A positive addition? (Photograph: Andy Wasley)
Woohoo! Break out the banners and celebrate! Facebook has caught up with those countries that recognise and have civil unions. This has been heralded as a major breakthrough by people everywhere: the world’s largest social media website is acknowledging the relationships of thousands of its members across the globe. No longer will we be left out in the cold.
The thing is, for the last five years I felt Facebook already did recognise my relationship. I’m married. My husband was listed as just that. There was no fanfare, except the day or so after our big day when I changed my status from engaged, and then it was from our friends. Then just last week I updated my status again, this time to civil partner. A flurry of likes filled the post on my timeline – but, in all honesty, I felt a bit cheated.
Despite being in one myself, there are times at which I feel the legal definition of civil partnerships is an enshrined segregation. Imagine if mixed-race couples had to call their marriage anything other than that? On a day-to-day basis I never refer to my husband as anything other than just that. He is my husband. Civil partner just doesn’t cut it. In my head, at least, it doesn’t sum up everything he is to me.
I am not denying how essential the Civil Partnership Act 2004 was. Regardless of how some people crowed about not wanting to ape a heteronormative lifestyle, I wanted to stand in front of my friends and family and profess my love for this one person. The legal rights and entanglements that come with it were a secondary feature in my decision. Even lower down the list of reasons to marry was to make a stand politically about how we had won a form of equality.
It was without a doubt one of the best decisions I have ever made, and quite frankly I don’t care if that makes me sound like a ‘smug married’ – because I am. However, even on the day, civil partnership didn’t really feel like it encompassed the whole. Sure, all of my friends and family said we were getting married and in their eyes everyone was attending a wedding, but the fact that we couldn’t officially use those words niggled.
Now, I don’t think the LGBT community settled for second best: we took what was on offer, and what was essential. There were couples for whom the legislation came just in time: partners of 20 or 30 years could now be at each other’s bedsides in hospitals; wives could not be excluded from each other by callous and unloving family members. That’s not forgetting the heartbreaking stories of countless loving partners for whom this legislation came too late. But last week, when Facebook managed to catch up with five-year-old legislation, and I was being congratulated and ‘liked’ for changing my relationship status, I was still left feeling a little hollow. I was perfectly happy being ‘married’ and saw no need for this change. Facebook had, in my eyes, been ahead of the game. Boys have been marrying boys, and as had girls with girls, for as long as the option was available. But no more. Now we’re back in our little boxes. Of course, though, now boys can civilly partner girls and vice versa, so I guess it’s all equal.
Maybe I’m being a little oversensitive about the whole thing. But every time I (gladly and with pride) tick a civil partner box rather than a married one it reminds me that everyone is equal; it’s just some are more equal than others.
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