Unpopular opinion: straight people using “partner” to refer to their SO actually helps normalize the term so that lgbt folx can use it without automatically outing themselves to strangers. It also helps other straight ppl get comfortable with the fact that strangers aren’t entitled to information about other people’s gender or sexuality.
Give op their hard-earned notes
I know a woman whose wife is trans. They married in their 20s. Her wife didn’t socially transition until her 40s. She always referred to her wife as her partner, for years and years before her wife came out publically as a trans woman.
To an outsider who met them while her wife was still in the closet, they might have seemed like a “het couple” and I’m sure if tumblr exclusionists met her back when her wife was still in the closet, they would have tried to accuse her of “co-opting” the term partner.
Let people call their partners partners.
Also there’s a lot of misogyny tied to the etymology of the terms “husband” and “wife” so it’s completely valid for a cis straight person to not want to use those terms as a way of rejecting patriarchal, heterosexist norms.
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Thoughtfulfangirling 