Good Signs

Whether we're 15 or 50, it's hard to shake the need for our parents' acceptance.  For the non-gender-conforming among us, that can be a long (and sometimes hopeless) road.

When I first started to come out--what, five years ago or so?--it was not easy.  Here are a few highlights:

• I come out to my mom when we are eating lunch at PF Chang's.  But I can't make myself say it out loud and I begin bawling in the middle of the restaurant.  Later that day, my mom suggests that maybe it's just that my DXH isn't the right guy for me.
  
• My parents visit for the day.  I come out to my dad while he and I are walking my dog.  He says nothing for the rest of the walk.  We get back and he still says nothing.  My parents leave immediately, though we'd been planning to have dessert together.  My dad calls the next day and talks stiltedly for an hour about the Red Sox.
  
• My mom tells me on the phone that my girlfriend is not invited to Thanksgiving.  She calls back two hours later and tells me she's sorry, and that my girlfriend can come.  I bring said girlfriend.  Awkward dinner ensues.
• My mom asks if, even if I am a lesbian, do I have to look like one?
• I come out to my grandmother, who promptly tells me she is very sad that I will probably die of AIDS.
  

While I don't think it's healthy for us to dwell on our family's acceptance of our sexual orientation or gender presentation, it can feel lousy when they don't "get it," and great when they do.  A few things have happened in the past few months that have really cemented my (very conservative) family's acceptance of me:

• My DGF comes to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house.  We stay three nights.  My mom sets up a bed for us.  It is not awkward.  My one-year-old niece calls us both "auntie."
• My parents watch "Project Runway."  My mom says jokingly, "I dunno, your father likes Tim Gunn an awful lot..."  My dad replies cheerfully, "Hey, maybe I'm a 25-percenter!"
• My grandmother says it's "great" that my DGF and I have moved in together.
• My parents visit for the day and bring a bottle of wine to congratulate my DGF on her new job (this is after my mom regularly looked for jobs online that would be suitable for my DGF and emailed them to me to pass along to her). 
  
• When I jokingly tell my mom that a particular butch lesbian is "flaunting her homosexuality," my mom replies, "Well, I think that some of those gals in Playboy are flaunting their straightness!"

I don't mean to give the impression that we agree on everything now, or that I never feel like a weird outlier, or that everything's hunky-dory all the time.  But I feel pretty dang accepted, and five years ago, I would have never guessed that my relationship with my family would be this good. 

Our progress, I think, is attributable to: (1) unconditional love; (2) a willingness to talk about things that bother us (even if "talking" means arguing); and most of all, (3) a sense of humor.  I'm incredibly grateful for the steps my family members (particularly my parents) have taken to understand me, and I hope that in turn, I've tried to "get" them. 

What signs of acceptance have you received from your family that you wouldn't have thought possible two or five or ten or twenty years ago?