Public transit story #23: You're hotter than these pretzels

Mrs. Gerbil and I took Tovah on her first overnight trip this past weekend, to visit Grandma and Grandpa Gerbil. A very fun time was had by all!



(Moo, I am sorry we didn't have time to look you up... but once you move to Phila., getting together will be even easier!)

On our way back today I had this fantastic conversation with the man selling soft pretzels, nuts, Swedish fish, etc. at the Trenton train station. He looked at least old enough to be my father, if not my grandfather; and English was decidedly not his first language.

"I help you?" he asked.

"I'd like a pretzel, please," I said.

He handed me a gigantic pretzel braid ($2.50) instead of a regular pretzel twist ($1.25) but hey, I love my Philly soft pretzels. Then he asked, "Why you so beautiful?"

I held out a $5 bill and flashed what I hoped was a "please stop being an ass and give me my change now" smile. But Mr. Smooth Soft Pretzel Man ignored the five and repeated: "why you so beautiful?"

"Genetics, I guess," I said, waving the five a little.

"You have lucky man," he said, finally taking my money and opening the register oh-so-slowly. "Give me his number. I call him." Smoooooth.

"There's no man," I said.

"Give me his number. I call him."

"I don't have a man," I repeated.

"I don't understand."

"No man," I said. "I have a woman."

"I don't understand."

"Never mind," I said. I held out my hand for my change.

He took the hint about the change, but not the one about his not being my type. He asked for my--excuse me, my nonexistent man's--phone number again, but I thanked him for the pretzel and walked away to join my wife and child.

The categorical imperative

WARNING: This entry is not about Immanuel Kant's moral philosophy of unconditional obligations. If you're looking for Kant, you won't find him here. I kinda like Schopenhauer better anyway.

Well! Now that I've got that out of my system--I was watching this weird, vaguely vapid show entitled "Secret Lives of Women" today. I had never heard of it before, but Comcast OnDemand graciously provides a couple of episodes free, so for lack of anything better to do, I opted for an episode on so-called lipstick lesbians.

I've always been annoyed by the assumption that chicks who dig other chicks should fit into some neat little box, based on their degree of gender-role conformity. For one, traditional gender roles (including physical appearance and behavior) are pretty heterosexist. Some people, upon finding out that Mrs. Gerbil and I are married, want to know which one of us is the husband. My standard reply is along the lines of "Well, it's my job to do the laundry--and to take care of the car." That usually shuts 'em up.

So why do we have to fit into little boxes? Who makes the little boxes anyway? I rather enjoy being outside of the box--most of the time, at least.

This show featured a bunch of self-proclaimed lipstick lesbians. They talked about how much they liked being ultra-feminine girly-girls who like other girls. There were also some predictable sound bites from straight boys, the general gist being "ZOMG it is SO FRUSTRATING to see two really hot girls who are only interested in each other and not in me. WTF?"

And I got to thinking: what kind of lesbian am I? I'm certainly not butch, but I wouldn't consider myself especially girly, either. Most of the time, I prioritize looking presentable; I don't usually even think of myself as particularly attractive, though I know a lot of people (including, of course, Mrs. Gerbil) would beg to differ. Oh, and I rarely wear make-up.

Okay, so if I don't wear boy-cut jeans and act all super-butch, and I don't wear low-cut tops and act all ultra-femme, which box is mine?

I suppose you might say I'm a chapstick lesbian.

Assumptions, part deux

I thought that maybe, just maybe, folks in Massachusetts might assume that Mrs. Gerbil is my wife rather than my "special friend." In California, some admitted that they should know better than to assume that there is a Mr. Gerbil, but California does not have gay marriage. (Yet.)

But Massachusetts does have gay marriage. Mrs. Gerbil and I had a lovely Massachusetts wedding almost two and a half years ago. It is so nice finally to be in a place where our marriage is actually recognized; and in fact this was one of the major reasons for our move.

Unfortunately, it seems that my expectations were too high. Although same-sex couples have been happily (some might even say "gaily") getting hitched in Massachusetts for almost four years now, I guess changes in automatic thought processes take a little longer. (As a clinician, I should really know better, eh?)

Mrs. Gerbil and I have been attending classes at the hospital on childbirth and breastfeeding. We've also spent a few not-so-pleasant nights in the hospital when it looked like the gerb might make an early appearance. And we've had to explain our relationship a lot more often than I'd like.

