We’re all a little queer
A little bit of leftover PRIDE love from yesterday’s festivities; the barista asked me if I wanted a piece for breakfast. I didn’t get to go to Portland’s celebration, but was with my dad and the parade came up in conversation.
I explained to him how Phoenix wondered why they needed to celebrate their identity and very existence with such veracity. I reminded my dad of a conversation we’d had when I was a little girl, trying to understand love and marriage and gays and lesbians and AIDS and queens and cross-dressers and all of it.
I was that kid, Phoenix is that kid. (My dad has always worked deeply in the queer community through his job as a psychologist. The same dad who read Ta-Nehisi Coates with me, and went with me to see him speak.) Little girl Mindy simply couldn’t wrap my head around it all: not the sex, not the relationship, not the way society should view it.
He responded with two of the most profound statements that impacted my worldview and identity forever (getting teary over here remembering it):
- Everybody deserves to experience and express consensual, romantic love;
- We must always work to speak up for and protect the most vulnerable people in our society.
He always said you had to really know people to understand their plight in order to help: it’s hard to discriminate against people when they’re really in your life.
Lord Almighty, I love my dad so much.
I still can’t believe he said that then, and especially now.
He is so religious and so loving, all in the same breath and body.