It is all enormously complicated. Sometimes I think even more so in settings and institutions where the policies are explicitly inclusive, because the abusive behavior gets driven more underground and can become even more toxic and dangerous. All while those in authority are feeling proud of what a progressive and accepting environment they feel they have created.
Ask any queer kid about the things their classmates say to them… they’ll tell you all about it. I hear all the time from kids I work with about the horrid things their peers say. To them, and around them.
And I hear from my own (somewhat older) sons about the particular complications they have as they navigate life with a trans parent. I have worried from the earliest moments of my transition about how the fact of my identity might harm them. And they are strong and they are beautiful, and they have their shit figured out around all of this. But still…they have to consciously decide, every day, with each person to whom they speak, whether or not to disclose that the father they are referring to is female. They have to prepared for what might come their way when they say those words.
And I know that sometimes it gets weird and ugly for them, but I also know that mostly they try to protect me from having to hear the harder stuff that comes their way.
But sometimes certain details leak out. Like when I heard about how one of my son’s friends had told him that they were trying not to use the word “tranny” when he was around. Given that his parent was…well…
And that’s someone actually trying to be sensitive. That’s what passes for sensitivity. And a comment like that tells you all you need to know about what kind of conversations are happening most of the rest of the time. There is not, at least in the world of most boys and men, a culture in which it is possible or safe for someone to speak up in those conversations and say “that’s not cool.” Even if those boys are going to the most progressive schools.
My boys speak up, I know. They have learned how. They have had to.
And what they get in return is an effort, by some, not to be so bigoted in front of them.
I think, a lot, about what it costs my kids, hearing and what people say about people like me. I think about the emotional toll for them of knowing how others treat me. I think about the cost for them of knowing that I am never truly safe.
This is not something any kid should ever have to have in their head about their parent. But I can’t protect them from that awareness. They know, because of the words their own friends use, that I cannot move through the world safely.
I worry about them. And they worry about me. And it exhausts and drains all of us.