At the hospital registration desk late one night, I indicated Mrs. Gerbil (who was sitting next to me) when asked for my emergency contact. "Oh," said the registration person, "is this your friend?"

"This is my wife," I said.

The registration person looked at me kind of blankly and said, "Okay, I'll type in 'cohabitant' for your relationship."

"No, she is not my cohabitant. She is my wife," I insisted.

"How about 'partner'?"

"We are legally married in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. If your system won't accept 'wife,' it should at least recognize 'spouse'."

Pause. "Oh," she said, "okay."

In our childbirth class, we are the only same-sex couple. Our instructor is very cool and makes an effort to say "partners" instead of "dads," and to correct herself when she does say "dads." But the instructor for our breastfeeding class was not so inclusive. It was "dads" this and "dads" that--even though we were not the only pair of women in attendance. Granted, some of those pairs were moms-to-be with grandmas-to-be. But there were three other pairs of women who were the same age. They may or may not have been couples; but in any case, I wasn't the only one there without a man.

We were greeted by the instructor at the door. "Hi, mom," she said to me, "what is your name?" I dutifully introduced myself. "And is this your friend?" she said of Mrs. Gerbil.

"No," I said, "this is my wife."

A pause, and then, "Oh. Well, that's all right then." (Jeez, I should hope so!)

So this is all very frustrating. Every so often I wonder whether I should be crass and say, "This is not my 'friend'; this is the person who knocked me up!" But perhaps this is not the way to win hearts.

The times, they are a-changin'

Mrs. Gerbil and I went out and bought a prodigious amount of essential baby gear yesterday. One of these essential items was a car seat.

Mrs. Gerbil decided that we should install the car seat right away, even though the gerb is not due for another five and a half weeks. (Of course, the gerb could really arrive any time.) I was tired and cranky from a lot of mall-walking in snow boots that really don't fit my swollen feet, so I said, "You're on your own!" and went inside to rest and grump about.

Installing a car seat is apparently very complicated, but the final score did turn out to be Mrs. Gerbil 1, car seat 0. So now we have a rear-facing infant seat in the car, but no infant as yet.

According to Click and Clack of Car Talk, the Subaru Outback is the ultimate lesbian car. We're now on our second Ultimate Lesbian Car, also known as the Bigger, Gayer Subaru.

I went out to Staples today to buy us a copy of TurboTax, and let me tell you, it was really strange to be driving a car with a car seat--even an empty one--in it. It was even stranger to know that said car is ours. Mrs. Gerbil, who had driven to and from Hartford earlier today, reported the same reaction.

The Bigger, Gayer Subaru has suddenly morphed into a Big Gay Family Car.

Oh my goodness.

Assumptions

My cubicle is strategically located by the breakroom. Thus, lots of people stop to say "hi"... but apparently lots of people also stop to check out my decor when I'm not there. And when someone introduces him- or herself to me at work, I usually hear "I love looking at all the decorations in your cube!"

So I will fall into conversation with this person. This person will ask when I got married, where I got married, etc. It's also pretty obvious by now that I am pregnant--I've gained almost 20 pounds (a little more than one-sixth of my pre-pregnancy weight) since late July, and it's pretty much all out in front--so we talk about pregnancy and babies and morning sickness and things like that too.

And then this person will ask what my husband does for a living.

In my cubicle I have six framed photographs. These include 4x6 prints of my two best friends and me, my parents and me on Wedding Day, Mrs. Gerbil at the zoo, our phenomenal but lazy-at-blogging cat, and my cousin and me. There is also a 5x7 print of Mrs. Gerbil and me on Wedding Day. In this picture we are wearing our big bridal gowns and our matching floral hair garlands, and we are toting identical bridal bouquets.

Make no mistake: this is not a picture of two sisters in a double wedding. This is a picture of two chicks getting married to each other.

(What makes this question even more bizarre is that the only man in any of these photographs is my father. If I had a husband, wouldn't you think I'd have some pictures of him up on display?)

So I tell this person that I have no husband, that this (here I point to the aforementioned 5x7) is my better half. And this person will apologize profusely and say things like "This is San Francisco; I should really know better than to make assumptions like that."

I should say so!

Irony

Yesterday Mrs. Gerbil and I finally bid farewell to the Big Gay Subaru.


My parents bought it new in the spring of 1995, toward the end of Mrs. Gerbil's and my sophomore year of high school (the year we met). It became mine a few years later, and two and a half years ago it became Mrs. Gerbil's also.

