scarilysweet replied to your post “Grandmother told me today she “loves [me] more than Jesus.”
SAME she loves me so fully
when i came out to her i did it by accident bc my now-disowned uncle was egging me on about politics, and “liberals take things so personally! why are you so EMOTIONAL about it???” (...at the family reunion weekend.)
I shouted, “BECAUSE I’M TRANSGENDER!” with a few extra words about how literally this is my and my friends’ lives that are at stake.
Grandmother told me, “Now, when I wanted to marry your grandpa, my family all hated Catholics. My mother didn’t even think they were people before that! But she told me she loved me and wanted me to be happy, so even though she didn’t understand it, she would accept it. And that’s what I want to offer you, now. I don’t understand it, but I love you, and I want you to be happy.”
Since then she’s asked me a bunch of questions and tried to understand more and more. She’s never critical of my answers and never reacts with disbelief or invalidation, even when she’s surprised by the things i tell her. Also, she keeps introducing me to people with, “This is my granddaughter, Kathleen. And she is transgender! So she goes by Connor.”
At first she told me she had told her church friends (who remember me as a child back when grandmother would take care of us twins), and she said, “I didn’t have to do that! I could’ve kept it a secret and not let them know, and not worry about what they thought. But I wanted to claim you to them! I want you to know that i’m proud of you!”
She just now moved into a care home (a v v good one) bc dementia struck real fast, and she has been telling everyone this, first thing. I follow up with “...so that’s why you’ll hear her use one name for me when my name now is Connor,” and none of her neighbors have reacted funny yet. Anyway, none of them will probably remember next time they see me, and I’m gonna be back in washington soon!
The important thing to me is that she is claiming me, openly declaring this, showing me that even though she knows her peers may not understand, I’m more important to her than their opinion.