My Grandmother and I were watching an episode of ‘Cold Case’ together tonight and somehow that managed to turn into one of the biggest arguments we’ve ever had. I’ve revealed before, on this blog, how bigoted and close-mindedly judgmental she is but tonight took the cake. The case was from back in the 50s or so and there was this girl who never wanted to dress up like a girl and she liked the same things guys liked (cars ect.) and in truth she really reminded me of myself; independent, didn’t care what other people thought, tomboy. She wasn’t gay or anything just a tomboy, didn’t want to wear dresses or lipstick (just like me) and so it really struck home for me. She got kicked out of schools because she got bullied and taunted and tortured by both girls and boys.
One day her father got fed up with her ‘getting in trouble’ and put her in a mental hospital in the ‘gender disorder’ ward. They electro shocked her because she didn’t want to put on lipstick and practice ‘being a lady’. She didn’t even know what would happen if she didn’t obey but they didn’t care. The very first time they shocked her until she was a zombie. They shocked her with such a high voltage she couldn’t hardly sit up and while she was incapacitated they put her in a short red dress that looked like it belonged to a hooker.
I was so infuriated by this episode, I told my grandmother that I hate people because they are so ignorant. She told me the girl was stupid because she should have pretended to do what they want until they let her out but she only got shocked once, she didn’t even know what they were going to do, she just stood up and threw the lipstick and said there was nothing wrong with her. That’s what I thought too, that girl could’ve been me! She was standing up for what she believed and they pretty much killed her for it and my grandmother just kept saying that she should have pretended, which I agree, I probably would have pretended to get out of there but they practically lobotomized after one treatment.
I kept telling my grandmother that she was just trying to be who she was (thinking all the time that I wish I didn’t have to hide being a spanko) but she wouldn’t hear it and I kept insisting that people shouldn’t have to hide who they are. I compared it to Christians being fed to lions in the old days if they refused to renounce their religion. She (a devout baptist) critically and bitterly insisted it wasn’t the same. I told her that they were standing up for their beliefs, for the right to not have to hide who they are and to be able to live in peace.
She told me that what that girl was doing back then was like me dating a black person back in those times and I told her that if I fell in love with a black person I sure as hell would date them, then or now. Needless to say we argued heatedly (me thinking about what she would think of me if she found out I was a spanko) and we somehow started to get into race relations.
I went to middle and high school in a predominately black neighborhood. Middle school was HORRIBLE but it wasn’t because the people were black it was because all middle school age children are horrible and mean spirited angry individuals. She wouldn’t listen to a word I said, she actually said that desegregation helped black people to get a better education and that was good but didn’t help one single white person. I told her that diversity was good and it helped the white kids not grow up to be bigots.
I continued to stress that people shouldn’t be prosecuted for being born a certain race or for what they believe in. I brought up multiple examples like Jewish people being put in concentration camps and tortured and killed and Christians being fed to lions in ancient times for not converting and people being beaten and killed for standing up for women and civil rights. She said things have changed now and I said yes BECAUSE PEOPLE STOOD UP AND MADE CHANGE, that change didn’t happen without people not being satisfied with injustice that was present.
She said that people had to suffer for change and if you wanted a good life you had to ‘go with the flow’ I told her I would always stand up for what I believe. She said yes but you wouldn’t want to go live in a black community or something to make it better and I pointed out to her that earlier this year I was trying to sign up to go live in a third world country during this next summer and try to make life for people living there better (we didn’t have enough money to afford the trip but I tried). She said that was ‘the least selfish thing I’d ever said’ and that she was surprised because ‘I didn’t show that kind of initiative at home’. I nearly cried right there because my grandmother basically called me a stubborn, selfish brat and if i never did before, I knew then that I’d never be able to tell her about being a spanko, she never understands. She doesn’t even get that people should stand up for what they believe so they don’t have to live in hiding, that it’s not right that anyone has to live this way. She acted like gay people having to marry and then cheat on their spouse with same sex partners so satisfy their needs was the way it should be, she said change isn’t always for the better, she acted like people should do whatever they want as long as they keep it a secret and don’t ‘rock the boat’.
When I told her things were different now because of that suffering she said ‘not really’, that if I walked down the street holding hands with a black man that people would think ‘Well I know what he’s doing with her but what in the hell is she thinking, I know she could do better’. I couldn’t believe she said that, I told her the only people that would have a problem with it was old people like her, I admit that was a bit harsh but look at what she was saying! I couldn’t hold my tongue, all the time I am holding my tongue around her but she was saying people shouldn’t stand up for themselves, should just go along with society because that’s how things are done and should just sneak around to be themselves. She said ‘fuck you’ literally and walked off.
I don’t agree with that, I know that it’s wrong to persecute people for how they look or what they believe, I’m a nonsexual spanko damnit and a tomboy and I’ll marry whatever man I fall in love with, Black, White, Japanese, Muslim, Hindu I don’t care. I had half a mind to tell her right then what I am but I knew then they’d just write it off as me rebelling for the sake of rebelling or for the sake of ‘shock value’ or something, never mind that I’ve had these feelings since I was a small child. Sometimes I really can’t stand to be around my family, I mean I just had to argue over 2000 years worth of injustice with my grandma and had her tell me ‘fuck you’. I really just need one person, just one I can talk to who won’t judge me or demand things from me I can’t give. I can’t even cry in front of my family, even though my mother’s in jail, my sister’s struggling keeping her job, the only job anybody in this household has and my own grandmother, the person most like myself in temperament and personality, just said ‘fuck you’ and walked away.
That’s what life and society holds for us spankos, it just says ‘fuck you’ and leaves you there hurting, without an outlet, feeling like a freak.