It was a good car, but alas, it was growing progressively more senile. And so we traded it in for a piddling amount toward a shiny new 2007 Outback (possibly to be known as the Bigger, Gayer Subaru).

We didn't remove the rear windshield decals from the Big Gay Subaru. They were pretty old and included one from my alma mater, one from my doctoral stomping grounds, and a rainbow flag. We'll be up near my alma mater in a few weeks, making procurement of a new Fairest College decal quite simple.

But here is the ironic part: Though Mrs. Gerbil and I live in possibly the gayest city on the planet, I have absolutely no idea where to get a new rainbow flag sticker.

(Irony part 2: My doctoral stomping grounds of Cleveland were not exactly the most gay-friendly. Even so, I knew exactly where to buy all manner of gay stickers, including the one affixed to our now former vehicle.)

I'm sure I could get thousands of new rainbow flag stickers in the Castro. But I think I'll just wait a few weeks and buy one in Massachusetts.

Let them eat wedding cake

Right now there is a bill on the Governator's desk which would make marriage in California gender-neutral. This very same bill landed on his desk for the first time two years ago; and the Governator vetoed it. His rationale was that gender-neutral marriage was against "the will of the people." That, in turn, came from a ballot initiative passed in 2000, Proposition 22, which was supported by just over 60% of the voter turnout. Translation: The material and emotional resources of a group of otherwise free citizens was subjected to a popular vote.

The Governator hasn't officially said that he will veto the bill this time around, but it sure looks like he will. And, if he does, it will be for the very same reason as before.

Today is Mrs. Gerbil's and my second wedding anniversary. To the best of my knowledge, our getting hitched has not caused a single opposite-sex couple to break up, nor has it damaged a single child's well-being. And yet there is a very loud minority which believes that our private promises to each other are a real and immediate threat to a whole bunch of people we don't even know.

I could point you, dear reader, to a slew of peer-reviewed articles in professional journals which demonstrate that, regardless of each spouse's gender, marriage confers more than just legal and financial benefits. I could point you to statistics about the rates of dissolution of same-sex marriages and civil unions, and how these rates are far, far lower than the rate of divorce among opposite-sex couples. I could point you to data that show that children raised by same-sex couples are just as healthy and well-adjusted as children raised by opposite-sex couples.

But I won't. You can go find them if you want, though.

Instead, I am going to issue a challenge. As a social scientist, I know that sometimes one gets results which one does not like; but those results are just as important as the ones that one does like. So I want to see data that suggest that same-sex marriage has a direct effect on the integrity of opposite-sex marriages. Here are the rules:

1) The study must have been published in a peer-reviewed professional journal whose impact factor places it in the top or upper middle tier for the field. (See here for an explanation of why Paul Cameron's "research" is hereby disqualified.)

2) The study must have been published in the last 5 years (i.e., since same-sex marriage became legal in Canada).

3) The study must demonstrate a statistically significant (i.e., greater than expected by chance) proportion of participants cited the availability of same-sex marriage as a major contributing factor in the dissolution of their marriage. Also, all participants must self-report exclusively heterosexual attraction, behavior, and identity.

4) The study must not have any methodological problems. (I probably haven't mentioned this before, but I'm frequently solicited to be a peer reviewer; and I show no mercy on manuscripts with poor research design and/or faulty analyses.)

4) The study must be available in English or German. (Why? Because I can't read any other languages.)

So, there is your challenge. Any takers?

Oh, and I'll eat my hat if anyone can come up with anything.

Here is a picture of the hat. It's my favorite hat, but I'm willing to sacrifice it for science.

A case of severely mistaken identity

Mrs. Gerbil reports that a funny thing happened to her on her way home from work today. While was stopped at a light, a fellow she describes as "a very attractive black man with shoulder-length dreads" pulled up beside her and started honking.

Mrs. Gerbil rolled down the window to see what the fuss was all about.

The man clapped his hands over his mouth. "I thought you were a guy!" he said. "I wanted to know if you saw those girls over there!"

Mrs. Gerbil looked up the street and saw three teenagers in very short skirts.

"I'm so sorry!" said the man. And off he went.

(For the record, Mrs. Gerbil does not look particularly androgynous--and The Big Gay Subaru identifies itself with a rainbow sticker in the back windshield.)

Can't we all just get along?

