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

[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…