“Guncle: A homosexual uncle. Every family usually has one of these.” - Urban Dictionary

The word Guncle seems to have worked its way into popular vernacular, yet I have not run into language capturing what I consider an equally important family role: the Queer Aunties, “Quanties” for short.

My mother, Donna, had several aunts and uncles, including my great Aunt Vi and her “friend” Martha.

Vi and Martha were nurses during the Korean War, working side by side to triage and treat soldiers in Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals, known as MASH units. They were fond of the TV show, MASH, which, to their view, realistically captured the chaos, danger, and camaraderie of their experience. Unaddressed by my aunts, or the TV show, was the air of secrecy and fear due to the harsh anti-homosexuality policies of the era, which led to the targeted harassment and dismissals of nurses and other service members suspected of sapphic leanings. Later, Vi and Martha lived together, indulged their curiosity and love of learning by taking a wide range of classes together at the local City College during their retirement, and took care of one another. Regardless of how they labeled themselves, it was clear to me they were life partners.

As a child, my siblings and I loved Aunt Vi and Aunt Martha. To us, they both belonged to our family. They were everything one might look for in Quanties. They were consistently delighted to see us when we visited, let us pick oranges in their backyard, and indulged our inclination to climb mismatched antique rocking chairs they collected and configured in a circle in the living room, as if awaiting a secret self-help meeting of unrepentant non-conformists. They even allowed us to adopt their dog, Snooks, a delightful, chubby mutt, whom all of us adored and hated to leave behind when we left their house after visiting.

In my late teens, I embraced my own queer identity and, in my early 20’s, I tagged along with my mother to visit the now octogenarian aunts. I finally broached the question of their relationship with my mom as we drove down the freeway between Santa Barbara and the San Fernando Valley, raising my voice to compete with the semi-truck next to us.

“Mom, do you think that Aunt Vi and Martha are lesbians?”

She paused for a moment before responding, “Well, we did wonder about it now and then.”

I thought, at that moment: how many families throughout time “wondered now and then” about aunts, sisters, or daughters who quietly made a life with partners who were not men?

I asked what Aunt Vi’s own sister and brother thought about her relationship with Martha. “Well,” she demurred, “they sometimes say that Martha is a bad influence on Vi.”

Martha?! The buoyant one who jumps to answer the door first, wears a scarf around her neck like a cravat tucked into her button-down shirts, and ties her hair back in a slick bun with a boyish side part, was apparently kept at a distance by her ersatz in-laws. The butch gets the blame again.

The degree to which Quanties, unmarried aunts, and gender-defying relatives are embraced in families varies wildly. The notion that Martha was never entirely accepted among Vi’s brothers and sisters stuck with me, particularly because this antagonism seemed to run counter to the acceptance and love I had seen from the same group. It made me ever grateful for the enthusiasm with which I was welcomed by my own siblings, nieces and nephews, and more recently, grandnieces and nephews.

When my sister’s three children were young, I was frequently greeted with opportunities to be leapt on under couch cushions, entombed then released in a space under the stairs, and invited to admire mischievous stories about all the different ways my napping partner at the time could be startled awake. When my sister was hospitalized for breast cancer surgery, the distraction of my multi-day visit was enough to diminish the children’s anxieties and divert them from diving onto her recovery bed. As the years passed, my Quantie deeds with children of both family and friends extended to non-judgmental pregnancy tests, general cheerleading, and occasional benefaction. My butch spouse has stepped in as chauffeur, tech support, apartment-hunting escort, and an excellent source for transforming distress into laughter by brainstorming wicked and whimsical ideas for punishing purported wrongdoers.

When I mention the Quanties in my own life to friends, I am nearly always gifted a story of an immediate or distant relative. This is generally a woman who everyone “wondered about” and whose life pried open the doors of possibility in the realms of profession, playfulness, love, or adventure. Even the Quanties who were vilified by family members are often named with curiosity and credited with upending social expectations of women. Whether invisible, beloved, or defamed, their tales frequently and quietly embedded seeds of hope, defiance, and imagination in the children and young adults whose lives they touched.

There is so much I will never know about Vi and Martha. I know they had other close friends who were nurses and teachers, and I wonder if those chosen family members, like mine, knew more intimately about their struggles, successes, and stories. Even with unanswered questions I wish I could pose to them now, I am grateful they are part of my own story, the story of my family, and the too often overlooked legacy of our lesbian ancestors.

Laurie Drabble is a semi-retired academic and active researcher, living in California. She has authored over 100 scholarly publications, mostly focused on advancing LGBTQ+ and women’s health. Laurie enjoys making colorful and quirky quilts; experimenting with creative nonfiction writing; mentoring the next generation of queer scholars; and meandering and sharing culinary adventures with her friends and partner.