"Cultural competence" is currently quite the topic of interest in mental health services, especially in California. A lot of people here are peeing themselves over making sure that their agencies are "culturally competent." In my never-ending quest for a Better Job, I keep coming across ads that devote more space to the agency's interest in "cultural competency" than to the description of the actual job.

I disagree with the entire concept of "cultural compentency." How do you know when you are "culturally competent"? There is no exam to take, no set of prohibitively expensive workshops to attend, no embossed certificate to hang on your wall. And who gets to decide which "cultures" one must be "competent" in? Most of us aren't even "competent" in our own culture--let alone able to describe exactly our own cultural influences.

"Cultural competency," I think, implies a mysterious package of skills. I would rather be culturally aware. I think it's important to know at least basic things about other cultural groups, especially as may affect therapy. But we should learn from our clients as much as they learn from us. And we must be prepared to be wrong--and accept it when we are.

Once I was the only lesbian on staff and the only Jew, secular or otherwise. So my caseload kept getting padded with lesbians, Jews, and lesbian Jews. I'm not religious at all and was never even a bat mitzvah, so I'm not sure what really qualified me to be Super Jew Therapist. It was our practice to ask clients during their intakes whether they wanted their therapist to have any particular characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Maybe five percent of my intakes indicated some preference. The rest said, "I don't care. I just want someone who can help me."

Certainly, there are cases where therapist-client matching is a great idea, if not a necessity. A client who speaks little English is probably best served by a therapist who can speak his or her native language. A client who has extreme difficulty trusting white men should probably not be placed with a white male therapist. My move to California was precipitated, in part, by paternalistic heterosexism; and when I became depressed as a result, I specifically sought a lesbian therapist. Though I'd had an excellent straight male therapist in the past, I didn't want a straight man listening this time.

Recently I read a comparison of treatment-related philosophies from the 1970s and today. I think the context was how managed care has shifted psychology's priorities. There was this whole list of factors which were pretty much diametrically opposed, including length of treatment, emphasis on thoughts vs. feelings, and case conceptualization. One of the pairs was "individual differences" (the 70s) and "diversity" (today). At first I was quite confused. How were these mutually exclusive? And then it dawned on me:

Individual differences emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual, rejecting the homogeneity of the group.
Diversity emphasizes the homogeneity of the group, rejecting the uniqueness of the individual.

(And all of a sudden, this interview made a whole lot more sense.)

Racism sucks. Sexism sucks. Homophobia, bi-phobia, and transphobia suck. Anti-Semitism sucks. Ageism (though completely legal under federal law unless you're over 40) sucks. Ableism sucks. Dude, discrimation sucks.

However, it's impossible to talk about "diversity" without endorsing stereotypes. There's nothing inherently bad about stereotypes. What's bad is assuming you know everything about your 10:00 intake... at 9:59.

Hot stuff

I have never really thought of myself as a particularly attractive person. Perhaps this is some self-esteem thing. Or perhaps it's from years of being teased for being short and dorky-looking. I don't recall ever thinking that I was ugly, just not pretty. For a long time I thought I was overweight, but I wasn't. Then, for a few years, I was indeed a bit larger than I should have been because my metabolism had been pharmaceutically hijacked. My wife and I disagree as to whether I was "huge" (my opinion) or "curvy" (hers); but at least we agree that I was larger and sleepier than usual.

So now, for the first time in my life, I am... skinny? thin? slender? svelte? (Can short people be svelte?) And sometimes I catch myself thinking, hey, I am kinda cute.

But then some testosteriffic dude in a beat-up red pickup truck wolf-whistles at me and it ruins my moment.

These men do not seem to grasp the concept of keeping their eyes on the road. They actually hang their heads out the window and rubberneck (in my conservative pants and shirt) as they drive, very very slowly, past me. This is so not cool. I am surprised it's not caused an accident yet.

I wish people would pay this much attention to me when I'm trying to cross the street. Crosswalks make me completely invisible.

My wife's theory is that guys notice me because of my hair, which is almost to my tailbone and in severe need of a trim. I think this might cover about 50% of these incidents: People coming toward me can't see my hair until they've passed me, and I get hooted at from all directions.

