I don’t think I can hold on to my Outsider status any longer. Our Lebenspartnerschaft (life-partnership) ceremony went beautifully. Our friends gathered at the town hall, the Justice of the Peace smiled benevolently at us, we exchanged rings, and we signed on the dotted line.

We haven’t been in Germany long, so we weren’t really sure how it would work. We referred to it as our wedding, but we didn’t realize that everyone else would treat it that way too. Legally, there are a few differences between Lebenspartnerschaft and marriage, but not many. We didn’t really want to adopt children anyway, although that might be a touchy subject for some German lesbians who don’t have that right.

Still, after living together in the U.S., Venezuela and Ecuador, Germany is a hotbed of lesbian rights. I’m feeling included, and it’s a very different feeling. I’ve always been lucky enough to enjoy the complete support of my family and my lover’s family, but now I am basking in the comforts of a larger social acceptance.

And I’m gradually getting used to my lover referring to me as “meine Frau” (my wife) or “meine Lebenspartnerin” (my life-partner). These are words that have meaning to the straight people around us, not just to the gay community. When we first got together, twenty years ago, we rarely needed words to explain ourselves to straight people. Now we need them all the time, and it’s a heady feeling to be recognized for who we are.

We went to Berlin for a little honeymoon after the ceremony. We wanted to go somewhere by train, and I had never been to Berlin. But it wasn’t till we were walking around the city that the irony came through. In 2008, a lesbian couple goes to Berlin to celebrate the legalization of their relationship. Seventy years ago, to be even suspected of being gay in Berlin meant deportation to a death camp.

Berlin is a city working hard on healing its wounds, but those wounds still gape. The most poignant pieces of art in Berlin are the fragments of the Wall in the street, decorated with peace symbols, scrawls of exuberant color, and people’s names. “Cedric was here,” one concrete slab announces. In another part of town, there’s a memorial to the people on the other side of the wall, the ones who tried to run or swim to the west, and were shot or drowned in the process.

We spent our last, rainy day in Berlin at the Jewish Museum, following the history of Jewish communities in Berlin from the Middle Ages on. As you move through the museum, you realize that every prayer shawl and pocket-knife on display stands for thousands of others. And this makes it even more shocking when you come to the 20th century, when half the Jews in Berlin abandon their homes for some remote corner of the world, and the remaining half are murdered.

Outsider status can be very dangerous. Sometimes it’s chosen, but mostly it’s not.

In May 2008, there’s a planetary aspect that’s good for welcoming Outsiders back into the fold, and that’s the sextile between Jupiter and Uranus. Jupiter has to do with respectability, access, opportunity, and community, while Uranus is the planet of innovation and revolution.

A hard aspect between the two planets points to exclusion and ostracism, and this is what was happening in 1934, when Hitler consolidated his authority in Germany. A soft aspect between Jupiter and Uranus can mean that the gates open a bit wider, and more people find places at the table. And this is what is happening now.

In May, the elemental balance leans towards earth, and so the question will be a pragmatic one. Can we really afford to have all those Outsiders knocking about on the other side of the walls we build? After all, if we let them in, they bring skills and ideas that we might be able to use. And it takes so much expense and so much labor to maintain these walls.

We no longer see the earth as a place of unlimited bounty. We no longer see time as an endless fountain of delights. In this realistic earthy era, we are aware of the limits we used to ignore. And so, if we’re going to go on living comfortably on this planet, we need everyone.

Why is the Outsider such a figure of fear? We all fear the Outsider within ourselves, that Uranian figure who is all knees and elbows and sharp words. All we want is a nice quiet journey from the womb to the tomb, but Uranus persists in redefining every moment. This is the part of us that invents, creates, experiments, rebels, refuses, changes, takes exception, and continues to learn.

Most of us are reading this on a computer, and computers are a Uranian thing. Hey, computer geeks are stereotypical Outsiders, but the world is being made over in their image. We are all developing stiff necks from staring at small screens. Luckily, Uranus looks at a problem and extrapolates wildly on available information, until hitting on a solution - and so I’m confident that the neck situation will get ironed out too. Maybe literally.

The archetypes for Jupiter are the bewigged judge, the cheerful community leader, the corporate manager, the society queen. Often Jupiter figures are born within the social fold, but they never stay there unless they know the drill. The bottom line is always what is good for society. Often that means excluding anyone who doesn’t have the drill down pat.

And what is good for society right now? Definitely, it’s a dose of Uranus. Right now, the bewigged judge needs to let the wayward, eccentric lawyer come into the court and argue about the rights of individual human beings. We’ve all seen this movie many times, and we always root for the Outsider who has truth on his side, not for the pompous guy who represents the status quo.

But the movies all end when the Outsider is being celebrated, carried by cheering crowds through the iron gates. The audiences go home. Nobody asks: what happens then?

When the Outsider comes into the fold, everything changes. The limits change, the rules change, the habits change. The words we use change, and people react to them differently. And the Outsider changes too.

Index of Jenny Yates' Writings on Lesbian.com