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]

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.