I'm generally a private person -- one of those "taciturn Midwesterners," perhaps. I like to think I just come from stoic German stock. Anyway, there's one thing in this I want to respond to, if I may, because I live it every day.
You pose the question: I wonder if I could love someone unconditionally if they did not accept me for who I am as a Queer person?
Well, I do. My parents, but moreso my mother. I have a complicated relationship with my mother. She does not accept me as a queer person. She wants to know nothing about my private life, which causes me great grief around the holidays, which I dread more than anything. My mother is very Catholic. I grew up in a very old school, kind of Old World atmosphere, bookended by my father's German/WASPish family on one end, people incapable of expressing emotion of any kind; and my mother's Polish/Catholic family on the other end -- loud, raucuous, hard-drinking, guilt-riddled people. I grew up in a small town with no queer role model in sight. I love my mother. I respect her. She introduces me to people based on my job, and as her daughter, which draws curious looks from strangers. She struggles to acknowledge any girl I bring home...don't get me wrong -- she's polite, civil and will ask the basic questions of her ("What do you do for a living? Do you have siblings? Where did you grow up?"). But my mother never will be a PFLAG member. She will never call me by my chosen name. She would never attend a ceremony should I, god help me, ever want to be married. She never asks me if I am seeing someone. She never asks about my girlfriend when I have one. I grew up surrounded by men who treated their women like queens. I grew up respecting women. As I said, I respect my mother. I'm protective of her. I open doors for her when I am around her. I get angry when people show a lack of respect toward her.
But she has no respect for me and my life. But I love her. She's my mother.
And that's really all I want to say about that.
Jake
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