Interview With Pepper and Judy Lane of "Trading Spouses"

AE: It seems as if the family you were paired up with was perhaps more ignorant regarding gay issues and gay people.
JL: [They were ignorant] about a lot of things, not just gay [issues]. I think Pepper described her as the “equal opportunity offender.”

AE: How do you deal with someone like that when you have a camera on you, and you can't necessarily retaliate as much as you'd like to?
JL: Pepper and I went to a pride workshop on Saturday; they go around the country and train people to represent while public speaking and what to say. So apparently we did the right thing, which was not to lash back, but to be as calm as possible and just educate.

PL: Well, it was hard; it was a lot of shock and awe. If there wasn't a camera around, I probably would've had more words to bleep out. [Laughs.] I didn't have time to react much to her because it was relentless … it just kept coming. And when I finally do step up to her, I was just trying to break it down to a level she would understand. Not by saying I was smarter than her, at all. She pushed me a little too far, and you forget the cameras are there.

AE: Did you feel any specific pressure as a lesbian couple to represent yourselves to a very general audience?
JL: When our executive director told us, “Do us proud!” we almost fainted! We hadn't thought about that until she said that. But we pretty much just are who we are. We've always been out; we're out in the school; we're out everywhere we go; we are who we are. But suddenly when she said that, we realized we had a great responsibility.

PL: It was just a matter of us being who we were and getting through the week.

AE: On the show's website, your family's profile is very positive and used the term “family values.” Do you feel the network was almost going overboard to make it seem as if you're a normal family?
PL: I think it played out the way it did, and I don't think Fox had any motivation behind what they did besides trying to put people that were different together. The fact that we came out looking so mainstream and normal is just kind of how we are. Our friends and family would tell you that we're no different from what you saw.

JL: I don't think it was overkill, because we are family oriented. And the conservative right … well, let them hear the words “family values,” and let them see a gay family. Just because we aren't [a family] by their definition, it doesn't mean that we aren't. I think the producers asked us when we were interviewing what we thought “family” means. Any group of people who cohabitate and provide unconditional love and support for one another is a family by my definition.

PL: If you just looked at the pictures on the website of the two families, of Julie and her family — straight man, straight woman and their two teenage daughters — that's the norm in society. Then you look at us, and it's two women living together, not legally married, sort of like the square peg in a round hole. But then you get to know us, and what comes out is that problems and dysfunctions could be in any family. It had nothing to do with being gay or straight. Their dysfunction had nothing to do with that, and our function has nothing to do with it.

Trading Spouses airs Friday nights at 9:00 p.m. EST on Fox.