gaydom

[daniwithtea]

this week at work we had mandatory harassment awareness training. the presentor had a chart showing all the things covered under our company's harassment policy, and went over all the things once by one. what he left off the chart was sexual orientation, which is covered in the policy. so i raised my hand to ask him why exactly he was skipping that. he pointed to me and said "yes, sir?" it wasn't until he corrected himself and said "yes, ma'am?" that i realized what he said. a strange moment, that was. the harassment training lawyer getting upset because he thought (correctly, in this case) that he spoke the wrong gender. in this situation, it was weird, because it obviously made him uncomfortable. it's amusing to me how the same gender question a few weeks ago at nolose would have been a courtesy rather than a mistake. anyway, he hemmed and hawed about how he "forgot" to add that to his board, and said a little blurb about sexual orientation, yadda yadda yadda. it pissed me off because he had done probably a dozen classes with that board before the one I attended. the other thing that pissed me off was when he made a statement - went on some length, actually - about how there are two genders: "you're either a man, or you're a woman. there's only two." But, having just outed myself to a few dozen co-workers and execs, I didn't have the balls to argue gender theory with a corporate lawyer.

on a slight tangent from that, there is the matter of my forthcoming sister, and her uber-catholic relatives. quick recap: my dad's wife's family has their religion shoved so far up their asses that until a few weeks ago they were refusing to acknowledge their grandchild, because she was conceived out of wedlock. that has changed, and i'm glad for my dad's wife's sake. now maternal grandma-to-be is throwing the baby shower. i got the invitation in the mail, and it was addressed only to me. not wanting to fuck things up between baby-mom and baby-grandma inadvertently, i called my dad and asked if fuzzybutchkins was invited to the shower or not. he said that yes, she was invited, and that he and baby-mom want us both to be there, but that we are just to be "friends" at the shower. my dad made it very clear that this was not a reflection on what he and his wife think, and i truly believe that. he says they haven't told her parents yet because for the time being, what they don't know won't hurt them. i asked him if he realized that they were going to have to know eventually, and he said yes, but that could wait. in a way, i understand this. i do. i want baby-mom to have a good relationship with her family, because they're important to her. a happy mommy makes for a happy baby, and that baby is my sister, damnit, so she'd better be happy. so when i called baby-grandma to rsvp, i told her that "my dad said i could bring my roommate". i felt like i was back in college. and i need to remember to call my relatives that will be there, so they know that we're just "roommates" that day. but part of me wants to scream, "what the fuck?!" this is my kid sister we're talking about here, and i will never be anyone other than who i am to her. she will never know mer as my rommate. she'll know her as her sister out-law, or whatever better term we come up with by the time the kid has concepts for such things. come the holidays, am i going to have to spend a few uncomfortable hours pretending i'm somebody else? yeah, it'll take a couple years before paige gets the concept. but after a few years of showing up to everything with the same "roommate", i have a sneaking suspicion that her parents might figure it out. and so all my fears about the back-and-forth of what this kid's going to have to listen to growing up have come back to smack me upside the head, just as i'm crashing down off a week lived entirely on adrenaline, long hours, and yoghurt smoothies. fuck.

tomorrow (or, more accurately, today) and Sunday, we're going away to mer's parents' place at the shore, where i can smoke like a chimney, curse like a sailor, lose myself in a book, and be the fat dyke that i am.

Comments

[ladypoetess.livejournal.com]

It sucks when you have to hide your relationship. Adeliz was never out to her mother, so when her mother was alive and we went to visit, I was always just a "friend." It was so hard to curb the little touches, the manner of speaking, calling her "hon" or "love" etc. The rest of Adeliz's family knew - her sister and I get along pretty well, and her sister turned to me hugs and comfort when their mother died, so I never minded too horribly. But it still sucked that I had to be "just a friend" at all.

Totally OT - something I'll have to be careful of when visiting you and Mer is that I am allergic to cigarette smoke. Well, pretty much any smoke (makes camping fun, lemme tell ya). Have to watch my asthma, especially in the summer time.