Maria Thattil, former Miss Universe Australia was told she was too pretty to be a lesbian. (Credit: Maria Thattil: Instagram)
Miss Universe Australia 2020, Maria Thattil, revealed that a stranger rudely interrupted her date and told her she was “too pretty” to be a lesbian.
Thattil, who came out as bisexual on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here Australia in January this year, shared the exchange in her column for 9Honey.
The beauty queen was on a date with a new beau when a drunk woman approached them. Thattil said the woman complimented them and told her partner she was “stunning”, then pointed to Thattil and said, “but you are also so pretty.”
The wholesome moment turned sour when the woman elaborated, saying she was used to seeing a “beautiful, feminine” partner with a “less attractive, butch” one in lesbian couples.
The woman then pointed to Thattil’s date – who was wearing a snapback cap and baggy t-shirt – and said: “So you must be the guy here? You’re the boyfriend? You must take care of her.”
The remark offended the couple, but despite this the woman kept asking invasive questions – and even wanted to take a picture of them as though they were tourist attractions – until she was led away by her friend.
In her column, Thattil slammed people with over-sexualised or warped views of what it means to be a woman who loves women.
She shared that when she came out, a man she was sleeping with assumed it meant: “I would fulfil his hyper-sexualised lesbian fantasies because surely this meant I fancied all women and would be up for a threesome, right?”
Her frustration with prejudice was clear. Thattil stated: “Expecting all relationships to fit the boyfriend-and-girlfriend dynamic is an outdated and inaccurate gendered standard.”
She also said queer people are not like “zoo animals on display” and should not be treated as such, and rounded off her column with the comment: “For those who are curious, just be polite, considered and don’t fetishise, stereotype or hyper-sexualise queer folk.”
In a interview with The Daily Telegraph, Thattil said she always knew she liked women, but institutionalised religion and heteronormativity prevented her expressing herself.
“I grew up having crushes on girls in school and just completely invalidated it because of religion and also because there were many homophobic sentiments in my school around being a lesbian, around anything other than heteronormativity,” Thattil said. “You don’t have a lot of bisexual visibility in popular culture and so you don’t understand what it is.”
Hopefully the tide is shifting, as Love Island USA recently announced that one of their islanders in the new season is bisexual.
While Love Island has had its fair share of criticism regarding LGBTQ+ representation, this visibility is the kind of thing that may prompt a turning point in visibility of LGBTQ+ people in popular culture – something Thattil didn’t have growing up.