People are a lot less willing to give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to same-sex relationships because of the history of erasure and bias present in science. Once burned, twice shy, as they say. Like how women are less likely to trust a doctor’s opinion because of how often doctors ignore women’s symptoms and pain.

The text in the above comment clearly spells it out, but the text in the photo is more reminiscent of the ways that lesbian relationships are often erased or ignored. Stuff like “These two women lived together for their entire lives, never marrying, and often wrote poems of their deep love and longing for each other. Historians don’t know what this could mean, but they most likely were very close friends.”

I think a simple rephrasing would have made people a lot less critical of the original text. “Though the relationship between these women is unclear, these statues were often made for married couples.” is a lot less likely to be seen as “These statues were usually made for married couples, so we don’t know why they would make one for two women. They must have been very close friends or even roommates.”