Sometimes coming out isn't never ending

[noracharles]

My mom made me really happy today.

Sometimes I feel like I have to come out to her over and over again, because it's so often she expresses some unexamined heteronormative assumption about me and my life.

But today I was telling her a story about a female friend and "her darling" - boyfriend/girlfriend is not a gendered word in Danish - and without any hesitation or sign of thinking it over or making an effort, my mother replied referring to them as "two young women". As it happened, my friend is straight and her darling was a man, but most of my friends are queer, and it feels wonderful to know that my mom understands and accepts that on an unconscious level now.

Comments

[calvinahobbes]

It's so great when they manage to get it right :o) I've had whole conversations derailed just because there was, as opposed to your example, unnecessary emphasis on girl-friend or boy-friend (pige-kæreste er et af mine top hade-ord, grr).

[calvinahobbes]

And there I went, giving your positive story a negative spin /o\ Sorry about that!

[noracharles]

Not at all! The experience was a happy one exactly because the norm is so unhappy. By rights it ought to have been unremarkable.

"Pige-kæreste"? Ugh, hate.

You know that whole Irma thing, right? We talked about that too, and she thought people were being oversensitive, except for the one shining example of one gay man who had written a letter to the newspaper about how people ought not to be so sensitive.

I told her I've had far more offensive things yelled at me in the street because of my orientation, and the point wasn't that we couldn't shrug it off. The point was that we shouldn't have to shrug it off, and that that advertisement campaign was symptomatic of the social acceptance of homophobia and gender policing. I think she got it, which was also progress!

The experience is in some ways similar to microaggressions, and right now I can't think of the word or phrase for it when it comes to the subtle and pervasive Othering and exclusion of other minorities, but it's extremely difficult to explain how these constant episodes pile up and wear the victim down to someone who hasn't experienced it themself. But as long as I frame it as "someone is hurting her child", then she's at least predisposed to take my side.

[calvinahobbes]

The BFF made me aware of the Irma thing by linking me to an online article that was in itself entirely rage-inducing from the way it appeared completely unbiased yet was clearly structured to indicate "loony sensitive gay people, wtf!"

My problem with that ad, and the people who spoke out against it especially, was actually the conspicuous conflation of gender non-normativity with homosexuality. It was like everyone accepted the premise that ballet = gay and went from there. I had that instant reaction of, "get off my side, you're making it look bad!"

Anyway, it put me in such a bad mood that I have been avoiding all mention of it. But yes, it's these tiny drops that just manage to creep down the back of your neck, while everyone is going on about how it's stopped raining.

I mostly experience my mom as indignant when she's confronted with someone who is clearly, aggressively phobic or *ist, but mostly she's just as caught up in framing/describing the other-ness as everybody else. Pige-kæreste is a good example (you don't know it?), the heavily loaded 'friend' is another classic. I have friends MY age who use those expressions.

[noracharles]

I agree about the conflation of gender non-conformity and homosexuality. The two things are related, but not as strongly as the heteronormative would have you think, and as far as I know, the people primarily protesting the ad were not LGBTQ activists.

I do know the expression "pige-kæreste", and it pisses me off.

Sorry to be so abrupt, I really appreciate your thoughtful reply, but right now I'm too tired and hungry to think very deeply or seriously about anything :-)

All I can think about is some nice goat cheese on toast!

[calvinahobbes]

I didn't really mean for my comment to devolve into a giant thesis using all those pretentious words anyway! I hope you are Getting Things Done. And now I want cheese. Mmm, cheese...

[aquaeri]

I think the social policing of gender normativity is just as bad as homophobia. It's a different bunch of people who are directly affected (with some overlap) but that ad isn't less offensive if the mother thinks there's something wrong with her son doing ballet, than if the mother thinks he's gay.

[noracharles]

No, it certainly isn't. It left a very bad taste in my mouth :-(

Unfortunately the way the debate was reported in the news (I haven't read any of the commentary myself), it seemed there were a lot of people attacking the ad for homophobia, not for gender policing, which speaks of gender stereotypes and gay stereotypes in itself: if you're a man with feminine qualities you must be gay, and if you're gay you must have feminine qualities.

But I don't know how far we can trust the news media to accurately summarize and report the nuanced points made by the commenters.

Do you follow the Danish news that closely?

[aquaeri]

No I don't follow Danish news, I googled "irma ballet denmark" or similar, based on what you wrote, and found a description (I have good google-fu). I remember going to Irma when we lived in Denmark (in the 70s), but I don't think I knew about same-sex attraction let alone homophobia then. (I didn't feel I was exposed to much gender policing either, although I have faint memories of some other girls telling me "girls don't X" and my response being "I'm a girl and I'm doing X".)

It's sad, but probably inevitable, that the most positive mainstream reporting of the opposition to the ad is in terms of homophobia - at least that is becoming more of a recognised problem. Gender policing seems worse now, and it's unfortunate that growing awareness of GLBT people and their rights is treating lack of gender conformity as equivalent to same-sex attraction, as though the mainstream can only deal with one idea at a time.

[noracharles]

Yep, gendered expression is going to extremes, there's a huge emphasis on gender essentialism, and children are gender policed ruthlessly. I'm glad I'm not growing up now in this climate!

[calvinahobbes]

We are completely agreed. I hope my comment above didn't give a different impression.

[aquaeri]

I wanted to make sure - like you, I can find myself nitpicking details (the ad isn't strictly speaking homophobic) and miss explicitly stating the big picture: it's an offensive ad.

[kabal42]

Aw, that's a great little moment! I'm glad you had it :-)

My mum still seems to muck around in heteronormativity. And kindly said the other day that I should probably expect to some day run into something unpleasant over my orientation + gender identity. I told her nicely I had, though so far mostly online. (And I haven't yet gone into the systemic things of devaluating my gender all the time. I mentioned it once and it was mostly like "you probably have to get used to that". My answer: I am. It's been 5 years of this for me. Doesn't mean it gets any less annoying or hurtful.)
That said, she IS against overt *isms and *phobias as well and she's supportive etc. etc. But yeah.

So yay for your mum getting it! Gives lots of hope and good feelings.

[noracharles]

Thank you :-)

Your mom sounds just like my mom. Against overt *isms and *phobias, but ignorant and in denial of the constant devaluing going on. Well, it's a process, and she loves you. I believe it'll get better!

[kabal42]

*nods* I do think that people who don't experience systemic prejudice are most often really not aware of it at all. Sad, but true…