More processing sorry

[cosmolinguist]

It's really sad to me how emphatic the response of "yeah, don't come to the U.S. now" has been from my pals who are there.

It's frustrating that a lot of the family I won't be seeing at this funeral (not my parents, but all the rest of them, including my grandma if she was physically able to vote in November) voted for a situation where I couldn't come back to be there with them.

To be clear, there are many reasons this would be difficult. And I fully expect to just have to drag up and style it out at some point. But the fact that this alone is sufficient for everyone to be like "yeah no don't"... Feels bad!

I've always been haunted by my what my mom told me her horrible sister's husband's response was when Mom was outraged at the Supreme Court decision overturning of abortion rights: "What do you care, you don't need one."

Not only is that morally bankrupt thinking on the face of it, but sometimes the guy they claim they voted for because eggs are too expensive is also gonna make it dangerous for their """niece""" or whatever to be at important family occasions. They're not as unaffected as they think.

But they'll never know. I didn't want to explain to my parents and even if I tried they wouldn't understand and even if they did they wouldn't relay the message to the extended family and even if all that happened nobody would believe this or reflect on it or think or do anything differently in future so why bother trying. I'm not their very important life lesson.

Comments

[cmcmck]

And if you do have to drag up what will Trump's brownshirts make of a guy in a dress with five o'clock shadow, body hair and a male voice anyway?

It'd be like me in one of his suits with a fine display of 38B and mid back length well style hair. A girl in a guy's suit........

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah I haven't seen my parents/been to the U.S. in like a year and a half, among other things that was only a month since I started testosterone so I don't think it had any noticeable effects yet. I've always been confident in my competence at this kind of drag but I'm out of practice and yeah I haven't had the most dramatic effects but I definitely am a lot more hairy now and something is happening to my voice.

[barakta]

Having seen you IRL recently, I can confirm your voice has changed a lot, you might still get away with it if parents have done video/phones and got used to it over time but I would say you pass pretty clearly masculine and not sure how much you could reframe to butch lesbian as it were, but I would worry TSA would/could be horrific either way.

I admit to feeling sadly relieved you aren't going to the US this soon, I worry as much as the Trump stuff might get stopped eventually, it's given permission to any shithead to be shitty as well as the impact of you on dragging up. In some ways I read your mum's message about your facial hair as noticing and I kinda wonder if she knows more about your transness than she'd ever let on to herself never mind you, but that she's scared enough for you to say what she did, as hurtful as I know that was. I also wonder if that's why she's not argued more for you to come to the funeral with your reason that you gave her despite being sad, a clearly obvious possible outcome from her warning. (I hope it is not out of place for me to comment on my thoughts on this as such).

Sending you much love and you are in my thoughts right now (and often are when I see USA stuff).

[cosmolinguist]

Having seen you IRL recently, I can confirm your voice has changed a lot, you might still get away with it...

Truly this is very useful to know, thank you! I haven't been like intentionally changing it or doing any formal voice training, I'm not averse to it but with :waves hands: everything else going on, it isn't something I've devoted a lot of thinking to!

I also know you've said before that lower voices/men's voices are harder for you to make out, so please do say if there's anything I should be more careful about when I'm doing the mouth words at you.

I worry as much as the Trump stuff might get stopped eventually, it's given permission to any shithead to be shitty

Yeah, this is my main concern at this point, and it feels like the stakes are even higher if I were to visit for a funeral than if it were just a "normal" trip there; to get that close and still miss it would have been even worse I think.

I read your mum's message about your facial hair as noticing and I kinda wonder if she knows more about your transness than she'd ever let on to herself never mind you

A friend suggested she might be perceiving the facial hair as like the continuation of the PCOS hairs I always had, or maybe menopause or something, and thinking that I'm just not doing anything about it because I'm too blind to notice. Which actually makes the most sense of anything I've heard. I think it's either that or what you say about knowing-more-than-she-lets-herself-know, or some combination of the two.

I hope it is not out of place for me to comment on my thoughts on this as such

It never is, it's really valuable for someone as perceptive as you and who's known me as long as you have. I always appreciate it! Thanks for checking though.

[redbird]

Processing is one of the things Dreamwidth is for.

Part of why I was saying no, don't go, is that if you did drag up for those people, they would either take it for granted, or be critical of how you were doing it. I might do the math differently if it was just a question of whether you would be allowed on a plane, but this would also have been days of dragging up, and for the benefit of people who don't understand because they choose not to.

[cosmolinguist]

if you did drag up for those people, they would either take it for granted, or be critical of how you were doing it.

Probably both. :)

This is so so perceptive, and I really appreciate it. You're exactly right and I wasn't able to see it myself yet, it helped so much to have you articulate this. Thank you.

[redbird]

You're welcome, I'm glad it helped.

[otter]

You are my friend. That's my immediate response to your last sentence. My thoughts are swirling about the rest and not moldable into coherent sentences. So, you are my friend and I love and care about you.

[cosmolinguist]

You're my friend and I love and care about you too. :)

[silveradept]

You do not owe them anything more than yourself, and yourself would be difficult to accomplish in that space in this time, even if you could sail past all the potential official and governmental blockades.

[ailbhe]

I've only just caught up with all this so I've gone from worried about you going to the US to relieved you're not, as well as thinking it's probably just as well not to attend the funeral and surrounding visiting regardless of its location, given the layers of family dynamics.

[sfred]

:-( <3