This is a guest post by Juliet. Juliet is a white, TAB woman who, after two and a half decades, is beginning to accept that she is destined to live the entirety of her life in her hometown of Knoxville, TN. She will begin attempting her academic hat trick (a PhD in Counseling Psychology) at the University of Tennessee this fall.
My grandfather will turn ninety in a few months, a week after I turn twenty-five. I’m not particularly close to most of my family, but my grandfather and I have always had something special. I was his first grandchild; he waited in the hospital every day after my mother gave birth and premature baby-me was struggling to survive. He’d come home, exhausted from work, and have me fall asleep on his chest at night. Because our father felt burdened by us, my grandfather would often pick my sister and me up from school, take us to arcades, buy us Legos, and invite us over for cartoons and McDonalds with our mom every Saturday night for years. He is one of the sweetest and most generous people I know.
For twenty four of the past twenty five years, he’s known me as his grandson. And when I transitioned to being his granddaughter, he was the last significant person I came out to. Neither my mom nor I had much of any idea how he’d respond; despite his personality, he was still a conservative from the Bible Belt who watches Fox News during most waking hours of the day. So you can imagine my relief when, despite fully comprehending what I was doing, his primary concern was with my well-being. He mainly just wanted me to feel ok and be happy. I almost felt silly for doubting at all.
In fact, he worried I would be afraid of him. He called me a few times soon after and, focusing hard, made a point to use my female name to show me that he didn’t want me to pull away from him. He wanted to do what he could so that I’d still want to visit him, still feel ok being close to him, still strive to maintain the kind of relationship we’d had before. No one else in my family did that. No one else specifically reached out to me, after I came out, to prove to me they really wanted to try to be accepting. In fact, much of my family who initially voiced reservations while reaffirming their “love and support” has lapsed into complacent avoidance and distance. There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that, Southern conservatism and all, my grandfather ultimately wants me to be happy and will love me no matter what.
Unfortunately, though, acceptance isn’t enough. There’s still the matter of names and pronouns. Naturally, most of my friends and family struggled with them for awhile. Many still invariably slip up. And as I continue to struggle with a lot of internalized transphobia, such slips always hurt and trigger. Calling people on it is almost always too much for me. But, fortunately, as time passes it’s less and less of an issue.
However, after two strokes and ninety years, you can imagine how it’s a steeper hurdle for my grandfather. He often had difficulty getting my name right before I transitioned (mentioning his son’s name instead), and this hasn’t made things easier. He still can’t really grasp what the transition *is*, and I think he’s past the point in his life where he could. He tries, he really really does.
But even though I know he’s trying, it still hurts. Being called “sir,” “buddy,” “good man,” “,” “grandson,” all in oblivious loving good nature, still makes me want to curl up in a dysphoric ball or run away.
He doesn’t mean to hurt. Hell, he gets it right as often as he does solely because he loves me. But it does hurts. And, sometimes, I do stay away. I intentionally spend less time with him. In self-preservation, I do the exact opposite of what he wants. Of what we want.
When the action of “calling out” within social justice spheres is questioned, I think of my grandfather. He has good intentions. He’s trying really hard. We have a long, loving history. But because I can’t call him out and he can’t fully change, our relationship is still damaged. And every time I visit him, even as it becomes less often and for shorter durations, I know I’m just going to have to accept being hurt if I want to keep him in my life.
As we activists delve into relentless assaults upon privilege, I think we often forget that personal core. It’s not just that privilege in and of itself is problematic. It’s not that we have checklists for “How Things Should Be,” crafted by aloof academics and faceless nonprofits. We call people on their microaggressions, on their ignorance, on their privilege because they hurt. They fucking hurt. And we don’t want to keep being hurt. We want to be safe. So too, we often really do want to stay and love and be happy where we’re at. But unfortunately, calling people out is the only way that is possible.
Calling out is difficult. As we’ve all experienced, it can get quite vicious and painful for everyone involved. In our rush to protect ourselves, we so often forget about the humanity and vulnerability of the person we’re debating. But it’s worth it. Because the alternative hurts, too. And even if that hurt isn’t nearly as visible, the cost of complacent silence can be so much higher.
I can’t call out my grandfather. And for months, I was worried that I’d have to sever our relationship entirely. But my mom finally listened, finally understood *why* I was so wary of being around him. And when she listened, she started calling him out. Gently. And never perfectly. But enough so he did change. Enough so I can be present in the last few years of his life while maintaining most of the relationship we’ve always had. And it’s meant the world to him.
That’s why we watch our privilege. That’s why we call others on *all* their ignorance. Because even if it might be acrimonious at the time, it’s not about tearing us apart. It’s about creating a space where we can stay together.