WHEN I told my mum I was gay, she thought I was joking. Then she asked if I’d ever tried sleeping with a man. She wasn’t trying to be offensive, and I know she was just wrapping her head around the whole situation, but it really hurt my feelings. Lately I’ve been wondering about whether she would’ve had the same reaction if I’d looked different and fitted the “masculine” lesbian stereotype. Would it still have taken her months to be OK with the fact that her daughter was gay? Should I have dropped hints or given her some sort of sign that this was coming?

Four years ago, my girlfriend and I went to the horse races wearing tight dresses and unnecessarily large hats, as is tradition. After drinking more glasses of wine than I usually do on a Saturday afternoon, we got into a conversation with a guy who came over to borrow a cigarette lighter.

Once he found out we were a couple, he took it as an invitation to ask us questions about our sex life, requested that we kiss in front of him, and with great sincerity, proposed a threesome. He was confident throughout, as if it was perfectly reasonable to ask these questions within minutes of meeting us.

I wish I’d handled the situation gracefully, but the cheap trackside wine took over and I became incredibly angry. I yelled and threatened to punch him in the face. He went back to his mates, laughing, still unaware that he’d crossed a line.

I’ve found myself in similar situations countless times, though now I’m used to it, and have accepted it as part and parcel of being a lesbian who looks “straight”. When drunk men ask us to kiss in front of them, when we get yelled at from cars for holding hands, and when complete strangers invite themselves into our bedroom, I’ve learned to issue a polite “fuck off” and just get on with my day.

I come out, over and over, every single day. When I reference my girlfriend in conversation, most people think I’m talking about a platonic female friend; when we’re together we’re mistaken for sisters.

It’s not easy for anyone to be gay. There are a huge number of obstacles to overcome. The LGBT community is certainly taking steps forward every day as issues are prioritised. But when we’re a minority within a community on the back foot, we need to pick our battles.

My desire for equal rights – marriage equality, better mental health services for LGBT people, a respectful public debate about trans rights – is way more important than my desire for people to assume I’m gay. So perhaps that’s why this issue isn’t really one which gets a lot of airtime. That said, I want to fight for marriage equality and fight the erasure of femmes.

When I voiced this opinion with a friend, she told me that “if we [the queer community] bombard straight people with too many things, it might get overwhelming and we’ll all be taking a giant step back.”

This may be overly dramatic, yet I can see her point. It feels like we’ve chosen to ignore the little issues like feminine invisibility and bi-erasure, and instead we’re focusing on the bigger picture – equality.