When I say the phrase “chosen family”, it means the family that I surround myself with and the people in my biological family that I like. People like my little sister, Aunt Lori and Uncle Jim fit this category by default. I don’t exactly know whether or not my grandmother would as she hasn’t really talked with me since I’ve started using my new name and told her that I am working on a serious path that will lead to a sex change. My grandmother, from all accounts, is a very religious woman (she lives in Texas so I am certain you can guess which religion) and she works as a receptionist at a church in Clear Lake. Of course, since I have not talked to her on the subject, it could go either way. Hell, my Uncle Jim is a Episcopalian minister and has accepted me as I am and is working on trying to regender me in his mind, even though I act badly and chastise him when he makes mistakes, which is wrong (although, he lived in Sacramento for years so that could also affect his ideology).
And of course, there’s the issue of a partner, as I plan to start my own family with my own cute little lesbian and have a beautiful family with two moms and lots of love. Of course, this actually means attracting a lover (the word ‘partner’ sounds like something you’d use if you were about to open a business with this person), and even then, this also assumes marriage, adoption and all the other neccessary stuff to actually make us a ‘family’. And in Colorado, this is horribly impossible (for adoption, marriage and the other stuff) thanks to the hatemongers that seem to be centralized over in Colorado Springs and cry persecution and bad government when the LGBT community seems to have some hope of gaining more equal rights. So, this would mean waiting until more of the conservative Supreme Court judges die off and get replaced by moderates (I would prefer liberals, but for constitutional fairness, we need moderates!) and then start a case in the supreme court to try to get Colorado’s marriage and adoption bans lifted. Or it could be that we would need to move to a state that has less restrictive and homophobic marriage and adoption laws, such as Massachusetts or California (by the way, please vote no on proposition 8!).
Chosen family is an ideal right now in the LGBT community and it makes sense. If your family can’t come to terms with who you are right now, it would make sense to try to give them some space and time until they realize that how toxically they treated you would not change who you are at the core and that gay people are just as human as they are and our relationships are just as valid as theirs are. Remember, we just have to wait until the older generation starts getting better educated about who LGBT people are and the newer generation starts taking power. I am proud to see that there is a new generation of leaders in this country that will rise up and hopefully learn about LGBT issues from people who they matter most to, the wonderful activists and leaders in our community.
Until then, chosen family is needed. And I believe the family I have chosen is very helpful towards my transition and will hopefully forgive me for my inability to see them due to the fact that I have to save my money/resources for transition and surgeries (being transsexual is expensive, let me tell you!). But I do love and care about them and I would do anything for them if I could. And I hope one of these days, I will get a partner who will love and care about me, and will love and be loved by my chosen biological family. And I hope that she will be a woman who will want to adopt children with me, get married to me and hopefully stay with me in a loving, long-term commitment. But until this time, I am satisfied with what I have in the here and now.
