Hi I'm feeling naval gazey, let's go!!
So on one side of the family, I have approximately one million cousins, and most of them are older and very Christian. I haven't spoken to... any of them? in person since I transitioned over ten years ago.
I was just thinking about how the last time I spoke to two in particular were both trans-y stories.
Cousin A
I was at my sister's bridal shower for her (doomed) wedding, and I had yet to realize I was a man but I was realizing that I was SOMETHING trans, and I was privately identifying as non-binary and dressing in a butch way. (Like I was aware of my masculinity enough to fight with my mom* about wearing a dress in my sister's (doomed) wedding. A fight I lost ✌️ Anyway.)
*
The fact that my mom was in charge of my sister's wedding is a telling detail of both of their personalities.So this cousin's kid, who is autistic, saw me for the first time in a while, pointed at me across the room and said "[deadname] is a man now!!" And like. Bless that fucking kid. That is affirmation if I've ever heard it.
Anyway. My cousin tried to make the kid apologize. And I tried to say it was okay. And that's the last time I remember talking to her.
My sister's divorce is almost finalized!
Cousin B
This one is more stereotypical. I came out as a man on Facebook*. She sent me a direct message that said "I'll pray for you." I, who have a ton of Christian relatives, was bracing for much worse shit and absolutely LET HER HAVE IT in a carefully crafted essay about how that's a shitty thing to say to someone and I'm not going to pretend I don't know what that means. She didn't reply.
*
This was over ten years ago, when Facebook was cool.Part of my transition social media strategy was to make a new Facebook with my new information and ask people to befriend this account in my coming out post* instead of allowing people who were anti-trans to just kind of lurk on my posts, and this cousin didn't friend my new account. And I haven't spoken to her since!
*
This was over ten years ago, back when you could rely on Facebook to show your message to your friends.BONUS ROUND COUSIN / Self-reflection time
For stalking purposes, I looked up another cousin on Facebook a couple of years ago, my only younger cousin on that side. I absolutely do not remember our last interaction, but I'm pretty sure we were still kids. And she had reposted a trans rights post publicly on her account!! Sometimes posts with performative vibes of "I affirm random minority group" do good things?? So I friended her, and she accepted. And I still haven't messaged her.
There's a part of me that's like... "Oh. I don't know what these people think. Maybe some of them are cool. Maybe some of them were Uncool and have changed. Or maybe I never really knew what they thought in the first place. Or maybe this is related to how much I suck at keeping up with local friends, let alone family who live in different cities, oh yeah I moved to a new state where I know very few people and my Keeping Up skills have not improved!! "
But it's a two sides of the street thing. They all know my sister, they can find me through her if they want to. I get that I didn't go down my side of the street, but they didn't come up theirs either. Part of me is like, hey, I'm the marginalized person here, y'all are the ones in scary anti-trans religions, it's not my job to make you feel comfortable. Maybe I should take this decade of silence as meaningfully as I have been. (Except for Bonus Cousin* and I'll message her on Facebook one of these days!!)