My partner (who has been known to comment here from time to time as The Wife) and I just returned from a one-week vacation in Mexico. What makes this event a subject for this blog is that it was my first trip outside the USA as Kathleen.
I didn’t anticipate any legal trouble because I successfully updated my passport after my surgery in March, 2009. I felt an increased degree of vulnerability, however, when we left the US. Let me explain.
We went to Cancun, Mexico, a destination chosen owing to receipt of a gift certificate for a one-week stay at one of several hundred possible resorts around the world. By the time we juggled our availability, the availability of the selected resorts, and the expiration of the certificate, we settled on a hotel in Cancun for last week. The gift certificate was not exactly what it appeared to be; yes, we stayed a week but it wasn’t quite free. That saga, however, is out of scope in this blog.
What is in scope is the language barrier. You might hear someone say, “Oh, everyone there speaks English. You won’t have any problem.” I beg to differ. If you can point to what you want, there is a hope of being understood; otherwise, forget it. The only people with good English skills are the salesmen — and they are all men! — for time-share condos and for day trips to places of interest around Cancun. Hotel clerks, waiters, shopkeepers, etc., can respond to your pointing finger but not much else. Then when you finally think you’ve been understood, you can still get a surprise.
That’s why I felt more vulnerable than I do here. Because of the language difference, I do not feel confident that I could explain to municipal or national police just what my status is, and just what is my relationship to The Wife. I mean, we’re not even exactly a same-sex couple — yes, we are mostly, and I guess legally. But trying to explain that we’re still married even though one of us changed sex… I don’t know enough Spanish to know where to begin.
The good news is that we had neither legal nor medical difficulties, and there was no need to try to explain anything. I hate to think what might have happened if I’d had medical problems in Cancun the way Erin Vaught had them in Muncie, Indiana, in July, 2010. That’s why I was anxious.