So speaking of me and transition, with apologies to everyone who thinks I'm really brave, I actually got my mom to tell everyone on her side of the family. Because if I was getting disowned I wanted to know, but not to my face, you know?

Anyway my cousin who is not a complete weirdo of an evangelical Christian has just contacted me on FB messenger. We are playing what I can only describe as conversational chicken, where she isn't gonna ask about it outright and I'm not gonna bring it up.

But I can tell from knowing her my whole life she REALLY wants to ask. And honestly at this point I'm just trolling.

"How are you?"
Can't complain, things are going pretty well. How about you?
"Anything new at the farm?"
Just separated the ewes out to give em extra food for lambing. How are the boys doing?

"Your mom told me your news!"
Yeah I'm really pleased I'm doing well enough to pay an assistant, he makes a big difference.

(I almost heard her screaming down there in Alabama after that one)

Being bound by Southern codes of politeness she is now forced to pretend she is interested in hearing about Intrepid Assistant.

Hahaha she's trying a new angle
"Pittsboro sounds pretty small, have you had a hard time finding doctors?"

I told her about my epic psych meds difficulty.

I learned to troll from my mom. See, my dad is... I don't want to make him sound like a total dick. But it will explain a lot if I tell you that while when I came out to him as trans he accepted that 100% and is behind me all the way, my tattoos bug the fuck out of him.

Being transgender: just fine.
Being tattooed from my knuckles to the sides of my head: VISIBLE BRANDS OF A WORKING CLASS SUBCULTURE AND NOT RESPECTABLE AT ALL

You dig? Dad comes from old money but not, like, *Republican* old money. Respectability is a big thing for him.

So anyway back in the day when he and my mom were still married, mom took up ballroom dance. It involves a lot of things that offend his sensibilities, like bright colors, energetic music, sequins, and suggesting that perhaps you have emotions in public.

So he suggested to mom that maybe what she needed was not a hobby but a part time job. I'm sure he was thinking she'd go put her extensive experience as an administrative assistant back to use. When she retired she worked for the president of Northern Illinois University.

My mom on the other hand was like "oh you think I need a job now because I'm having fun. Ok. I'll get a job."

And with a smile on her face and glitter on her eyelids she went off and got a job as a cashier at the sex toy store.

I'm still being mean to my cousin.
"When do we get to see you again?"
After the pandemic. Might look pretty different though.
"Oh?"
Yeah I've started shaving my head to show off my tattoos.

Y'all this is affectionately trolling family. I know what she wants to know. She knows I know, and that I'm fucking with her because for some reason she won't just say "transition" or "transgender". In my family fucking with each other is how we say "I love you".

Please note that my weirdo evangelical cousin hasn't reached out to me at all to let me fuck with her (there's an element of playing along here, or competition, neither one of us is gonna crack first and bring it up anyway)

She has resorted to asking about the dogs. I have won.

My mom actually once trolled her own mother in my defense, which was hilarious.

It was Christmas and I must have been 16 or 17 because I had driven a car down to Kentucky so I had a vehicle to get around in.

Anyway my grandmother kept badgering me about did I have a boyfriend? No, mamaw. How many boyfriends did I have, then? None, mamaw. Well why not? Etc etc etc. She loved me, so she was fucking with me. But it was beginning to grate on my nerves.

But being southern and therefore being required to abide by nearly pathological rules of respect for one's elders, I couldn't just say "none of your damn business, mamaw, and anyway I might bring a girlfriend home did you think about THAT??"

So I took my mom aside and was like "mom I cannot take this, I'm gonna pack up and go back up to Illinois."

Mom says don't worry about it, she'll take care of the problem and I don't need to go anywhere.

All right. I trust my mom.

We sit down for dinner that night and my grandma starts in again and asks me when I'm going to bring a boy home for Christmas.

My mother, without missing a beat or indeed even really interrupting her own meal, just casually tosses off, "Mom, Shepherd won't be bringing any boys home. She's a lesbian."

My whole goddamned extended family was at that table y'all and everything and everyone just. Stopped. Except for my mom, who finished filling her plate with barbecue and fixins and started eating like she had not dropped a nuclear level bombshell.

Nobody wanted to ask if she was serious. I was busy trying not to bust out laughing and give everything away, which meant I was holding my breath and trying not to make strangled noises.

Finally my grandaddy demanded that someone pass him the slaw and the spell was broken. And collectively the next time anyone in my extended family mentioned a significant other of mine was when I got married 16 years later.

My grandaddy was also an epic troll. He called my weirdo cousin's husband by the wrong name for TEN YEARS. We're pretty sure he did it by accident the first time but then nobody corrected him (see: pathological southern respect for elders) so he KEPT. DOING. IT.

He called that poor man Keith for a decade no matter how many times my weirdo cousin and other family members called him by name, loudly, in the same room. All because the dude would never just say "JD, my name is Glen."