#4) what the hell kind of person tells their kid that queer people are sinful for just existing

[taurnachardhin]

frustrating family feelings rant below:

My mom.....she's been "supportive" of me ever since I came out as bi to her a few years ago, but she and my dad are pretty progressive politically so it's not like I grew up in a household where I was raised to believe homosexuality was a sin or anything like that. Both of my parents have close gay friends. But my mom did raise me very heteronormatively where I was taught that it was ok for other people to be queer but never presented it as an option for me personally. (In spite of the fact that I didn't date at all until I was 25, and was a very tomboyish child who went through a whole cargo shorts phase in high school, like mom, did you not see this coming?) But in spite of the signs, I think my mom was kind of in denial about it the same way she definitely should have realized I also had depression and ADHD as a kid but just didn't want to see it because she comes from this very conventional middle class, keeping-up-appearances kind of background where she didn't want there to be anything wrong or weird about me because she doesn't want me to get hurt, but also because I think deep down she's afraid it will reflect poorly on her. For a long while after I came out to her, it felt like she would only voluntarily bring up queer stuff if it was something that was bad news, like that's always what caught her attention, and she'd tell me about a study that worried her that said LGBT youth are more likely to smoke (as if I, who watched 3/4 grandparents die of lung disease, could even be paid to touch a cigarette), or after the Pulse shooting she told me she hoped I wasn't going to any Pride events and that I would be careful, and like I get it, she's doing the mom-catastrophizing thing where all she sees is danger, but it really hurt me because I've been lucky enough to never face any direct discrimination for my orientation and honestly when I finally started owning the truth of my bi-ness five years ago, it was kind of the one good thing happening in my life. But it felt like my mom would never see it as something good for me.

She got better at it eventually and started sharing more positive stuff, and when I actually had a girlfriend for a hot second last year, she was genuinely excited about it. But never fully got over this attitude that it was all something to be fearful about. Like this was a while earlier, but a very typical example of the kinds of things she says: after The Force Awakens came out back in 2015, I was home for Christmas and chatting about it with my parents, and my mom said something about how she wished they hadn't made Finn and Rey a romantic pairing and I (somewhat joking, but also not really) said, "I mean, did they? I honestly thought Finn had a more romantic storyline with Poe." And my mom just immediately said, "Well. THAT'S not something we can discuss when my family's here tomorrow," as if that had any relevance to the conversation. And I was just thinking like, what the hell do you think would happen if we did? My grandmother and stepgrandfather had just been to see Fun Home on Broadway. My aunt's best friend is a gay guy. My uncle is the most religiously conservative of the group and he might be a little more uptight, but again, his wife's best friend is gay so it can't bother him THAT much. Like yes, my mom's side of the family are mostly Republicans, but they're not the kind who are going to disown you for having a bi daughter who thinks two fictional men should kiss. What are you so afraid of? And if you're telling me not to talk about queer stuff in front of your family just because it might ruffle your brother-in-law's feathers, how am I supposed to take that, that you wouldn't be on my side if it happened? It's just little stuff like that that comes through sometimes, in these moments of panic she gets.

Today, (she's a kindergarten teacher) she told me that she wanted my "opinion" on how she'd handled an argument two of her students were having. A boy and a girl came up to her and the girl said, "Girls can marry girls and boys can marry boys, my parents said so." And the boy countered that HIS parents said they couldn't, and they wanted to know who was right. And she was like, "I always worry in situations like this that I might make the parents mad if it gets back to them, so I just told them they were way too young to be thinking about marriage and changed the subject." And I was very calm and gentle about how I answered, but I was like, "Mom. Girls can in fact marry girls now. It's legal. It's ok for you to tell them the girl was right, because it's the truth. They weren't asking you a moral question, they were asking you a factual one. You couldn't possibly have gotten in trouble for answering it accurately." And she was like, "Oh, I guess you're right. That was just what came to me in my panic." And like yeah, clearly. But then I also told her it seemed a bit disingenuous to tell them they weren't supposed to think about marriage, because of course little kids think about marriage! It's a totally normal part of human lives they can see all around them and are naturally curious about. They're also interested in like, jobs, but we never tell kids they aren't supposed to think about what they want to do when they're grown up just because it's not a decision they're actually ready to make. And I didn't even bring this up, though I wish I'd thought to, but when I was in kindergarten, my best friend was a boy, and he and I would talk about how we were going to get married when we grew up. And my mom, of course! thought THAT was adorable and she still tells that story all the time. Damn hypocrite. 

I'm glad I helped her realize she didn't maybe say the right thing, and I guess I appreciate that she does at least ask me about this stuff because it shows she's trying to learn, but every time it throws me into a funk over it, because it's just like a reminder that she still views my orientation not just as a problem, but a problem for HER. She doesn't want anyone to be angry at her for expressing a controversial opinion. She doesn't want to lose her job for publicly expressing support for gay marriage, as if that's a thing that would even happen to a straight, white, married suburban woman in 2019. And I just wanna be like, mom, what the hell do you plan to do if I do, in fact, marry a girl, as is my legal right? Will you lie to your coworkers and students? Will you give me dire warnings that some of my relatives might not want to come to the wedding? That part in Nanette where she talks about what happens when you soak one child in shame and give permission to another to hate....I wish I could make her see that that's what she's doing every time she "changes the subject." But I also understand that like Hannah Gadsby's mom, mine just wanted me to change because she knew the world wouldn't. But that's the thing though, right? Is the world did change. Not enough, not yet, but public opinion on gay issues is very very different now than it was when I was a child. I wish my mom could see that, and I wish she could see how much it hurts me that she doesn't. I'd love to tell her to watch Nanette, but I know it'll just make her feel bad, and then she'll still be making it about her feelings. And then the only part she'll actually remember is all the bad things that happened to Hannah and she'll take away that she's right to be afraid for me and it'll probably just make everything worse.

You know who did watch Nanette? My dad. I told him he should watch it after he went through a whole Netflix comedy specials phase, and he did and he loved it. During the 2018 election, he canvassed for a political candidate for the first time in his life, a Democrat running for the state house, and when he knocked on doors in their neighborhood, he told all his Republican neighbors that he had LGBT people in his family and among his students (he's also a teacher), and that he was afraid for us if Kemp won the governor's race and Republicans kept control of the state house, because Kemp had promised to sign an anti-LGBT "religious freedom" bill. See, my dad is also afraid for me. But he takes his fear and feeds it courage, while my mom just feeds it with more fear.

I know I’m very fortunate that this is the extent of the conflict I have with my parents over my orientation. My ex’s mom evidently was really upset when she came out to her, but later got over it and now they’re those “my mom is actually my best friend!” kind of people (lord, what’s that like??), and when she told me that, it made me feel petty for resenting my mom’s occasional well-meaning microaggressions, when she could overlook her mom reacting so much worse. But like, pain is pain, I guess. I do forgive my mom for her ignorance and fear, largely because I know that her denial about me and my mental health issues is nothing compared to her own denial of her own anxiety, so I appreciate that this is tough for her in ways she can’t entirely control. And I know I really need to actually tell my mom how I feel about all this at some point instead of just ranting into the tumblr void, and I keep trying to compose that speech in a way that will make her actually listen and not just get all mad and resentful the way she sometimes does when I confront her about something. But for now it’s just tumblr rant, so here we are. Thanks for listening, yikes.

#personal junk box #this post will self-destruct most likely