Jan 23rd, 2006
This probably hadn’t occured to you, either.
With few exceptions, when I meet someone outside of my professional work, I am asked what I do for a living within the first three to five questions. People who are teachers or accountants or plumbers are just making small talk when they answer the question “what do you do?” My honest answer to that question, however, is anything but small talk. Sometimes explaining what I do for a living prompts people to provide me with their unsolicited opinions about fire and brimstone, Ellen DeGeneres or the “gay gene.” But more often, they don’t know how to react except with, “That hadn’t even occurred to me.” (Tone and facial expression are remarkably similar to the forehead-smacking “I coulda had a V-8″ commercials.)
Here’s one of those many, many life situations that adult queerspawn face that simply would not occur to straight or queer people, parents or not. Chelsia, whose blog Wobbly Little Legs is on the blogroll at Oversampled writes about how at 28 she is pondering the possibility of coming out about her family in her ASL (American Sign Language) class.
Thanks for the post, Chelsia.