GLBT Gender Neutral Language

When I separated from my partner of over seven years I felt like I had lost more than just a partner. I felt like I had lost my best friend. We have two children together and I felt like I had lost my children and family. I felt like I had lost everything that I had proudly attached to my identity.

Up until my separation I was emotionally numb. My masculine energy dominated my ego. I had spent five years slipping into a very slow but steady decent into depression. Like many others when my relationship ended I went on a relentless search for answers. I wanted to understand what went wrong and how to prevent it from ever happening again. Many of these lessons I wrote about in my book called Grandpa’s Wisdom. However there was one topic I could not find an answer.

I am a graduate student of the Robbins-Madanes Coach Training program. I also read many of the top rated and bestselling books on relationships. Some of the theories, methodologies, and systems are useful and valid. Some were not. Even when I discovered a valid system or ideology it only spoke about how the program worked for a man and a woman in a relationship. Time and time again I heard in these programs how man and woman were made for each other…blah…blah…blah. After a while that is all I heard. What I heard is more of society brain washing. I believe that we all have preferences on if we are more attracted to men or women but at the end of the day we fall in love with a person.

See I believe that God makes no mistakes. God made me exactly the way he intended. I knew from a young age that I was gay. I suppressed it at a young age because I viewed being gay as dangerous. I was in the closet until I was 23 years old. I had dated and been in relationships with men and women before but it wasn’t until I met the mother of my children that I came out. Until I met her there was no one that was worth the risk of coming out. To me she was worth the risk.

Fast forward seven years, two houses, two kids later and I am living with a friend wondering how I got here alone and without my family. I thought that I was going to grow old with her…I believed she was my soul mate. I still believe that. How did I get here? I will tell you how I got here. I became more and more emotionally unavailable over a five year period. The last 10 months we were together we had SIX life changing events. Yes, you heard that right. SIX! Many relationships crack if they have two or three life changing events. I am not talking about getting a new job. I am talking about deaths, birth, and separation. You can read about the details in Grandpa’s Wisdom. At the end of the day all I wanted was my family and wife back. Can you relate to my story? Can you relate to the sense of losing someone you love? This loss has been the driving force behind my relentless research. I know what it is like to have an amazing and loving wife that adored me and amazing children. If I ever get that second chance you better believe that I am not going to mess it up again. But I had to find answers!

The research journey started with all of the love and relationship help gurus. But how does all of it apply to same sex couples? Does it even apply to same sex couples? Can same sex couples have the same type of success and as some heterosexual couples? All the research I found had to do with man and woman or husband and wife. I am not good at keeping secrets so I will just tell you the answers to the questions above.

Wait for it….

YES! The answer is yes to all of the questions.

I believed that same sex relationships, for the most part, are no different than hetero sexual relationships. I knew this to be true because I was in a same sex relationship and when I talked to all of my straight fiends they faced the same triumphs and challenges in their relationships. Yet when I went through my separation and tried to find content for same sex relationship help there really was nothing available. I felt forced to read, watch, and listen to good programs and information that only talked about husband & wife or man & woman. I would then try and put me and/or my partner in a role. It left me a little frustrated. I just wanted something for me. I am not afraid of who I am but I didn’t want to raise my hand in front of thousands of people (some of which I am sure were gay too) and ask the guru to put this into same-sex terms.

Hence, I started researching masculine and feminine energy. I am not here to re-invent the wheel. I follow and believe in the research and teaching of some great leaders. I intend on sharing those thoughts and theories with you. What I realized is that the GLBT community lacks a universal language that can be shared with our allies. Let me give a for example. My partner carried both of our children. Our kids call her Mom or Mommy. My partner and I wanted our kids to be able to distinguish between the two of us. We started to do some research. We wanted the word our kids to use for me to mean Mom so we looked at other languages. We settled on the Croatian word for Mother which is Mati pronounced “Mah Tee”. It sounded different enough from mother or mom so our kids can yell out for either of us easily. That and it just sounded cool. What does this have to do with a common language and building a fulfilling and passionate relationship? I said it before and I will say it again. The GLBT community needs a common language.

Follow this story…You find that special someone…you have kids with him or her…oldest child starts school and is talking with a teacher and another student in the class. The kid tells a story about his mom and dad. The teacher and your child can follow the story easily. Your child now tells a story about her Mom and Mati (insert what your kids call you if you are the “other” mom or dad). The teacher and kid have no idea who or what Mati is or means. This makes it a little harder on your child. It makes it harder for our straight allies to make it “normal” for our children. The same concept holds true for gay relationships. How many people do not know what to refer or call partners? Do they call him or her wife, husband, partner, significant other? I am sure there are more out there.

It is critical for our community to develop a universal language and terms so society can begin to adopt it. This universal language will make everything easier, not only for the GLBT community but also for our allies. How does the importance of the adoption of a universal language tie into my search for answers for my relationship and my personal growth of being a better partner? Everyone understands the words and what they stand for and/or mean when someone says Mom & Wife or Husband & Dad. We all automatically have notions and perception on a high level determined in our head. Society has taught us to attach masculine with a man or husband and feminist with Woman or Wife.

This is where we get into the guts of my research. As a community we have to establish a gender neutral language for all to use.

I have been doing some research around Carl Jung’s teachings in regards to the fundamental differences between the sexes. Carl Jung’s teachings discuss Logos and Eros. Logos he used to describe the masculine attributes such as logic, progress and the ability to discriminate. Eros describes the feminine aspects like imagination, playfulness and our ability to relate to and care for others. Logos can be described as thought, wisdom, reason, achievement, knowledge, memory, order and growth. It is our will or spirit. Eros is our feeling capacity. It is dreams and fantasy. It is the feminine element that cries for rest and inertia, for fun, emotion and chaos and the need for comfort of tradition.

When I went through a separation I searched high and low for relationship help or “best practices” for same sex couples. All of the gurus I found spoke only about man and woman or husband and wife. I did not find a great deal of info that helped me understand the dynamics of my same sex relationship. The guru’s had some good info but I was always left with trying to figure out where I fit in and where my partner would fit. After a lot of research it became clear that we are all masculine and feminine by degrees and it is not about male or female.

I want to be clear; I am not talking about gender not sex. We are all given a sex at conception (X or Y chromosome). Gender is something we learn and develop as we grow. Not just grow older in age but our personal journey of self-discovery. A gender neutral environment gives each person the space to be who he or she really is as a person, not the stereo-types on what or how a man or woman should be.

It is time we take a step forward in leveraging and building tools for the GLBT community to better understand and improve our relationships.