A recent New York Times opinion piece titled “Cutting Your Parents Off Isn’t the Answer” has resulted in a lot of chatter by people I follow on Bluesky about whether or not queer people who aren’t accepted by their parents or other family members should cut ties with them. The author of the piece discusses her relationship with her father and how both of them worked to repair that relationship. Which, you know, good for them. But it is hardly a universal experience.
Michael Hobbes, co-host of “If Books Could Kill” and “Maintenance Phase,” two of my favorite podcasts, posted a screenshot of the piece’s headline with the comment, “lol come the fuck on.”
The piece, as Hobbes points out, contributes to the “media industrial complex dedicated to telling us that we are too mean to conservatives.”
While politics driving a wedge between family members is nothing new, there’s a particular brand of this division that has gotten considerable attention since the beginning of the Trump MAGA movement. The whole “fuck your feelings” aesthetic widely adopted by Trump supporters doesn’t exactly scream, “Reconcile with us!”
Trumpism has harmed this country in many ways, but one of the most pernicious is the way his racism, misogyny and self-centeredness have given people the permission to gleefully let the worst parts of themselves become their whole personalities.
Your uncle who used to merely grumble about immigrants now talks like a eugenicist at the Thanksgiving table. Your sister-in-law who has always been a little light on facts when it came to medical science is now a walking megaphone for the anti-vax movement. Your neighbor who has never interacted with a trans woman or attended a single girl’s sporting event is now railing against “men in women’s sports” at school board meetings.
All of these folks are actively promoting ideas that feed policies that make this country a more cruel, a more sick and a less equal place for everyone. Including themselves.
And papers like the New York Times have been trying for years to get liberals to approach this kind of hateful nonsense from a place of understanding and love. But as many people have pointed out, it’s rarely the other way around, especially for queer people who have been rejected by loved ones.
Instead we get served the same “love the sin, hate the sinner” style bullshit, which, of course, puts the onus to change on the queer person (i.e. “the sinner”). It is not complimentary to tell someone, “I love you. But I hate who you are.”
As Hobbes put it, sarcasm clear, “Rank and file Republicans are turning against LGBT acceptance and GOP politicians are leaning into bigotry in both rhetoric and policy. But it is you, the progressive queer or ally, who needs to open your mind and consider other people’s feelings.”
I spent a good deal of my life considering other people’s feelings. I was closeted until 18 and then still partially in the closet for years after that. That was a really painful way to live. And anyone who expects you to live like that for their sake? Well, they’ve made their feelings very clear, haven’t they?
It’s not like I don’t consider other people’s feelings any more. I do, but I’ve learned that other peoples’ feelings aren’t always more important than mine.
The song “These Dreams” by Heart is stuck in my head right now. “These dreams go on when I close my eyes. Every second of the night, I live another life,” Nancy Wilson sings. “Every moment I’m awake, the further I’m away.”
It’s a song about how our lives really are versus how we dream our lives to be. And I think that a lot of LGBTQ+ people straddle these two worlds when it comes to family. Of course we’d prefer that all of our family members love and accept us. But that’s just not reality for everyone.
For a lot of LGBTQ+ people, the choice is not between embracing or rejecting their families. The choice is actually between two different kinds of pain. The pain of being part of a family that does not make you feel loved and whole, or the pain of cutting ties with that family in order to feel loved and whole.
It’s not just a political disagreement we’re talking about. For too long, we’ve been expecting LGBTQ+ people to appease those who do not recognize, respect or accept our full humanity.
The thing is, going along to get along isn’t a fair request when it means having to compromise your own authentic self to appease people who believe that your authentic self is something too terrible to accept.
You either let them clip your wings or you fly.
Sometimes, the only way out is out.