I want to spent all of my time and energy living out loud without giving any time or space to those who are anti-LGBT. Most of the time I do. But from time to time the knowledge that people I am related to insist on holding onto bigotry in the form of believing being LGBT is “sinful” or “wrong” pushes my buttons. I find myself angrily posting on Twitter and Facebook about how wrong and hurtful and downright harmful such beliefs are, even though I know they are scrolling past my posts without listening or giving them any consideration. They don’t care that they are hurting me and other people like me. That knowledge hurts me even more than their anti-LGBT beliefs do.
I am astounded by this knowledge: they believe what they believe in spite of all evidence to the contrary, and they do not care that it hurts me. Wow. I can almost understand them not caring so much about how their words affect people they don’t know. But they know me. They know I love them. They claim to love me too. Yet they don’t care that they hurt me.
When I come through my anger I feel like withdrawing from social media altogether. Why post anything if they won’t listen? Why post anything if they don’t care? But withdrawing isn’t living out loud; it is retreating in the face of someone else’s lack of concern for how their expressed beliefs affect others…me specifically. I won’t stop living out loud just because they don’t care that they are hurting me.
These are the times I cannot talk to them. I want to talk to them. I enjoy their company most of the time. I like watching their kids grow up and want to be a part of their kids’ lives. But there is always that knowledge in the back of my mind that they don’t care enough about me to revisit their beliefs and change. I haven’t figured out what to do with that.