious? I don’t want that deviant teaching my son! Who knows what sick things he might do?”

Headmaster: “It’s she, and Ms. [My Name] has taught your child already this year without incident. She’s a good educator, and I won’t upheave both her classroom and your son’s education until I feel like there is sufficient reason for it.”

Parent: “Do it or we walk.”

Headmaster: “Excuse me?”

Parent: “Do it, or I’ll pull my child out of [School] and find somewhere else!”

Headmaster: *Pauses* “Would you like a recommendation?”

Parent: “What?”

Headmaster: “I know several schools in the area that [Child] would be well suited for. I can email their headmasters today if you want?”

Parent: “You don’t—”

Headmaster: “I have a waiting list pages long for every year of this school, particularly in your son’s year. Quite frankly, if we’re unable to reach an agreement today and ‘you walk,’ then you’ll be doing me a favour.”

The child remained in my class for the full year and was an excellent student.

I work for a cruise line helping with a children’s activity area. Parents are allowed to drop children off to be watched by us for a little while. One day, a man dropped off his young son with us. It was close to Mother’s Day, so we had little Mother’s Day cards to color, and my coworker tried getting the boy to make one.

Boy: “Does it say Mommy?”

Coworker: “It says Mom right here.”

Boy: “Do you have a Daddy one?”

Coworker: “You mean for Father’s Day?”

Boy: “Yes, please.”

Coworker: “But Father’s Day is a long way away. Mother’s Day is soon so maybe you should make something for your mom first.”

Boy: “I don’t have a mommy.”

Coworker: “What do you mean?”

Boy: “I have two daddies instead of a mommy. Aunt [Name] was pregnant for my daddies, but she is my aunt not a mommy.”

Coworker: “Oh, umm…”

Me: “Oh. It was nice of your aunt to help your dads, and it is nice of you to want to make something for them. Just give me a minute and I’ll get a special Father’s Day card you can color for them.”

We have similar cards we used for Father’s Day, so I printed out one for the child. Then, using a thick pen so it would hopefully stand out against kid coloring, I put an apostrophe after the S in “father’s” and tried my best to turn the apostrophe in front of the S into a tilted heart, so it would read as “Fathers’ Day” instead. The kid happily decorated it before moving on to other activities.

I’d mostly forgotten about the exchange until the man who dropped the boy off and another man walked into the center. The kid immediately shouted, “Dad!” and got up to run to them. I was busy with some other kids, but I did notice the kid proudly presenting the card to his dads while talking animatedly.

A little while later, one of the men came up to me.

Man: “My son told me you made a special Fathers’ Day card just for him. I just wanted to say that my husband and I really appreciate your doing that for him. We’re going to hang this card up as soon as we get home. Thank you.”

It really was nothing special on my part; it only took a few minutes. But his thanks warmed me anyway.

A friend had asked me to accompany her to a family function as she couldn’t bring her significant other — more about that later — and she didn’t want to face her family alone. I agreed because, hey, free food, and I noticed she really could do with the moral support, and not going was not an option because of reasons. 

At the party, her grandfather took me aside.

Grandfather: “Don’t get your hopes up, son. [Friend] doesn’t swing that way.”

Me: *A bit startled* “Yes, sir, I know, but she was told by her mother not to bring her girlfriend because you and your wife could not cope with it.”

Grandfather: “Her mother said what?!” *A bit calmer* “Tell her to come around tomorrow with her girlfriend. I’ll deal with her mother.”

I don’t know how it went with her mother, but the visit went very well. Her grandparents liked her girlfriend a lot.

Dear readers,

This pride month, we’re creating a new series of LGBTQIA-themed roundups. Now, this might come as a surprise to some of you, but bisexual people… exist! They’re not just stopping for a while on their way to “gay-town,” but due to this, they do tend to go unnoticed by pretty much everyone.

Even the colors of the bisexual flag (pink represents sexual attraction to the same sex only [gay and lesbian], blue represents sexual attraction to the opposite sex only [straight], and the resultant overlap color purple represents sexual attraction to both sexes [bi]) showcase how the purple middle strip blends unnoticeably into the other colors. Bisexual people tend to just “blend in” with either gay or straight people – but not today!

We’ve uncovered twelve stories from the NAR archives about bisexual people and their struggle to be seen as their own orientation within the LGBTQIA community.

Saying Bi To This Friendship – Think outside the bi-nary, friendo.

A Sexual-Orientation Nazi – And here we have an example of an entirely different, weird-a** binary.

Won’t Bi From Here Again – This cashier is completely lacking in charm.
(more…)