My 90yr old Irish Catholic grandpa doesn’t miss with my gender. He’s never gotten my name wrong, or my pronouns, never even faltered over it.
It’s all so natural too: son, big man, young man…
We’ve never talked about it. He’s the only one who hasn’t pushed for details. He just accepted it and carried on because it’s not a huge deal.
It’s so comforting.
My dear that’s called Alzheimer’s
I wasn’t going to respond to this, I looked at your blog. Your irrational hatred and bile directed towards trans people is palpable and pathetic. This was intended to upset me.
But I now have a chance to talk about who my grandfather is.
You see, I find it interesting that you claim the only way my 90yr old grandfather could possibly be so accepting is if he was dying of one of the most horrible diseases known to man, a condition which eats your brain from the inside out and turns you in an angry, scared shell of the child you once were while your family has to grieve you long before you’re dead.
You find it easier - and evidently prefer - to believe that to accept me, my grandfather must have Alzheimer’s rather than any other reason.
Why is that easier to believe than a man who lived through (not was born during, not was around for, lived through) the Second World War and the aftermath, seeing footage of the concentration camps and meeting refugees would be accepting?
A poor builder and a farmer who worked alongside queer men and deaf men and the few people of colour in Northern Ireland in the 1950s and was himself barred from many places of employment and education due to his religion?
This man, whose oldest son was born the year the British army began occupying his country, who lived through the Troubles and was automatically considered suspicious and dangerous through an incident of birth? A man who helped raise six children - most of them boys and therefore in great danger of the army turning their guns on them for playing kid-games - in a time of civil war where it didn’t seem to matter which side you were on, the bombs and shootings could get you either way? A man who once was taken hostage by the IRA?
My grandfather’s oldest son - my dad - was the first in his family to go to university and there he met and fell in love with a Protestant woman. This was before the Good Friday Agreement, when the civil war was still happening, and if my grandparents had a problem with it - they never let said to my mum.
(My grandpa and my mum don’t really get along, but that’s more to do with me being a premature baby and tensions over my survival and disagreements on how to look after me. My mum and my Nana? Thick as thieves.)
They certainly never let it slip to us when we came along because it wasn’t important anymore that we were something many people in Northern Ireland would have preferred to not exist. It didn’t matter.
He voted in the Good Friday Agreement in hopes of stopping the conflict. He spent a lot of time listening to me about the bullying I was facing for being - unbeknownst to me at the time - queer and disabled. He just told me that being happy was far more important.
Being trans? It does not matter. Of course it doesn’t matter to him because he’s seen worse things in the world.
He’s ninety years old. He’s still out on the farm, he’s still studying history, he’s still sharp as fuck. I’ve seen someone die of Alzheimer's. I know every bit of it and it’s not him. Besides, I’ve not medically transitioned in anyway yet. He’s only seen me presenting fully masc for six days in person. Two years in total. If he had Alzheimer’s he’d be calling me by my deadname and using she/her.
And he’s not unusual. Outside of your echo chamber, most people are fine with trans people. Most people don’t care. Most people are accepting. They may not understand, they may not use the right words, but they’re accepting.
I do find it interesting that once again the TERF tactic is try and wrestle autonomy and self-control away from people who don’t follow your bigoted stances. Autistics must be being manipulated. Trans men are clearly confused little girls. Children obviously can’t understand their own minds and bodies.
My grandfather must have Alzheimer's.
Of course my view of a world I’ve seen in a Tumblr textpost must be more correct than the reality everyone else lives in.
Have the day you deserve.
I’d like to add about my nana.
She was born in 1940 in Spain. She was sent to catholic school then married a man and came to the us in the 60s.
She’s had a long list of lovers, both men and women.
She doesn’t understand my gender. But she slips up less than almost anyone in my immediate family. I’m her grandson, su hijo, her handsome man.
People love saying that it’s Alzheimers or dementia or something else fucking with her memory. But she still speaks English and spanish perfectly (she has never ever misgendered me in spanish). She can get up and down stairs. She can read and watch tv and understand.
Old people can be accepting and loving and caring without understanding.
