Some days, despite everything thing I’ve done and been through, I still feel like I live in the closet. Or at least that my entire family has missed the last ten years of my life. Granted I’ve lived half the country away for as long as I’ve been an adult, quite on purpose, but why are they missing the point? I’ve come to the conclusion this must be a case of ‘seeing what you want to see’ when it comes to my identity and my family.
In a quite disappointing turn of events I accidentally found out my mother has been lying to me for months. She is a huge Trump supporter. Why is this an issue for me? I’m usually pretty easy going about politics. I have strong opinions but I don’t force them down the throats of friends and family. But with Trump it’s a little different for me. He doesn’t just disagree with me, he wants me dead. He doesn’t want my family to exist and he doesn’t want me to have any rights what so ever.
Tying this in to coming out, isn’t much of a stretch, but I’ve been asking myself a lot about if my family truly understands how my entire life is at stake if this man gets power. I’ve come out to my family, more than once. Sometimes it feels like I’m stuck in a never ending coming out cycle with them. First I came out as Bi, then genderqueer, but I feel like the term genderqueer is so alien to them they’ve brushed it under the rug and are ignoring it. They aren’t seeing how the current political climate affects me. (I use both male and female bathrooms because I can) They aren’t tying genderqueer into a trans* identity. Mind you, I am not trans*, but after a lot of soul searching and a lot more reading, I dissociate, at least in part, with the gender I was assigned at birth. So even being genderqueer and claiming no gender fully, leaves me under the trans* umbrella.
This has all led me to the decision that it’s time to really fully come out and then cut ties. I need to be clear that being genderqueer isn’t a fad, or something I’m doing this week, (like my mom said to me when I was dating the same sex at first) I think I need to really be clear genderqueer is a trans* identity and tell them that if they can’t support this part of me, especially this part of me, than I have no further use for the relationship.
Why continue a toxic relationship even if it’s family? But yet, I know I’m not the only one who’s felt obligated to bite my tongue and deal with things when it comes to family. I’ve been doing it to some extent for the past twenty years at least.
I frequently tell people not to stay in relationships that are not helping them grow. So why am I sitting here trying to make this work? It’s way past time I took my own damn advice and cleaned house. Life is way too short to force a relationship that’s not beneficial. You shouldn’t have to change yourself when you go home. I am unapologeticly queer and those who don’t want to be happy for me can walk away.
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