Partner

I hate the word “boyfriend.” Have for years. Once Quinn and I passed the two year mark it stopped feeling descriptive of our relationship, especially as we transitioned to living together and making furniture and holiday travel decisions as a unit. “Boy”friend just feels infantilizing at this stage: we’re in our late 20s, have been together for almost 6 years, and have lived together in relative harmony for 3. For lots of reasons we aren’t married yet, so fiance and husband are off the table. As a result, basically since I moved to New York, I’ve been slowly but surely transitioning to partner when I’m identifying him.

My reasons first, then the apparent controversy.

Reason the first: modern relationships are more complicated. In the past, it was far more taboo to live with a significant other prior to marriage, therefore the transition from boyfriend/girlfriend to Serious Ongoing Romantic Relationship was that exchanging of rings. But it seems to me we’ve added a new stage that is literally the reason millennials have a far lower divorce rate. This means, though, that there’s a, from my perspective, unlabeled new phase of a relationship that needs naming between “boyfriend” and “fiance.”

Reason the second: if our relationship was a business we’d be business partners. Politics aside, the definition of partner is “a person who takes part in an undertaking with another or others, especially in a business or company with shared risks and profits.” The undertaking? Our romantic relationship (and our household which right now includes an apartment we rent for too much money and several whimsical succulents that depend on us for a sunny window and the occasional splash of water). Shared risks and profits? The lows and highs of said relationship and shared household.

Reason the third: there’s something appealing about losing the gendered terminology. Before getting into the controversy below, the idea that I don’t need to gender the fact that I have a significant other in referring to them feels like a step forward. Plus, given that I’m queer, it feels a more adequate way of referring to someone I choose to be in a romantic relationship with so that I can refer to any/all of them the same way. Not that I’m looking to date anyone other than Quinn for the rest of my life, but you know what I mean.

Now, the controversy.

There are two sides to the argument about whether or not people in heterosexual relationships specifically should be allowed to use the word “partner.”

In the “pro partner for everyone” category there’s: the reasons I listed above, the normalization of the phrase “partner” to make it easier for queer couples to safely identify in public, the normalization of non-gendered terms for nonbinary/genderfluid folks.

In the “con partner for everyone” category there’s: appropriation of queer culture, watering down of/stealing the one phrase queer people have been culturally/historically “allowed” to use.

Given that I’m in what appears to be a heterosexual relationship from the outside, I’m probably not the best person to make this argument, and I’m curious to hear from other queer folks what their opinions are!* But in my opinion I do think that normalizing gender neutral terms for those who want them is a good thing, and that fundamentally “partner” is a better descriptor for the stage of relationship me and many people I know regardless of sexuality are in.

Happy to be proven wrong, though.

*if you are not queer please shhh on this.

Related reading: Out.