Why does it bother me, all this hooting? you might ask. If I feel pretty, oh so pretty, then why don't I care for cross-gender interrater reliability? I will admit that, on account of some early experiences, I can get really scared by men who think with their men-parts. I will admit that I actually kinda liked it when I got a "heeeey..." from two women in a Subaru. But I see a big difference between a genuine "you look nice today" and a catcall. Especially when the offending party is operating a car or other dangerous machinery.

But what frightens me the most is that I am routinely mistaken for jailbait, and these dudes all look at least 25 or 30. When I put aside my feminist indignations, I am just plain grossed out. These guys probably think they're ogling a 16-year-old.

So, gentlemen. Keep your eyes on the road. That means off my ass.

Wordsmithing (or, A semi-serious entry)

I like words.

I like to do silly things with words. One of the first inside jokes my wife and I developed was a strategic mispronunciation of "gnocchi," such that the "g" was no longer silent and the whole thing rhymed with "rocky." Thus we could rap on a door and giggle, "gnocchi-gnocchi!" and it was all very cute and fun.

For a while we signed letters to each other using words that almost rhyme with "love," such as "mauve," "larva," "knave," and "locomotive." This was all very fun and cute, until we ran out of words that almost rhyme with "love." So we moved on to words that almost rhyme with words that almost rhyme with "love," and then it just got plain silly.

I used to be a star on vocabulary tests in high school. I can still spell all the words I learned, but in the decade or so since the era of vocabulary quizzes, I've forgotten what many of them mean. Every so often I will come across one, like "raconteur" or "impecunious" or "refulgent," and I'll have a vague idea of what it means but have to sneak off to the dictionary for a consult anyway.

Yes, indeedy, words are wonderful.

It pains me to realize that there are certain words which are in themselves totally wonderful but have acquired totally un-wonderful connotations. I'm talking about words like "traditional," "family," "values," and "morals." I have grown to despise these words, for they have begun to invoke in me a panic reaction.

Some awful, hideous person out there is probably tittering with delight because these words have begun to strike fear into my heart.

But that awful, hideous person hasn't quite accomplished his/her aim. Oh, verily, the T-word, the V-word, the M-word, and the F-word strike fear into my heart, but not because I see any inherent conflict between any of them and my fabulously gay, fabulously committed life. No, I panic because my first thought upon reading these words is oh, shit, who hates us now?

And here's the thing. Most of the time these words occur in contexts that have nothing to do with sexuality. I am addicted to counted cross-stitch, a traditional yet decidedly unsexy pastime. Safeway often has the best values on basic food items, but sometimes I want to spend a little more for organic products elsewhere. You can't talk about Aesop's fables without mentioning morals. And the next person who tries to insist that a family can only consist of an opposite-sex couple and their descendents really ought to brush up on biological nomenclature.

So here it is, Pride Month and the eve of San Francisco Pride Weekend (I ask you, isn't every weekend Pride Weekend in San Francisco?), and my excitement is tempered by the fact that completely innocuous, positive little words have somehow become weapons of mass destruction.

By the way, and this is pretty disgusting, "Karl Rove" almost rhymes with "love."

The dangers of being professionally gay

I went to the dentist today.

While I was waiting for her to come in, I happened to notice a box of Barrier Film next to the chair.

My first thought: "Dude, I bet that stuff would be really effective as a dental dam!"

My second thought: "That's because it is a dental dam."

Earth logic, she go boom.

I think I might possibly scream the next time I come across the following argument for the Patriot Act, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dubya's second term, or wiretapping:

"We are doing the right thing, because there hasn't been a terrorist attack on US soil since ______." [choose one]

• the Patriot Act was enacted
• we went into Iraq
• we went into Afghanistan
• eight months into Bush's first term
• we started listening to your pizza orders

Dude. This is so illogical that I want to vomit. But I will distract myself by waxing pedantic about this particular type of illogic. It is called the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, or "after this, therefore because of this."

Post hoc, as it likes to be called on the street, refers to a perceived relationship between two events. Event B happens after Event A, so therefore Event A must have caused Event B. You forget your umbrella one morning. Just before the end of the work day, you look outside. It's pouring. You berate yourself for forgetting your umbrella. Whenever you bring it, it doesn't rain; and when you don't, it does.

Post hoc has a sibling called cum hoc ergo propter hoc. Cum hoc, or "with this, therefore because of this," is known in statistical circles as a confusion of correlation and causation. Here, Event A and Event B occur at the same time, so either Event A must have caused Event B, or vice versa. Let's say you are taking a walk. Your cell phone rings. You stop to answer it. It's your dad, who is panicking because your mother has fallen and she can't get up. You happen to look down at your feet--and one of them is right on top of a crack in the sidewalk. As the guilt starts to set in, you start to hope that you still have your old therapist's number.

