An Open Letter to My Family (And maybe to yours)
March 21, 2023
I write to you from a long absence – we have mostly been in our bubbles and no longer sit together through thanksgivings, or christmas dinners. Some of us have made enemies of each other in our distance, unable to put a face to our disparate beliefs, we grow more and more distant. I am writing to you to bridge something, but I will warn you that I am in such a state of desperate rage, so my words may fail to meet some quota of diplomacy; my bridge may look more like a ditch.
We are standing at the edge of cliff; no, this is not a suicide note, but i am screaming from within a suicidal civilization; a country that cut its teeth and gleaned its gold in a host of atrocities, practicing practicing, always making new battlegrounds, standing ready and poised to make fresh genocide. Did you know that this year, it is expected that U.S. legislators will introduce, and in cases, pass over 400 new laws limiting expression, medical care, and the right to basic services towards queer and trans people? Did you know that historically, these moves precede greater, grander forms of cruelty and violence?
I would venture to guess that many of you do not know many queer people, or perhaps any trans people. Well, I do. More than know them, they are my friends, they have been my romantic partners. They are simply people – meaning: some are professionals, like doctors or lawyers; or they are messy, more like the way I’ve lived my life, being travelers, being artists. In my many, many relationships with trans people, none have ever expressed interest in or been caught “grooming” children, or forcing them towards some agenda beyond living their lives. Do we have a right to live our lives? Do we have a right to live our lives in front of children with the same bold pride as heterosexual people?
You may choose to believe these laws are wholly different or within the same project of taking away the right to abortion. Supporting either cause is willingly investing in your own future un-freedoms. So, my agenda is to persuade you; but it will feel more like venom. A poison myself and many others have been asked to ingest and make due with. My agenda is to ask you if you truly believe these politicians are doing the good “christian” thing; my agenda is to ask you if you understand how this legislation meets, shakes hands with, and celebrates white nationalism and nazism. My agenda is to ask you to imagine yourselves in the shoes of my community: people who are already asking themselves if they can continue to live in their home state because their very right to exist is being questioned. People who spend their days swinging between dread and a desperate hope that “maybe everything will be alright.” My agenda is to ask you that if you understand all of this, and you still disagree, then will you be there to pull the trigger? My agenda is to ask you if you need to see yourself in front of the barrel to care.
What can I say? That if you deny me, you’ll never see me again? It’s an empty threat because we already have so little to do with one another.
I am done trying to inspire empathy or guilt. I simply ask you to oppose any law that limits our freedoms. I ask you to make eye contact with me, across the digital divide, and to say openly: I do not support this. I believe trans people are worthy of dignity, respect, legal protection, and love. I ask you to find some passage in the bible where the Jesus you so love and admire spoke in praise of persecution.
Sincerely,
Your Queer Offspring