LBD (by Aileen Belmonte)
Having been on the receiving end of it multiple times now, I hate when people respond to my coming out with any variation on “I don’t care. I still love you” or “It doesn’t matter. I love you no matter what.”
You know who cares? I do. You know who thinks it matters? I do. And what I hear when people say this is, “Who you are means less to me than the person that I will continue to imagine you to be and the relationship that I will continue to imagine we have.”
Here’s the thing: Without fail, the people who hit me with “I don’t care,” “It doesn’t matter,” “I still love you,” etc. are the ones who hold the most regressive views about queer people. They are primarily family members with whom I have a polite but distant relationship, which was made polite but distant precisely because of their regressive views about queer people.
I’m sure these people honestly believe that their statements are supportive. I’m sure they believe that I am coming out to them afraid that they might decide to rescind their love for me, and that the correct way to assuage my fears is to assure me that their love (for a given value of ‘love’) is unconditional.
But when I am coming out, I am not asking for unconditional love. I am asking, “Will you see me for who I really am? Will you recognize that there is work you need to do if you want to meaningfully support me? Will you realize that our relationship needs to change if you want it to survive?”
And when these people respond with “I don’t care,” “It doesn’t matter,” “I still love you,” their answer, whether they realize it or not, is an emphatic no.
Compare these responses with that of my parents’ neighbor down the street, an older woman for whom I used to pet-sit. When my mom told her I was genderqueer (with my permission), her immediate reaction was, “NatGeo just published a whole issue about that! I’ll have to read it cover to cover!” She asked about my pronouns and declared that she and my mom should go out of their way to practice using them for the rest of the conversation. I haven’t had a chance to speak with her since, but I have no doubt that when I do, she’ll want to know all about how my life has changed since I began openly identifying as genderqueer.
And that’s just it: My life has changed. I have changed. When I come out, I am more or less announcing, “I am not who you thought I was. In fact, I am not even who I thought I was, and I am thrilled with who I am becoming.”
And if the best you can muster in response is “I don’t care,” “It doesn’t matter,” “I still love you” – if the best you can do is love me in spite of who I am – then I would almost prefer you didn’t bother at all.
cannaqueers