So obviously illogical, yet so disgustingly common.

So, okay. There hasn't been a terrorist attack on US soil since September 11, 2001. (I was in statistics class at that moment. It was my first semester of graduate school. We saw some stuff on TV during the break, but our professor didn't realize what exactly was going on, so we kept learning about standard deviations or whatever it was. Then right afterward we had our pictures taken for the student bulletin board. We all smiled, but those pictures turned out pretty creepy. But I digress). Guess what? Congress didn't pass the Patriot Act until late October. Guess what else? There wasn't a terrorist attack on US soil in those 6 weeks. There also wasn't one between September 11, 2001, and the initial invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan. Nor between September 11, 2001, and this creepy, unassailable wiretapping business. Nor in the first eight months of Bush's presidency. For that matter, there wasn't a foreign attack on US soil before September 11, 2001, in the first place.

Hm, if there hasn't been a terrorist attack on US soil since September 11, 2001, then there also hasn't been a terrorist attack on US soil since May 17, 2004. That's the day same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts. Therefore,

GAY MARRIAGE PREVENTS TERRORISM!

Eat your hearts out, ye defenders of homophobia, hegemony, and half-wittedness.

I do, but you don't.

I am a freak.

No, really, I am. I find Harry Potter vapid. I have no desire to read The Da Vinci Code, The Bridges of Madison County, or anything by Steven Covey. I have never seen Desperate Housewives, The Sopranos, or Sex in the City, nor do I plan to anytime soon. I idolized Simon and Garfunkel in my youth while my peers drooled over the New Kids on the Block. I find most romantic comedies so formulaic as to be unwatchable. I think Brad Pitt is funny-looking. Okay, fine, I don't like boys, and neither does my wife, really. That's why we got married. In the spirit of equality, I also think Angelina Jolie is funny-looking.

And I find Queer Eye for the Straight Guy completely and utterly tasteless. I have, indeed, seen a few episodes of this one. I thought it was offensive before I watched it, and I still think it's offensive. At its core, the show is based on the following little syllogism:

1. All straight men are slobs.
2. No straight man should be a slob.
3. Therefore, all straight men should be cured of their slobbiness.
4. Slobs can only be cured by non-slobs.
5. Therefore, all straight men must be cured of their slobbiness by non-slobs.
6. No gay man is a slob.
7. Therefore, straight men can only be cured of their slobbiness by gay men.
8. Slobby straight men are always good entertainment.
9. Gay men are always good entertainment.
10. Therefore, gay men curing slobby straight men is even better entertainment.

Besides being illogical, this is just plain dumb. I know plenty of slobby gay men and obsessively non-slobby straight men. In effect, Queer Eye only reinforces the notion that gay people exist only to help straight people be better people.

Now, the logical extension of the above is a huge steaming cesspool of irony: If straight men are inherently slobs and gay men are inherently non-slobs, then straight men can't be non-slobs! In other words, those Straight Guys must become more gay!!!!

Ha! Take THAT, homophobic assimilators!!!!

I do not, however, appreciate the irony of Queer Eye for the Engaged Guy. This, I think, is the epitome of offensive television masquerading as wholesome entertainment. In this great land of opportunity, gay people can't enjoy the full benefits of marriage. Sure, gay Americans can get married in Massachusetts and a handful of foreign countries. I married the most beautiful woman in the world three months ago, but Dubya's Crusaders want to make sure our party is permanently, Constitutionally spoiled.

According to the Queer Eye FAQ, only guys from the New York Tri-State area are eligible for de-slobbing. Neither Connecticut nor New Jersey allows same-sex marriage. New York only recognizes same-sex marriages performed outside of New York. In essence, gay guys get to help straight guys be less straight (see above) in order to get married in places where gay weddings are prohibited.

Indeed, in most corners of the world, same-sex relationships have no legal standing. We get harassed, assaulted, and killed because of who we are and who we love. Some of us may go our entire lives without ever enjoying the benefits of real, honest-to-God marriage, much less those of societal acceptance.

My wife and I planned our own wedding, and it was completely fabulous. We'll help straight people plan theirs, too... as soon as we can declare the proceeds on a joint federal tax return.