#my parents didnt give me their homophobia/transphobia bc they literally never talked about it so the queer people got to me first

[wander-wren]

the first time i saw trans people on tv i think i was around 11 or 12? it may have been caitlyn jenner and someone else, i don’t honestly remember. but i do remember turning to my dad when he came in the room and i guess i was just not paying close attention bc i was like “dad look theres these two boys turning into girls and one of them is doing it like on purpose and the other one it’s just happening naturally i think”

(i have a vague memory of people crying and hugging, so maybe i interpreted that as the existential horror of your body spontaneously becoming a different gender? which is really funny actually. the irony)

and my dad looked at the tv and said in the most derisive, dismissive tone, “there’s nothing natural about that.”

and i was just like. oh. okay. i was mostly just hurt bc i got something wrong and he did not correct me gently. we never discussed trans people again until i came out, i had to learn that from the internet

Sometimes you do have to tell kids that there’s some things that they’ll learn when they’re older. But then you have to actually follow through and explain things to them when they’re older. Or else your kids will end up like me, who didn’t learn what gay meant until I was 13 and tried to piece it together through news reports and rumors at school and so for a while I thought that being gay meant that your fingers were a certain length.