Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Yall wanna hear a kinda funny, kinda sad story about my grandmother and hetero-normativity?
Ok, so⦠when my grandmother was in her 50s (I was an infant), she met a woman at the Unitarian Church. And, as can happen when you meet your soul mate, this event made it impossible for her to deny parts of herself that she had fiercely hidden her whole life.
All the drama- their affair being found out, the divorce with my grandfather, the court battle over who got the house, happened while I was a baby. Even in my earliest memories, itβs just Mama Jo and Oma, and my grandfather lived elsewhere (first his own apartment, then a nursing home, then with us.)
But hereβs the thing- no one ever explained any of this to me. No one ever sat down and was like βhey, Rosie, so do you know what a lesbian is?β It was the 90s. It was Texas. I think my mom was still kinda processing all this, and just assumed that likeβ¦ I was gonna figure it out. Donβt mention it, let it just be normal. Like I think my mom thought that if she explained the situation, she would be making it weird? I dunno.
But like. In the 90s, in all the movies I had seen and books I had read, do you know how many same sex couples I had seen? Like. 0. Do you know how many βplatonic best friend/roommatesβ I had seen? A lot. I had no context, is what Iβm saying.
I literally thought this was a Golden Girls, roommates, besties situation until I was likeβ¦I dunno, 11? 12?
It was actually their parrot, an African Grey named Spike, imitating my grandmothers voice saying βJohanna, honey, itβs getting lateβ, that triggered the MIND BLOWN moment as I realized that *thereβs only one master bedroom and it only has 1 waterbed* when all the pieces finally clicked.
Anyway. I think itβs a real important thing for kids to know queer people exist, for a lot of reasons, but also because kids can be clueless and itβs embarrassing to have your grandmother be outted by a parrot because everyone just thought youβd figure it out on your own.
Anyway, here is my grandma and her wife, Oma, after they moved to Albuquerque to be artsy gay cowboys and live their best life. They helped run a βLesbian Dude Ranchβ out there (basically just with funding and financial support. As Oma has explained βtraditionally, most lesbians donβt have a lot of moneyβ so they wrote the checks and let the younger ladies actually run the ranch.)
It means a lot to me that when people send heart emojis, they have a specific color/style they use. And heart they choose to use seems to really reflect that persons personality and how they love.
Actually, do me a favor. Reblog this with the hearts you typically use.
My favorite scene in the entirety of LoTR is when Gimli and Legolas walk into Minas Tirith, after just having braved unspeakable ghost horrors and a battle, and Legolas is prancing and singing like the cheerful jerk he is, everyoneβs watching him cuz heβs beautiful, and Gimliβs grumping pissily along like YEAH THESE BRICKS ARE OK I GUESS, NOT GREAT, 6/10 NEEDS MORE DWARVES and Legolas is just like ARAGORN YβALL NEED SUMMORE PLANTS, IβM GONNA TELL MY DADDY TO SEND YβALL SOME PLANTS as if these are the highest priorities of state and there isnβt a catastrophic war with Satan going on
It’s fine for your transition goals to be a man who wears dresses or a woman who wears tuxes or a person of indeterminate or queer gender wearing literally any combination thereof (or lack of combination, for that matter)
The point of transition is not to fit yourself into the cookie-cutter boxes. The point is for you to be able to exist as you. There is nothing wrong with being a “stereotype” or looking “queer”. You are radiant and amazing <3
you deserve people who listen to you ramble. you deserve people who love it when you’re excited, when you’re happy. you deserve people who check up on you and wish to see you well, people who not only accept you for who you are - but rejoice in it.