When Traveling Queer Families Are Mislabeled

When queer families travel, they want the same things that straight families do—to have a good time, maybe to learn about a new culture or destination or to simply relax. But it shouldn’t be surprising that they also want to be respected and understood.

These sorts of mislabeling errors have happened to my own family many times—my biological kids don’t look at all like my partner, who is a different race. It’s common that someone in a TSA line or at a hotel check-in line will ask him to step away from me and the kids and wait his turn. I always politely but firmly point out to the person that we are together, and we are a family.

Problems can be even thornier for parents who are transgender. But what to do in these sorts of situations? We asked some frequent travelers who are queer parents about some of their experiences.

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Dawn Ennis, a widowed mother of three from Connecticut, isn’t shy about correcting people in the hospitality industry.

“I am a trans woman and if someone calls me a man, I immediately correct them,” she said. “Lucky for me, it doesn’t happen all too often. Mostly it’s when someone hears my voice and doesn’t see me. The only exception is that I am my kids’ Dad, so when it’s someone who makes the innocent mistake that I’m their Mom, we usually let it go unless it’s either someone we will have a lot of interactions with or if we feel we need to make this a teachable moment.”

Ennis said that she feels horrible whenever this kind of thing happens, especially to her face.

“But I don’t show it,” she said. “I just act like it’s nothing and laugh. But it kills me.”

Likewise, Justin Huff, a married gay dad who lives in the New York City area, will correct strangers, but it depends on the specific circumstances.

“I think when it feels appropriate to correct someone I do,” Huff said.

But David Molino Dunn, a married Flight attendant from New Jersey and father of 2-year old Gabriel, takes a slightly different tack.

“We usually do not correct people when they make this mistake,” Dunn said. “In most cases, these assumptions are not being made with bad intention, so I don’t always feel it is necessary to tell them the truth. Usually, we just laugh about it when they walk away. It doesn’t happen very often and it's usually just an honest mistake.”

Also on this end of the spectrum is Jason Howe, who lives in Los Angeles with his husband and six-year-old twins, Clara and Olivia. Their family often visits Spain to visit Howe’s in-laws and travels about once per quarter.

“If I’m overseas (other than Spain), safety is my first concern,” Howe said. “It’s not my responsibility—and certainly not my daughters’—to educate people in foreign countries about LGBT families. The civil rights timeline isn’t the same everywhere, and differences in culture and language mean that I’m not the best spokesperson anyway. Here at home, though, we owe it to ourselves and to our girls to be assertive and visible. If we want our children to grow up honest and assertive, their first example is their parents.”