I'm a seventeen-year-old high school junior. I'm also bisexual, genderfluid, pagan, neurodivergent, and female.
That first part means that I'm applying to college.
The rest of it means I have a bone to pick with conservatives - you know, the people who have denied me the right to worship freely, the right to get married to anyone but a "man" (meaning, someone with a dick...even if "he" is actually female), the right to safe medical care, the right to not be discriminated against in the workplace, the right to live my life without being harassed, the right to control over my own body, and even the right to live.
So when my Republican parents - including my mom, whom I am by the way out to as a lesbian as of yesterday, despite her insistence that I need to "be sure that this is what I'll really want for the rest of my life before I make a choice like that" - found a conservative scholarship online, they decided that I was going to write it.
No. No. I will never be conservative, and I will not pretend I'm something I'm not even for a scholarship. I get that money is tight (according to my parents, even though we're actually a lot richer than so many kids even at my school), but I will not do anything that "promotes conservative values" and talks about "what it means to be an *cough white straight cis enabled male Christian cough cough* American". Because according to way too many of those Americans, my sexuality and gender - not like they'll actually deign to learn the difference between the two - are not valid and come from the "devil."
I have made it as clear as I possibly can to my mom that I'm queer without actually having sex with a girl in front of her or something. There's no way she can't know how conservatives have denied me - denied her as a woman - so many fundamental rights. The way so many of them believe our personhood is up for debate. I don't understand how any marginalized person could support that kind of ideology, but I don't have to be a part of it and I will fight it. I am a person and just as deserving of equality as those who have stripped my rights from me.
And then my mom, after I snapped at her that I was liberal and always would be, pulled the Dad card.
You see, my biological father was a conservative and a member of the military. He loved Ronald Reagan, collected Republican political pins, went to church every Sunday and dragged a hyperactive little kid along with him. I don't know if he was queerphobic, and it breaks my heart that he might very well have seen his own child as...something horrible...might even have placed me in the abusive, psychologically damaging atrocity that fundamentalist Christians have the nerve to call "conversion therapy". But until I die myself, I will never know for sure if he would have done any of that.
He died when I was six, before I ever knew that not every relationship has one man and one woman. That not everyone falls neatly into the categories of "man" and "woman." And when I was five years old and tried to tell him I was transgender without having any words for the way I felt, he told me I was confused. Had he been alive today, he may very well have ended up changing his ways - if not for his own sake or anyone else's, then for my sake. But I'll never know.
I can live my own life to the fullest. I can love myself exactly as I am, and empower other people who are disrespected in the ways I am or in ways that I am not to love themselves and to be loved by others. But sometimes, knowing that my dad may very well have been prejudiced against important parts of my identity makes it really hard to do that.
Which just makes it that more screwed-up that my mother brought my dead father and his military service into the conversation. That's messed up and disrespectful and absolutely not okay.
She insisted that I write this conservative essay, promoting the views of people who don't think I deserve to be viewed a a person, as a gesture of gratitude to the Armed Forces, because "People RISK THEIR LIVES AND DIE for this country! You will express gratitude for people who are patriots!"
No. No I won't, because even if my dad was one of these people, I will never be. White, Christian, straight, cis, and enabled isn't what America looks like. In my eyes, that's not what it means to be an American.
That first part means that I'm applying to college.
The rest of it means I have a bone to pick with conservatives - you know, the people who have denied me the right to worship freely, the right to get married to anyone but a "man" (meaning, someone with a dick...even if "he" is actually female), the right to safe medical care, the right to not be discriminated against in the workplace, the right to live my life without being harassed, the right to control over my own body, and even the right to live.
So when my Republican parents - including my mom, whom I am by the way out to as a lesbian as of yesterday, despite her insistence that I need to "be sure that this is what I'll really want for the rest of my life before I make a choice like that" - found a conservative scholarship online, they decided that I was going to write it.
No. No. I will never be conservative, and I will not pretend I'm something I'm not even for a scholarship. I get that money is tight (according to my parents, even though we're actually a lot richer than so many kids even at my school), but I will not do anything that "promotes conservative values" and talks about "what it means to be an *cough white straight cis enabled male Christian cough cough* American". Because according to way too many of those Americans, my sexuality and gender - not like they'll actually deign to learn the difference between the two - are not valid and come from the "devil."
I have made it as clear as I possibly can to my mom that I'm queer without actually having sex with a girl in front of her or something. There's no way she can't know how conservatives have denied me - denied her as a woman - so many fundamental rights. The way so many of them believe our personhood is up for debate. I don't understand how any marginalized person could support that kind of ideology, but I don't have to be a part of it and I will fight it. I am a person and just as deserving of equality as those who have stripped my rights from me.
And then my mom, after I snapped at her that I was liberal and always would be, pulled the Dad card.
You see, my biological father was a conservative and a member of the military. He loved Ronald Reagan, collected Republican political pins, went to church every Sunday and dragged a hyperactive little kid along with him. I don't know if he was queerphobic, and it breaks my heart that he might very well have seen his own child as...something horrible...might even have placed me in the abusive, psychologically damaging atrocity that fundamentalist Christians have the nerve to call "conversion therapy". But until I die myself, I will never know for sure if he would have done any of that.
He died when I was six, before I ever knew that not every relationship has one man and one woman. That not everyone falls neatly into the categories of "man" and "woman." And when I was five years old and tried to tell him I was transgender without having any words for the way I felt, he told me I was confused. Had he been alive today, he may very well have ended up changing his ways - if not for his own sake or anyone else's, then for my sake. But I'll never know.
I can live my own life to the fullest. I can love myself exactly as I am, and empower other people who are disrespected in the ways I am or in ways that I am not to love themselves and to be loved by others. But sometimes, knowing that my dad may very well have been prejudiced against important parts of my identity makes it really hard to do that.
Which just makes it that more screwed-up that my mother brought my dead father and his military service into the conversation. That's messed up and disrespectful and absolutely not okay.
She insisted that I write this conservative essay, promoting the views of people who don't think I deserve to be viewed a a person, as a gesture of gratitude to the Armed Forces, because "People RISK THEIR LIVES AND DIE for this country! You will express gratitude for people who are patriots!"
No. No I won't, because even if my dad was one of these people, I will never be. White, Christian, straight, cis, and enabled isn't what America looks like. In my eyes, that's not what it means to be an American.
2 comments:
I would place my bets on your dad loving you. You have other republican, Christian family members who love you. I know because I am one. You are beautiful, strong and smart. Don't let people's politics blind you to who they are. Politics is a business don't let it affect your personal relationships. Judge people based on how they treat you. I hope that you always know you have my love and support!
You know that I agree with your Aunt. I think your Dad would have been loving and accpecting of who you are. I also think your Mom loves you too.
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