My Family

I'll admit, I'm kind of delighted with this as an outlet to write about how awful our families are.  It doesn't make sense really in any way (mostly financially) to confront them now, but it's nice to be able to hold them accountable for their words and actions in some fashion.

While Adam can go on at length about his family and their southern-bred stereotypicality, I don't really have a whole lot.  Both of my grandmothers have ties to the south whose origin I'm unsure of, but have spent enough time living in Buffalo, New York to both vote democrat.  Still, my grandmother on my mother's side refers to African -Americans as niggers and when my female cousin was dating her tatted up girlfriend, Grandma only referred to her as "that thing."  How my cousin can speak to her, I do not know.  As my mom puts it, "Grandma is just a bigot," like that somehow makes her awfulness cute.  And I'll admit, there are parts of my grandma that I love very dearly...but yeesh, step into this century, would you?

I'm just going to post LGBT pictures at random throughout entries.

Dad's mom is also fond of the n-word, but "the blacks" makes more appearances.  After all, you never know who might overhear.  I'm not sure where this grandmother stands.  She was a bit taken aback when I explained what the first half of my LGBTerrific shirt stands for, but otherwise said nothing.  She votes democrat and watches ACC basketball so she can't really hate the blacks and the gays that much.

Of course, I never really see either of them very often as they've moved to North Carolina, but that gives you a bit of an idea of the environments that my parents grew up in, and thus a bit of an idea about the environment that I grew up in.

My dad never seems to react much to anything, unless he can yell.  Thus I have no idea what his opinion of LGBT people are.  He's coached softball for years so you know he's run into approximately 8,000 lesbians in his lifetime, and doesn't seem to have much of an opinion.  Mostly I feel he's afraid of anything different, but is content to leave LGBT people well enough alone if they leave him well enough alone.  He probably stereotypifies the "if you don't like gay marriage don't get one," mantra.

Mom...likes Jesus.  I never really noticed it much as a kid, but it's become more and more apparent as the years have passed.  Still she's gone from being against gay marriage to being in favor of it (or so she says).  A lot of this is probably due to the fact that most of her friends within her profession are, in fact, gay men.  How she reconciles this with her growing love of Christianity, I do not know and really have no desire to.

I'm not sure what the reaction would be if they found out they had a bisexual (pansexual?) transgendered (in some sense) son.  I don't think there would be any outward reaction, but I do think that they would feel that they failed as parents in some sense.  Conversation might break down, which might not necessarily be a bad thing.  My mom seems aware of and at least has not objected to my femininity, so who knows?

What I do know is where my siblings stand, in full support of me.  I guess regardless of who your parents are as you grow up, you can at least unite against them as brethren when the time calls for it.