I was camping with my grandparents this week and my grandma asked me about school. So I told her about the two extracurriculars I want to be in next year, Spectrum Club (aka Gay-Straight Alliance) and youth group. Why is this significant?
Later, she referred to our earlier conversation and asked if I was gay. I told her truthfully that I wasn't, and that straight people can join GSAs too (most of them don't, but still...). Grandma, like the wonderfully wonderful woman she is, was cool with it and even a little proud. The only thing she was worried about was people harassing me for supporting homosexuality so openly like that, but she's proud of me for standing up for human rights and sticking to my beliefs no matter what anyone else thinks. She was happy when I told her about this blog, too (I had to explain what a 'blog' was, but after that she started smiling). I'm going to teach her how to use the Internet so she can read it.
Think about this for a moment. My grandmother is seventy-two years old, a devout Irish Catholic, and a middle-class Republican (I think, I've never asked) in a country where homosexuality is a big controversy, a state where the government still refuses to believe that love is love. It was a really stupid assumption and totally hypocritical of me, but I really thought she'd have a negative reaction to my joining a GSA and the possibility of my being a lesbian.
So ignorant of me, especially considering the fact that I'm also a devout Irish American Catholic in a state where gay marriage is currently illegal. But I write a freaking LGBT pride blog, for crying out loud. That really goes to show how possible it is to defy stereotypes, how we are more than the labels people apply to us.
But it really gave me a lot of hope for humanity, I guess...not to be sappy. After all, if someone like my grandma, someone that most people would never expect to even be okay with homosexuality, can be proud of her granddaughter for joining a gay-straight alliance, what does that say about the rest of the world and its ability to love others and embrace change? My grandma totally schooled me in the art of defying stereotypes, and that makes me really happy.
Yes, things look bleak sometimes, but we are headed toward a brighter, more loving, and more accepting future.
