Culturally Queer

I want you to know it’s okay to not always stand up against homophobic remarks.  It doesn’t mean you’re ashamed of your parents or that you are not a good child.  If you don’t feel emotionally safe speaking up - that’s okay.  It is okay to keep yourself safe - physically and emotionally.

You can love your parents very much, and still keep them a secret.  It’s not always safe to tell other’s about the people you love.  It doesn’t mean you love them any less.

In the queer community, we can hardly get through a conversation without someone falling back on the old “we’re just like straight people, except… you know, gay” argument; and the same can easily be said of conversations around families with queer or trans* parents. Viewing queer families as “ordinary but for this one tiny thing, just like your family” is a notion that seems to have gained momentum in recent years, propagated in part by television shows like Modern Family and movies like The Kids Are Alright. Although the experience of having a completely ordinary upbringing is something that resonates with many COLAGErs, ordinariness has never been a part of my life or family structure. Although a large part of the lack of the mundane in my life can be attributed to my unschooling (a life and educational philosophy that trusts children, teens, and young adults to learn whatever they want, whenever they want to), growing up in a queer family has also influenced me greatly.

My mother came out when I was only 6 years old, so the struggle for equal rights has always been personal to me. I grew up with a profound, personal understanding of the need to fight hard not only for same-sex marriage, but for nondiscrimination employment laws, anti-hate crime legislation, and transgender medical care. Conversations about equality- not only in the context of queer life, but in a broader sense of the word, have been dinner table topics all throughout my childhood. Healthcare, marriage, hospital visitation and parental rights had a personal meaning to me, leading me to become politically engaged at the age of 11. Peace protests, gay pride parades, rallies and petitions are some of my fondest memories.

One type of activism leads to another. Once I learned about housing discrimination against queer and trans folks, I learned about the even more amplified housing discrimination at the intersection of queerness and disability. Once I learned about transgender identities, I began learning about intersex identities, and through that, hospital malpractice. Having a personal, first hand understanding of activism from an early age has had an incalculable effect on my sense of justice, morality, activism and social change.

I came out as queer at the age of 14, and as gender fluid at age 17. There was never a shadow of doubt in my mind that I would be fully supported, and I was unequivocally correct. Did my parents have any influence on my coming out? Absolutely. Being raised in an environment where gender and sexuality are openly discussed and treated as natural, normal parts of human existence undoubtedly had a great deal of influence on my ability to comfortably self identify with labels that feel natural and right for me. As my queer friends with “perfectly normal” parents struggle with living in not-openly-hostile-but-not-openly-supportive home environments, I’m forced to ask myself: what is so appealing about being perfectly normal?

My family is unique, radical, influential, socially aware, supportive, loving and respectful. I don’t want to be “just like every other family except for that one little difference.” Being part of a queer family has shaped me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Rosethorn and Lark have held a special place in my heart since I first read Circle of Magic in seventh grade.  At the time (and for many years afterwards), they were the only queer parents I had ever seen in a story.  Although not directly stated in the text, I imagined that Lark and Rosethorn were like my own mothers - in love and not “just roommates” or “friends” as I often told others.  I cherished the image of this home like mine.  

I remain extremely grateful to @tamorapierce, whose writing offered me an image of a family like mine in the early 2000s when the only other talk of queer families were debates about our right to exist.  The simple, quiet existence of their relationship - completely devoid of debate or threat - was comforting and hopeful in a time I felt so much fear and isolation.