March Blog

    The sentence in this month's reading that stuck out to me most was, “In these ways, in this family system, I too was complicit in establishing and maintaining the appearance of heterosexuality, though I felt as though I did not have much of a choice to live, or identify, otherwise; there were too many risks with identifying as queer, some of which I experienced after coming out to my relatives”, from Family Bullies by Berry and Adams. What the speaker means from this sentence is that he was born into a family and culture where being anything other than heterosexual was not promoted or accepted therefore he pressured himself into living with this false image. Besides the obvious risks of coming out as queer, Tony hints at how his family might have sensed him being gay and tried to have Danny “straighten” him up but after coming out to Danny Danny was more accepting.

    

    A similar example would from my own life. One of my fellow cadets is working towards obtaining a commision as an infantry officer. Being a soldier has been known as a man's profession especially being in the infantry. Her family is more “traditional” in the sense that they believe a woman's role is to be a mother and caretaker of the house, so for her to try to be a infantry officer is not widely accepted among her family. When she is with her family she acts as if she is trying to fill this role that they want her to be. When she is with me she makes jokes, drinks beer and lifts weights. When she is with her family she is much more calm and tries to act “lady like”. Since she is with her family so often she has embraced this role so much that she has even told me she has been thinking about switching her branch to a combat support role even though she's wanted to branch infantry for as long as I’ve known her. Although this is not a direct example it is still the same concept of being in a family system that embraces one ideology and therefore the kids feel pressured to play into that accepted role in fear of associated risks.

  

   Instead of living in this box of conformity enforced by their family systems more marginalized communities are coming out, especially since today minority groups such as LGBTQ and feminism are becoming more widespread and accepted. Living in fear of risks is one thing that prevents us from truly being able to live. I talked about this in the last blog post but it also relates in this situation. Standing up for what you believe in, especially when it’s controversial is extremely difficult and it takes a ton of courage but it is an extremely liberating feeling once you do. Also it can help bring you closer to people who feel the same way but are also scared they are alone in their fight. The entire article talks about the importance of autoethnography. Using people’s dialogue who have experienced similar situations can help others who are going through those situations feel not alone and also help those people understand themselves better and the their own circumstance. It has been engrained into us that family comes first, you can trust and feel safe around your family if no one else. Even if a family is close everyone is still their own individual person who has their own flaws and ways of seeing the world. It's important to embrace these differences or you're creating another hostile environment.