cross-posted on AmplifyYourVoice.org
Ever since I came out as a guy my mom has been calling me a lesbian. To be fair, my mom has made a lot of head-way in supporting me, but there are a couple things that she keeps getting stuck on.
“Why you can’t just be a lesbian?” she says passionately, “There is nothing wrong with being a lesbian, you know.”
“I know.” I say back to her, “And if I could be one I would, but I’m not one so I can’t.”
She feels there is nothing wrong with me being a lesbian, but there is something wrong with me being trans because trans is just too far from normal. I have too much going against me in society. I have to remind myself that if I wasn’t her kid she would be ok with it. Just today I listened as she told me a story from her college days where she supported the “women who were changing to be men” because she knew them from when she went out with her gay guy friend. She never thought that those people were lesbians, but somehow I am a lesbian.
I’ve gotten numb to it. Three years of hearing the same thing will do that. And she’s gotten a little better. She usually avoids making statements unless provoked by me talking about my life. I continue to try to explain the why the queer women I date don’t identify as lesbians, but since I can’t use my own identity as part of the explanation the point dissolves unsuccessfully.
When I started to date a guy her first question was exactly what I expected it to be. “Is he a real boy?”
“Yes, he’s a real boy.” I said.
She hesitated. “Ok, is he biologically a boy?” She smiled, clearly thinking she was clever. I wasn’t sure if I should be excited about her recognizing a fuller spectrum of gender and sex, or be annoyed cause she was mocking me.
“No, he’s not biologically male.”
“So she’s a lesbian.” she said bluntly. “And what does his mother think about her pretending to be a boy?”
The funny thing is that his mother thinks he’s a lesbian too. When I learned this I couldn’t help but be glad I wasn’t the only one who had this problem, at the same time, I really hated that I wasn’t the only one who had this problem.
cross-posted on AmplifyYourVoice.org