On gay visibility...

The events in Osaka this weekend are about gay visibility and pride. This is about how my work made me see the issue of gay visibility - and the injustice of invisibility - from another angle. I earnestly hope the Japanese government will grant this visibility.

I’m a certified translator, which means I am often contacted to translate “official documents” – the birth, death, and marriage certificates that are part of the “civil registry”. This might seem like dull work, but those bare facts and figures tell a little story that is unique to the individual that holds it.

French birth certificates list the time, date and place of the birth of the child and the full names, dates and places of birth of the parents and their occupations. It’s a snapshot of a moment in time that belongs to them alone. The parents might be a chef and a waiter or a hairdresser or accountant, they might be from the same town or from different hemispheres. Tiny coordinates that tell a story I often try to picture as I work.

Each birth, death and marriage is a set of these coordinates and they join together with others to tell the story of a whole population stretching across time like constellations in the sky. When I met someone I wanted to live my life with, I made it clear early on that if the feeling was mutual, I wanted it to be official. I wanted clarity, I wanted visibility and I wanted my story to be recorded in the civil registry. We got married at the NSW registry office.

The registry doesn’t tell the full story though, does it? Many people choose not to make things official and sometimes details are just lost. There are parts missing by choice, by chance… and then, in the case of same-sex relationships, there are parts missing by law. Relationships that are barred from joining this story – that, as far as the civil registry is concerned, are not counted and do not count.

There are other ways of counting and this way isn’t important for everyone. It’s no guarantee a marriage will last. But being able to opt in should be a right, not a privilege, and in countries where same-sex marriage is not legal, it is a luxury only enjoyed by heterosexuals.

Witnessing all the little stories over the years in the official documents gave me a different perspective on what gay people are missing when they are denied the right to marry and what we miss out on too. A particular form of clarity, visibility, being counted and counting. These are civil rights.