Christian Blogger Accidentally Makes a Good Point, Still Manages to Be a Complete Idiot

We're going Inception style here, as I do a commentary on an article that is, in part, a commentary on a third article.  The article's author Nick Rynerson thinks that Dan Savage, an outspoken LGBT activist and gay father, makes a pro-family (code for anti-LGBT) statement by being married and raising children with his partner.  Rynerson argues that in doing so, Savage shows that God has stamped an innate desire in everyone to trend towards a "covenantal" family structure.

Amazing.  I don't even know where to begin.  Seriously.

I guess the first part that jumps out at me is how Rynerson seems completely unaware that Savage is an outspoken proponent of polyamory, which throws his entire argument out the window.  Savage's heart isn't innately stamped to try and emulate anything.  And hell, if Savage really were trying to get as close to the lofty institution of heterosexual marriage as he could, he and his partner would probably be divorced and fighting a bitter custody battle over the kids by now.

I also particularly enjoyed how the author condescendingly paints LGBT individuals as a bunch of sinners cutely trying to imitate their superior heterosexual counterparts.  (Because, despite his family, Savage is still an awful human being that no one should listen to.  That point is made repeatedly.)

But Rynerson accidentally makes a good point overall, one I felt necessary to highlight in the comments.  Given his revelation that many LGBT individuals are raising children with their partner in stable homes, one wonders how religious people like him can continue to comdemn marriage equality.  After all, one would think they'd want those children to be afforded all the financial benefits of their heterosexually-parented counterparts, right?

(Answer: Wrong.  Being "pro-family" isn't about doing what's best for children.  It's about hating gays.)
 

My Coming Out Letter

This is the letter I emailed to my parents after getting some questions from them about why Facebook was using male pronouns on my profile. I had changed my gender but told Facebook to hide it, though it still changed my pronouns. I am posting this because I think I did a good job and want to share it with people.

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.

Christmas in the Closet

This is my first holiday season being out to myself, my friends and my brother. My parents, my sister and the rest of my family is seemingly oblivious to the fact I'm trans, despite me presenting all the time and constantly challenging them when they say something blatantly ignorant and bigoted especially related to trans people. I would think that they would start to wonder why I know so much about the transition process and trans issues in general, but they seem to ignore those little tells. Anyway, tonight we had our Christmas Eve dinner and the topic got turned to transgender people by my dad. In the resulting discussion, I learned that my family believes the following:

• Being transgender is "just a phase"
• Transgender people shouldn't be protected by law
• Transgender people (and other LGBT people) recruit impressionable children to "follow them down their path"
• No transgender person stays transitioned, they all eventually revert to their birth sex
• Being transgender didn't exist before the 1980's
• Transgender people, after having many surgeries, look like "monsters"
• Boys wearing girl clothes is wrong, girls wearing boy clothes is wrong
• Boys should play with boy toys, girls should play with girl toys
• People transition just to get attention

I challenged them. I explained to them why everything they were saying was wrong. I tried to educate them. But the bullshit just kept coming. I wanted to scream in their face that I was trans and that they should close their fucking mouths and open their eyes. I wanted to flip the dinner table over, and punch them in the face until their hatred stopped. And then, I just wanted to cry. I wanted to cry because I can't believe I am related to people that are so ignorant and bigoted. I wanted to cry because they don't know I'm trans and because I feel like I can never tell them because of all the things they said tonight. I wanted to cry because of all the other closeted LGBT folks that are probably eating family dinner at home right now dealing with the same kind of thing.  

I want to come out to them more than ever now. Rip the bandaid off, get it over with. Sit back and watch the fallout. Start over. I think they will come around (they will have to, if they want to continue to have any kind of relationship with me). For now, all I can do is keep trying to prep them as much as possible by educating them about trans issues and hope they can look past their hate. It will get better.