My mom was a homophobe. I am a Dyke. Straights do not get this grief

[ggma]

6. My mother called me every thing in the book

But it wasn't because of anything I said; my sister outed me (more than once, to different people). I think she wanted to ease her own experience. Being the oldest, it was me; leading her astray. My stock answer to her became "prove it".

Twenty years later, she is in a nursing home and I brought her some of the lillies that grow around my house. She loved them. When I came back the next day, she was still enchanted, and told her they were called Naked Ladies. I leaned over and whispered in her ear " What else would a dyke have in her garden? "

She cried because that was her favorite taunt to me, and because it was the first time I had ever told her I was gay. Things were a little "softer" between until she passed away about a month later.

I received a LOT of family hatred in the eighties for quietly coming out; aunts, cousins and my own children.

I totally feel you, Iris.

gg