York academic Celia Kitzinger and her wife Sue Wilkinson were one of the first lesbian couples to have their marriage recognised in the UK following a change in the law last month. She spoke to MARY O’CONNOR.

CELIA KITZINGER didn't know what the word 'lesbian' meant until she was accused of being one herself.

Even then she wasn't sure. She went to the library to look it up – and what she found determined the course of her life.

Psychology, she found, was wrong in what it said about her. She decided to prove it, by dedicating herself to the study of the subject.

Years later, she published her first book on The Social Construction of Lesbianism and went on to become Founding Chair of the Lesbian and Gay Psychology Section (now the Psychology of Sexuality Section) of the British Psychological Society.

She is now a professor of sociology at the University of York, and the legal wife of Sue Wilkinson.

As you can imagine, her journey was not without its turbulence.

In one period of her life, Celia remembers being “desperately unhappy.” At 17, she had come out as a lesbian, and was later expelled from school. “I loved school and all I wanted was to be able to take my A-levels and go to university.”

Celia’s feelings of isolation reached a nadir when she attempted to take her own life. Shortly afterwards, she found herself in hospital and was later transferred to a mental hospital. What would appear profoundly shocking to most, was less extraordinary for Celia.

“I suppose I did try to kill myself” she says.

Doctors at the facility endeavoured to ‘cure’ Celia of her “phase.” While she admits that she did not undergo any drastic forms of treatment, she remembers being subjected to “the talking cure.” “They would try and tell me that I wasn’t really attracted to girls, and that I was just being silly. They said I would simply ‘grow out of’ this phase.”

Celia overcame this attempted conditioning, “They kept saying it over and over again, and I kept thinking ‘they’re wrong, because I’m in love with a girl.”

Fast-forward several years, and Celia, now a psychologist, attended a conference in Cardiff in 1984.

While there she met the woman who would become her long term partner, and later, wife.

Sue Wilkinson is a professor in feminist and health studies at Loughborough University, and was on a two- year leave of absence working at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, when the couple married.

There was an interesting polarity between the agendas of LGBT groups in Canada and those in the UK- (where Celia remained): “within the first few months of Sue being in Canada, LGBT groups in Vancouver were campaigning against civil partnerships. In the UK, Stonewall (a national organisation promoting gay rights and equality) were campaigning for civil partnerships.”

As far as Celia was concerned, she took the feminist critique of marriage, initially associating it with endorsing restrictions on women; restrictions she had observed growing up. Besides, she admits “as I came out when I was 17, marriage was never really something I aspired to.”

Her marriage to Sue in Vancouver changed all that. Alongside homosexual and heterosexual couples alike, the pair became wife and wife in 2003. It was only on returning to the UK that the couple’s marital happiness was thwarted. “On returning to the UK, our marriage wasn’t recognised; we were seen as legal strangers.”

At the point at which Celia and Sue returned, civil partnerships were not even legally introduced yet. But, they were told, they “shouldn’t worry” because “they could have one of those” when they came into force, they were told by government officials.

They had already been married in Canada. They wanted a marriage in the UK. “We wanted equality.”

Supported by the human rights organisation, Liberty, Celia and Sue took their case to the High Court in 2006, rejecting a civil partnership, and arguing instead that in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights, they had the right to be recognised as married in the UK. The presiding judge, Sir Mark Potter, did not rule in their favour.

The injustice of the couple’s case did not go unnoticed however. Celia describes waking up one morning “to find TV crews in our garden.” The couple were surprised at the support from the media, “we expected to be ridiculed and dismissed.”

Popular opinion was that there was no reason why the two women should not be married. The times when Celia and Sue haven’t been called the “poster-girls” for the cause of same-sex marriage are few and far between.

True to previous form, Celia downplays this epithet when asked. “I suppose we were the ones who were out about it and we went public. We had friends that had chosen not to. So the private, for us, became the public – because for us as feminists the personal is always also political.”

While there was widespread solidarity from the public and the press, the reaction of the gay community was not so straightforward. While one grassroots organisation, OutRage!, supported the couple, Stonewall were less so, as Celia remembers, “Stonewall opposed us, they refused to openly endorse our campaign. It was explicitly said at the time, by someone who’s since left the organisation – “Why would anyone want marriage? We have civil partnerships, marriage is a heterosexual thing.”

Eight years later, at the stroke of midnight on Thursday, March, 13, Celia and Sue enjoyed a glass of champagne together in the quiet surroundings of a country house hotel. They were now wife and wife according to UK law, with the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act coming into force at 12.01am.

Celia Kitzinger remains a Professor at the University of York, with her work and research interests surrounding language and heteronormative modes in conversation. Celia sees her research played out in her own life on a regular basis. “When I say to someone, ‘I’ll be bringing my wife,’ I get a kind of reaction like ‘Oh, really?’ It takes people time to go through the processing of that heterosexual assumption that we breach in being wife and wife.”

Last month Celia hosted the sociology department’s event at the University of York in celebration of the commencement of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act. For Celia, this was not all about the immediacy it has given her marriage to Sue.

Academically, she says, it was crucial. “Sociology is the study of society and the changes in it. Many of the department’s academics have helped in creating the context surrounding same-sex marriage, and Sue and I have written joint papers on the subject.”

At the event, a number of speakers explored issues such as the socio-legal frameworks to same-sex marriage as well as the argument for heterosexual civil partnerships.

Celia highlights the importance of this event for students too, revealing that in the past she has had students come to her for advice. “I think it’s amazing that students today can see lesbian and gay people being able to marry, and also that they have the choice to marry the person they love. They can witness equality.”