Patricia “Patty” Bouvier (born 1951) is the younger of Marge’s cynical chain-smoking twin sisters (the other being Selma), who works at the Department of Motor Vehicles or (DMV) and has a strong dislike for Homer. Patty is a lesbian. She is also the aunt to Bart, Lisa, Maggie, and Ling. She is named after Matt Groening’s sister Patty Groening. Despite the similarities between her and Selma, Patty has been shown to be more jaded than her sister, particularly towards relationships. Marge once said that Patty chose a life of celibacy, but Selma had it thrust upon her. Patty’s decision to not have relationships has been implied to be due to her then-closeted sexuality. When her Aunt Gladys dies, Gladys records in her video will advice to Patty and Selma to get married and have a family.
Selma takes this to heart, while Patty seems to pay no attention, remarking that they did well with Gladys leaving them her grandfather clock. She is more vicious to Homer than Selma is, and unlike Selma, who experiences brief moments of kindness to Homer, Patty has no pity for Homer’s well-being. Two exceptions occurred, however. The first was when Patty came out of the closet as a lesbian, sucked up her pride and asked Homer (who was legally allowed to perform marriages) to perform the ceremony. The second was when both Homer and Patty were disgusted that Selma got into a relationship with Homer’s father Abe, and they decided to work together to break them up. Other than her occupation at the DMV, she alongside Selma also worked at the Adult Education Annex, where they co-taught a class teaching how girls are to land men. However, because of their evidentially grotesque appearances when demonstrating the type of clothes needed to get a man’s attention (such as tight, revealing ones), the female classmates are noticeably and understandably disgusted, causing Patty to remind them that there are no refunds should any of the students quit the class by that point. Patty took various classes, including Microwave Cookery and Tai Kwon Do, as she used them as an excuse not to see Principal Skinner, and when he tried to kiss her she used a martial arts move to throw him across the hall.
