I do? One woman's dilemma between her dream wedding and her queer politics

Many women can tell you exactly what they would want their dream wedding to look like: the cake, the pretty white dress, and maybe walking down the aisle with your father.

But for Toronto-based Buzzfeed reporter Lauren Strapagiel, it's not that simple.

When Strapagiel realized in her early 20s that she was gay, she knew she wouldn't be fulfilling her parents vision of seeing her have that magical first dance with a man of her dreams.

But for her, the issue of marriage is more complicated than just the gender of her spouse. Strapagiel said she has her own apprehensions about the institution of marriage and the customs that come along with it.

She said although she still wants her dream wedding, the question of marriage within the LGBTQ community is still a fraught one — and one that Strapagiel grapples with in an essay she wrote for Xtra, a news and culture website.

She shared her story with Tapestry. Here's part of that conversation.

Tapestry: You've written that wanting to engage in the typical conventions of a wedding — the wedding dress shopping, fawning over rings — feels gross. Why would the idea of your own dream wedding feel gross to you?

Lauren Strapagiel: I felt kind of ashamed when I would fantasize about a wedding, when I would just casually Google wedding venues or imagine like, "Oh, what kind of ring would I want?" Or when I would watch Say Yes to the Dress and imagine myself as that girl at Kleinfeld's getting fitted and having a moment and crying. And it made me feel stupid and silly, like I was caving into something that just didn't align with my values and that was silly and old-fashioned.

For example, one time my girlfriend asked me to send her what kind of ring I might want. So I [was] looking through, being very aspirational [thinking], "Oh, I don't want a diamond that's too mainstream."

I just felt so silly. [It was] this feeling of "Why does this interest you? Aren't you better than this? Aren't you more evolved than this?" The best parallel I can make is it's a guilty pleasure. It's like when you're listening to terrible pop music or having comfort food. It just feels good, even though maybe it wasn't the moral choice, or the ethical choice or the smarter choice, but it feels so good.

Is marriage too flawed?

T: Can you explain to me what the tension is when it comes to wanting your "dream wedding"? What is the disconnect there?

LS: So this question haunts me, and it's, "Does gay marriage make the institution of marriage queerer or does it make queer people straighter?" And as much as I would like to get married, I think it inherently kind of makes us straighter. I do think what we're doing is buying into a system instead of creating our own. And I shouldn't say "instead of creating our own," because in all these many years that gay marriage was not legal, queer people made our own families.

We have made long-term partnerships without being recognized by the state, and in some ways, that's been just fine. I have members of my family, [like] this lovely older couple, John and Jerry, who've been together for decades and just are not interested in getting married at this point, and their relationship is just as valid and loving and beautiful as anybody else's. So, inherently, I think it is buying into an oppressive system.

But on the other hand, there are very real reasons why gay marriage was so necessary. For example, the ability to be with your partner in the hospital is huge. I think it's hard for people to imagine not having that right. Like during the AIDS crisis, how many people ended up dying alone without their partners — we can't ignore the tragedy of that. And it seems so silly that all it needed was permission based on being a spouse, which was such an obvious correction to make.

The reality is that, as much as I would love to blow up all these oppressive institutions, they still exist. And as long as they exist, we deserve to have access to them.

Finding peace

T: You say that you've now found a happy medium between the wedding you want, and also honouring your politics. Where is that medium for you?

LS: I still feel kind of gross about it. Like when I think about the fact that I want a wedding and I want the dress and [so on], I feel silly and gross. But I think the difference is that I forgive myself, and I think it's OK to be conflicted and it's OK to live in to that grey area. I don't have to have an answer, I don't have to decide at the end of the day that this is good, and this is bad. I'm allowed to live in the middle, because that's actually where it feels the best.

I think it feels good to have a value and then question it. I [also] think it's important and it feels good to take part in an old-fashioned institution then ask how you can make it better or ask how you can make it more personal or at least examine the systems of oppression within it. [Then], at least you're doing the work.

And that's where I find peace. I feel like even though I want to participate in something inherently problematic, I'm finding a way to do it as best as I can and I am doing the work to understand why it's problematic.

This transcript is an excerpt from a longer conversation. It has been edited for clarity.