8:33pm June 20, 2014

Talking to my father about gender and sexuality.

First, I came out to my father as a lesbian.

Then as I began exploring my gender identity more closely, I thought I might be a trans man. I turned out to be genderless, but that was just one step on the journey to figuring myself out.

In all instances, I expected my father to be upset by these things. He told homophobic jokes sometimes, and used slurs that made me very upset.

But he wasn’t upset.

In fact, he told me he’d always known.

He told me he’d grown up on a farm. That on a farm, you see animals with every possible gender and sexual orientation that’s different from the norm. That it’s just normal to see these things. And that if animals were like this, then surely humans were too.

We never talked about it again. We didn’t have to. He was, like he always is, direct and to the point, matter-of-fact, no bullshit. And completely accepting an in area where I expected a fight.

It’s from my father that I learned that sometimes the most acceptance comes from the people who say all the ‘wrong’ things, do all the ‘wrong’ things, but when it really really counts, they’re there for you, and that’s all that should matter. My father is a big reason that I can’t stand campaigns that are all about changing what we say, and not about changing what we do. He’s been one of the most supportive people in my life when it comes to gender and sexuality, yet by tumblr standards he’d be flamed to a crisp before he could even start a sentence. And that makes me very angry.

You can’t see into someone’s heart by what words they use. You can only see by their actions. There are people who use all the right words and have terrible actions (or rote actions, that don’t mean anything and often come at the wrong time due to lack of understanding of the basic principles). There are people who have all the right actions, coming straight from the heart, and have terrible words. I will always choose the second group of people if I have to make a choice, because it’s always the second group of people who have my back. They can call me whatever the fuck they want if their actions come from the heart and they accept me totally.