My second installment on encouraging and being affirming towards family members and friends regarding their orientation and identity.

“You’re a boy!!! And they just don’t know that you are!!!”, my 4 year-old cousin shrieks and yells at me today a few times, at my uncle’s newly bought house in Connecticut. An earlier event today segues into this. Not knowing my uncle had a pool at his new house, I did not bring any swim gear, and was urged to go to the local Old Navy to go get something quick. My aunt whom I live with drove me. She should have waited in the car and just let me pick out my stuff. She knows and has it repressed inside her that my choice of any type of clothing, and you’ll come to see that even underwear, is a trigger for her, as an orthodox Catholic. So, I look around, and find some men’s fitness shorts on sale for $5. I didn’t really want the swim trunks because they were long and would look goofy on me. Here we go. “Oh great, something with a penis pouch? Look at what you’re going to be presenting.”. “I’d appreciate if you refrain from such speech in my presence”, I say, referring specifically to the mention of the word penis. Her response: “Well, there’s a lot of unspoken language that I’d like you to change as well”. We get in the car and I invite her to tell me more of that “unspoken language” she’s talking about, and I know it has something to do with how I dress. “The underwear you wear is a dagger through my heart, and through Omi’s”. “Oh, you’re speaking for Omi too? I don’t care think about the underwear people wear and I don’t care, so long as it’s not a G-string. I worry about the way people treat me. It would be a dagger through MY heart if I couldn’t wear just the type of UNDERWEAR I enjoy. In fact, women should all wear what I wear because they wouldn’t be wearing something akin to a thong. But, so long as I wear girly panties, I’m not offending you? It’s a dagger through my heart, the name I get called every day.”. “What name?”, she asks. Of course she knows what I’m talking about. So, there are many intersections here. She started the whole thing. All I wrote above, such are the kind of sentiments from orthodox Catholics like my former therapist, and my aunt. If my choice in UNDERWEAR offends,I am sure you are wise enough to know what else about me offends. Basically everything. I told my grandmother and what I said back, and she said good for you. I told my uncle, and he said orthodox Catholics are the most judgmental people, akin to American sharia law. So, first off, because you’re offended by how I dress, YOU mention penis, something rather gross, that I want nothing to do with, and never said I wanted sewed in between my legs. So, YOU started it. Because you’re offended by the thought of something, YOU bring up the gross aspects of something, when I was not the one to mention a thing about it. I realize that someone in my situation does not have at hand always quips to come back with, and under certain circumstances it is best to simply not respond. But I felt this was not one of those moments. And while she may feel she won something or released on me, I know, as the person I am through my life experiences, that I did not experience this and have this exchange with her for ME to be the one to be schooled on anything. Orthodox Catholics could certainly be seen as a type of sharia law, while being well-meaning, for Islamic sharia law has no best interest at heart whatsoever. For those of you who have family members who are like me, but are unable to agree with their orientation, gender identity, what have you, I urge you once again, that the best thing you can do for them is to be at their side, regardless. Who is it more difficult for? Her seeing me wear certain underwear, or me, if I can’t even wear the type of underwear I am comfortable in? I can’t even have that. The underwear. You won’t call me by the name I identify with, and you expect me to NOT EVEN WEAR the UNDERWEAR I am comfortable in. Wow, thank God it’s not Mormon underwear, to boot. Such Catholics are in fact judgmental, but repressed; they repress to the point of judgment. After this experience, it did hurt me to hear my little cousin shouting that at me, but it also affirmed who I am as a person.