#hi friends i am in the process of slowly going offline if any of y'all want to keep in touch hmu

[my5hiningstars]

.

[dilutedheartbeat]

So, there's a weird part about growing up queer in a queer family, surrounded by fellow queers of all walks of life. You still get shit on by the world, and it hurts - hurts SO FUCKING MUCH - but there's a disconnect there, as well. After all, my family understands. They truly do understand the pain of changing what parts of you that you share with the world, with your friends at school and at their homes.

I already did this because of our religion, the additional editing barely registered.

I take that back, I was more open about being raised a Witch by other Witches than I was that sometimes I didn't feel like a girl or that girls and boys were roughly equally interesting. I was more open about the fact that we could name every single person who had passed on our religion going back over 500 years than the fact that several of my Aunts and Uncles in the community - both the Queer and the Pagan, and there were several that, like us, lay in the overlap - crossed gender boundaries in one way or another.

I grew up knowing first-hand how the AIDS crisis affected people. My Uncle Clemeth died when I was around 7 years old. I hadn't seen him in months because of the rules for the hospice house, after a lifetime of seeing him a few times a month. I'd barely seen his partner (not husband, because that was still over 20 years away, and not his domestic partner because that was still about 15 years off) in that time, because he'd been at the hospice house every day, every second he could, watching the love of his life waste away. The only person that could spend any time with him was the in-home caregiver who'd been caring for Clemeth before he got too ill, and I am very happy to say that the two of them are still together, still taking care of each other now as legally recognized spouses.

I grew up never worrying that my parents would be disappointed in whatever path I took. I was extremely privileged for that, and only wish I could do the same for my own kids (their father's family has them terrified of their own shadows, and I am slowly working through legal shit trying to get them away from that). I didn't have to worry that my parents would tear up my books or posters, destroy my jewelry or clothes over me choosing a different religious path. That I had been vocal since about 3 years old regarding which Gods called to me actually never factored into any of that. I didn't have to worry that my openly Bi parents, who were also openly polyamorous, would every shame me for my sexual wants or desires; they only made sure that I could talk to them about what I wanted or needed, and would help me safely explore.

I can still laugh at my mom buying me my first vibrator when I was 16, and the years later conversation in my twenties about how sex was weird as I'd recently discovered.

I can also still feel the warmth of her rage when she learned some of the shit that asshole pulled, and the way I felt safe telling her. I hope my siblings could feel the ice of my own when he tried to target them later.

I grew up going to Pride, marching in it, gleefully introducing my first girlfriend to my parents, even though we were only "out" to a handful of friends at school. I still think of her fondly, and hope she's well. I got to grow up around IT workers, social workers, authors, sex workers, tattooists, and people from every other walk of life. I got to dye my hair, cut it however I wanted. I got to choose when I got my first piercing, where it was (my ears, boringly enough, at age 4, though i plan on at least two more once it's safe) and when I wanted to gauge up they got me the jewelry and had me talk to some fellow poly Pagan friends about care and taking it slow.

When, at age 8 I was repeatedly trying to kill myself, my parents sought help. One of them sat me down and talked about her own struggles, and they found me a professional to talk to, and they made an effort to spend more time with me. Just because my problem was bigger than that didn't mean it didn't help, and they checked with me regularly about it; when I was in high school and spiraled heavily, they got me to the doctor, talked to her and let me talk to her privately, and reminded me to take the meds I was prescribed. When that med didn't help, they listened to me after I had to change to an entirely different med class, and shared their happiness that I was doing better.

They had learned after not listening to my younger sister, you see. My parents aren't perfect, and that whole talk I had when I was 8 scarred me heavily. Don't fucking tell your kids that you have it worse, okay? And maybe, just maybe listen when your kid tells you that the prozac makes them too manic and don't insist they can't be bipolar like mom's side of the family only depressed like yours, nearly killing your kid in the process. My sister is much better these days, but that was one of the first big experiences after the amnesia, and is still understandably bitter over it. Our older sibling and I are, too.

As an adult, I still had to deal with people being bigoted pieces of shit, now without the buffer of my parents. I had to deal with abusers who saw my barely acknowledged bisexuality as an easy target. I had to deal with classmates and coworkers mocking a later boyfriend for being gay. He wasn't, is still straight and cis, and unfortunately now a shitty dad, but because he taught ballroom dance that made him gay apparently. I still had to deal with lesbians insisting I just needed to pick a side. I still had to deal with homophobia, and biphobia, on top of defending my religion.

People fucking suck, okay?

As an adult, who grew up queer in a queer family surrounded by a queer community, though, it has brought me great pleasure to watch people try to make bigoted arguments, to convince me that somehow, at some time in some way I understood (understand) why it's a problem to let people be who they are. It's not a moral standpoint. It's not an ethical standpoint. They just really can't comprehend that I don't hate myself on some level, because I was never taught to. My exposure to that kind of bullshit was extremely limited to public school and visiting my grandmothers. Even then, the kids didn't know what they didn't know, and at least one of my grandmothers only cared that she got to see us.

Every place we went, every one of my parents' friends we visited, I was surrounded by people who were queer or part of my religion, and frequently both. I was aware there were bigots in the broader Pagan community, but my parents didn't have the time for that, so it wasn't really in my sphere. I could be me, in public. If I was a boy that day, I was a boy that day, and no one said boo about it.

Even now, years and years later, seeing the uptick in TERF bullshit and purity bullshit and people trying to rewrite the history of my communities (both queer and pagan, and they can all fuck right off), I'm not ashamed. I'm not confused. I am who I always have been. Labels may have changed with time as people find new words that fit them better, but even as safe as my upbringing was, we all still are part of the same community; the world outside still existed, my parents simply took the hits for me.

I guess the reason I'm writing all this, sharing all this when I usually keep my personal stuff offline is that I'm seeing a lot of queer people under every label talking about how they somehow can't do all... ^^this... for their own future kids - whatever form those kids come in. Y'all, my parents are a Boomer and a Gen Xer. I'm still doing what I can for my kids. There's not a cis-het person in my immediate family! You can do this.

Please don't give up hope, or leave that hope to the wider world being more acceptable. That acceptance comes at the cost of lives and loves and so much time. Raise your kids in the community. Adopt kids in the community. Be an Aunt or Uncle or Adjacent Adult Figure of whatever term fits! Let kids know themselves and that you are there for them. I believe in you.