My thoughts on staying with my uncle and aunt for three days

She doesn’t judge me based on my clothing choices and says while she wouldn’t wear what I do she doesn’t want to make me feel bad. She knows everyone is different. My uncle sometimes said Ashley I’m hot just looking at you with the coat on it’s not that bad in this house ( that’s rude) . They have the air conditioning on in the house. When the weather changed at last minute I didn’t have all my warm layers that I needed and I hated being underdressed for 74-75 degrees though I wore layers along with midweight jackets and pashmina scarfs. Sweaters, pants socks with light weight boots annd leggings under my skirt. I don’t know how people in when it’s 70-75 can walk around in in shorts and t shirts and sandals. 70 degrees is winter attire time 75-80 is transitional attire time not summer. . And have no warm clothes on And the last few days have been chilly outside too though extremely muggy and humid. I had a blanket and a comforter to sleep with the central air conditioning in my cousins room especially on Thursday. Her mother is a Jehovah’s Witness. Yes I can’t believe I was asking questions of a Jehovah’s Witness not that I’m interested in becoming one especially with how strict their belief system is but I was curious despite myself. Her mother just mentioned it in passing because she was attending a Jehovahs witnesses convention. We stayed up several hours talking about life philosophy and serious topics and me asking questions about her religion. I told her how I felt door to door proselytizing was extremely disrespectful and about my negative experience with jehovah witness youth as a 13 year old. I also find disfellowshipping to be downright cruel and bigoted. Couples can’t be alone together until they are married..She was a pleasant lady to talk to though and I found out more about Armageddon and how people who are dead are sleeping until Christ comes back and resurrects them. Only 144,000 people are going to heaven. But the rest will live on earth without problems.like sickness and poverty. She was originally Catholic. Women can’t be elders in the religion and you can’t be lgbtqia and Jehovah’s Witness because it is not accepted. But she quietly listened to me and I told her part of my life story. She said she liked me from the bottom of her heart very much though we disagreed on things. When she left the next day she even came to my room and said goodbye to me and gave me a hug. She said I love you. This was an 81 year old woman who came from Portugal when she was a young adult. She knows I am attracted to someone regardless of gender. Also I didn’t know jehovah witnesses could drink a tiny bit of wine. Apparently they can get ear piercings and wear jewelry but not tattoos and yes apparently they are allowed to dance. As long as it’s modest dancing . They can go to university and work normal jobs. But they don’t vote or join the armed forces.they also don’t do blood transfusions. They don’t celebrate Easter and Christmas or many holidays because of pagan origins. They don’t celebrate birthdays. It seems like a very strict and joyless existence. Also the woman is supposed to be a partner to her husband and the husband is supposed to treat her well but the woman is submissive to her husband as head of household. That just jarred me. You can’t be gay and a Jehovah’s Witness. I told my aunt in laws mom about polytheism and worshipping the feminine aspect of the godhead especially Wicca and Hinduism, her mother liked to talk and my aunts dad passed away about six years ago.she asked me what church my sister went to now. Because my grandmother told her before. She got told that. Allyson converted to.a new Christian religion. I told her my sister converted to. Being. Baptist from nominally catholic. I didn’t expect to have such an interesting conversation Wednesday night. I told.my aunt about being intersex and pansexual and she accepts those things about me. My uncle knows I can’t help being intersex and pansexual and didn’t say anything. He was reevaluating what he originally said about same sex couples being open and public with their affections. Though my uncle is an old school conservative. Portuguese Catholic he never stopped loving me. He doesn’t treat me any differently than before. My aunt admits she feels bad for people who are transgender and they go through so much. But she feels it is not natural sometimes. And she says gender fluidity sounds like multiple personality disorder and all these new terms which she had to learn at work like asking someone how they identify and what forms of. Address and pronouns they use to be very confusing. She said it’s hard from someone on the outside to understand. She will respect everyone but is it necessary for her to know this? My family. Still treats me like a girl. My aunt and uncle are fifty five years old. Times were simpler when they were younger. My parents also get confused about new gender identities.they understand. Identifying as a male, female, or both or neither. But beyond that they get so confused. They are also confused about why my friend sunny wants to transition to be a man but to have an open relationship with a guy. They refer to sunny as him and he but occasionally they have slipped up because. Sunny looks female still and stopped taking
Testosterone because it was affecting his mental health and interacting with other medications. Sunny is patient when people slip up as long as it is not intentional but I can imagine being misgendered is a blow to his pride.

I know the world works on assumptions. In everyday interactions, nobody asks me what I identify as. They Simply assume I’m female. I have been called she and her automatically even in the social security administration office. Everyone around me uses the term you guys as a general term of address. Luckily it doesn’t trigger me. But I could imagine for someone more sensitive to those kind of things it would be annoying. I got called lady to miss to ma’am. Luckily my gender identity. Matches my phenotypical sex though not my genetic sex. Most people I have told I am intersex or hermaphrodite simply don’t. Believe me and think I am joking for the first few seconds. Other times people get intersex confused with transgender and look at me with utter shock and disbelief on their faces. My medical provider was one such. Individual despite her trying to keep her expression neutral. Most of my family knows I’m. Intersex but sometimes have forgotten. So overall an interesting week. My aunt Nicole when talking about lgbtqia + issues with me learned that in some countries you can be jailed for being lgbtqia or worse put to death. That shocked her. When growing up she wanted to go to Australia and Egypt to see the pyramids. I want to see Egypt and other countries that are not lgbtqia friendly. So I would have to keep it to myself if I traveled there ever in the future.

Also my mother was back with the expression of giving me disbelieving glances at how I was dressed today. And her commenting on my appearance and clothes again I didn’t miss that. When she tried taking off my pashmina scarf and unbuttoning my coat when I was unpacking my stuff I told her to knock it off and I took it back. . I didn’t want to hear her say she expects basic functioning. And I don’t want to be the reason Allyson wants to leave. Seriously like my clothing not meeting acceptable standards of normalcy would make my sister want to leave the house. I don’t appreciate my mother accusing me of being the reason my sister wanted to leave.she said she is going back to dysfunction.my parents can be so mean with what they say sometimes.