My nana asked me soon after I came out, “you’ll be happier this way? As a man?” When I said yes, she said okay and… that was that. Over 5 years ago. Before my mother came around. Before my lesbian aunt came around. Before my cousins disowned me. My 83 year old nana has been on my side.
My parents were accepting when I came out as a trans woman, how could they not be? They've been active in the queer community longer than I have been alive. My dad had some concerns about my health, my mom had some concerns about how people would treat me, but they were supportive and just wanted me to be happy. I was concerned about how my mom's side of the family would take it - we're Southern and a lot of them are conservative Baptists. My mom offered to talk to them for me, and I decided ultimately I didn't care what most of them thought but I did want her to talk to her mom, my Granny. My Granny has always only ever wanted the best for me, but I was worried that she wouldn't understand I didn't think I could handle that in person. My mom talked to her, and her only real questions were "So I call [Sophos] her now?" Yes, at the time "Is she going to change her name?" No, I changed my last name when I got married but I'm never dropping my first or middle name, and finally "Is this going to make her happy?" Yes, a million times yes. Ever since then she has only ever referred to me as her beautiful granddaughter. The first time I saw her after my mom talked to her, she asked if I wanted her to make me a dress (she's a seamstress and while her skills have declined slightly as her eyesight and manual dexterity have declined, she's still one of the best I know). This 72 year old (at the time, closer to 78 now) Southern Christian woman, who until the last couple of elections voted Republican, heard her grandchild was trans and embraced that as fully as she possibly could.
Adding on that my grand aunt, a woman who survived the Great Depression and who lost her only son to suicide far, far too young and who was a devout Catholic to her death was more accepting of my transness and me dating people of my biosex than any other member of my family was initially.
Before my mom really came around, before my dad stopped talking about how much he didn't get it, she accepted me.
I told her, worriedly tbh, that I'd like to be called something else. And she called me that. No questions, no fussing, just a flat out okay.
My very catholic (as in, went to church all the time and was good friends with the priests at her parish and would invite them over all the time) great grandmother actually did have Alzheimer's, and you know what she said to me before her memory really fell apart? "Know that I accept and love you for who you are. My memory is getting bad and I might not remember your new name, but I love you and I'm happy for you". I hold that memory in a very special place and it means so much that she let me know she accepted me before she couldn't anymore. She ended up not knowing who I was at all not long after that, regardless of whether it was my birth name or my current one.
But sure, it's just the Alzheimer's that makes old people gender their trans family members correctly 🙄
@foropinionssake How do you feel after taking the biggest eating in Tumblr history?
Perfectly fine since this post was forever ago and the op and I had discussed it and I apologized. Welcome to the ancient chat tho
We did not discuss it. You sent me a dm and I ignored it. I just checked your blog and your pinned post does call intersex people mutants and you’re still going on about not being able to change your gender, so… don’t pretend I gave you any blessing.
Imagine coming back onto someone's post and just lying like OP won't see you. Bless.
wait wait! Are there really people who think that intersex is the mutation?
like, are you learn basic biology???
the species that divide into two sexes AND definitively are really not the majority…
plus…mutant really shouldn't be an insult. Like, it's one of nature's preferred methods of evolution, way above all else. I would say that it is THE means of diversification and therefore of adaptation and survival of life!!!
Diseases like the flu survive year after year thanks to its ability to mutate, for 1 example
while selective breeding to have only "good genes" in purebred pets gives a plethora of congenital diseases… ho and also go see our failure with bananas if you don't know the story yet :)
suffice to say that humanity's opinion on what a good gene is just doesn't work… most of the time it will be something insignificant, sometimes it saves a population then the changes in the environment make the gene before genial a nuisance like those people of island origin who have a gene which allowed them to optimize the assimilation of calories which has helped them for generations but at present predestines them to obesity, the gene is not bad, it is just an obeine or a fleo depending on the living environment
In short, reading this dig about intersex hurt me in addition to finding it totally absurd. just like the shortened grandparent = old = Alzheimer's (by the way for your culture there is a form of juvenile Alzheimer's which can start before the age of 50 ho and yes there are several Alzheimer's and the location affected in the brain can also vary )
On the other hand, all his stories about acceptance written above are good and do good :D