Last year, Veda explained why they chose not to discuss their queer identity with their Indian parents. Veda returns to update Juleyka on how moving back in with their parents has changed the family dynamics in surprising ways. They also reflect on their developing views on pronouns, gender fluidity, and finding allies among extended family.
If you loved this episode, listen to Veda's original episode Talking to Their Parents About Being Nonbinary.
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Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi, everybody. For the next few episodes, we're bringing you another installment of our OG Check-ins, the occasional series where we speak to some of our OGs, original guests, about how things have been going since we first spoke with them on the show. Today, I'm checking in with OG Veda. Vedas' episode aired on June 1st, 2021. Here's the clip.
Clip: Coming out to my parents about me not being cis, it's just something I do not even see on the horizon. That's because I don't think I want to have that talk with them. I don't want to take on that emotional labor. And I think that that's my prerogative.
It's far more beautiful and poetic to be completely open with your family and be able to... These were Western ideals though. Basically, I thought that there would be a happy ending that I'm supposed to pursue.
With my gender, oh my God, I would have to decolonize their minds. And do I have it in me to do that? Do I have it in me to teach two cis parents what being non-binary is? No. Hell no. I have time for other things, not this.
Lantigua: When Veda came on the show last year, they talked about their decision to not discuss their non-binary identity with their South Asian parents. For a OG check-in, I wanted to know if moving back home had changed the conversation Veda was willing to have with their parents and how cohabitating might be impacting the family dynamics. Let's get into it.
Veda: So, my name is Veda. I am a 23 year old. I just moved actually out of New York City. I'm in Florida for the time being, but I'm trying to figure out where to go next. And while I work remotely, I'll be here in the meantime.
Lantigua: Wow. Big move.
Veda: Yes. Yes.
Lantigua: So the last time that you came on the show, we talked about telling your parents, your family, about being non-binary; figuring out what to tell, what not to tell, where you want to put your energy. When you listened to your episode, what did you think?
Veda: Actually, I talked to my parent... I came out to my parents about being in a queer relationship, but I haven't talked to them about being non-binary. And I haven't actually talked to them still about my pronouns or my gender really in that way.
But since then, and it's like the strange timing. Yesterday I did find out that... My sister called me and she was like, "Hey, I think I accidentally outed you to our aunt." And I was like, "Oh, okay."
And she used my pronouns, which are they/them, when talking to my aunt and my aunt picked up on it. And it wasn't a bad interaction or anything, but she was like, "I just thought I'd let you know, in case that comes up. So, this is a conversation that I might be expected to actually have now.
Lantigua: So, what do you think you might say? What do you think your aunt might say?
Veda: I feel like between the two of us, it'll be like, I'm going to wait until they bring it up kind of thing. But I think it'll be a pretty interesting conversation because a lot of the time has passed since I even came out in the first place. And because even my relationship to my gender has changed since you and I last spoke.
Lantigua: How so?
Veda: Well, because I used to identify as non-binary I guess, but I don't know if it's that I thought about it more, I thought about it less in order to get here. But I think it's more just that I'm gender fluid or I just don't know how coincide to gender in general.
So, I'm definitely not cis. And I think for the time being, I do prefer they/them as opposed to strictly she/her, but even now I'm starting to think maybe I'd be good with all pronouns.
And also since the last time we spoke, I have made friends with people who do use all pronouns or take any pronouns. And to me that kind of does seem freeing because putting that much meaning on the language, that alone feels really silly to me and frustrating. So yeah, I guess that's what I mean.
Lantigua: And also pronouns are really for other people's benefits in a way, because you never refer to yourself in a pronoun.
Veda: Exactly. Exactly.
Lantigua: Okay. But there's a radical difference between now and the last time we talked, which is that you are back living with your family now?
Veda: Yeah.
Lantigua: How's that going?
Veda: Honestly, it's been quite normal so far because I do work a nine-to-five. So, something also that I've been doing with my parents is trying to establish an activity based like a two-adult relationship where we talk about things that we're passionate about or we talk about family and we don't really talk too much about the past.
I've noticed, which I think has been really productive... For example, most of the time that I spend with my mom is sitting in this office room and co-working with her. We both just do our day jobs in the same room. And that's a really...
It's very comforting because the way that we socialize is more catered to the natural state of our relationship, which is we do talk about work a lot and we talk about ideas and like whatever career-based topics.
And then with my dad, we'll go on bikes together. We will eat together. We'll just do what actually belongs in the relationship that we have. So, so far, no unwelcome conversations have come up, which I think has been good for me. And it's not like I feel any resentment or hostility about my queerness at all, either because they've both definitely had enough time to come to terms with that too.
Lantigua: And it feels like there are so many other things you guys have in common too, right?
Veda: Yeah.
Lantigua: So I love that, actually. I really love that because sometimes it feels like the perpetual elephant in the room when you are holding onto something that big, that cannot be spoken, but it's in the absence of other things that you have in common that you can talk about, and that you can share, that you can commune over. You know?
So I listened back to your episode and one of the loveliest things that you said was that you and your sister had just come to, not even just accept, but sort of really rejoice in the fact that your parents are flawed humans.
And I want to know whether that is still the case, whether you're still having such grace toward them, whether it has been impacted in any way, by moving in together, by you also getting more comfortable with who you are and how you want to be in the world.
Veda: Yeah. There's a few things actually, revelations that I've had recently because I've been thinking a lot about how fleeting life is because right now I'm going through a loss of someone that I love a lot.
Lantigua: I'm sorry.
Veda: It is a part of life and I'm thinking about how this is a part of adulthood. As you grow, you continue to lose people and it teaches you to approach life in different ways. You have to live without that kind of fatalism that, "I'm going to lose this person, so I have to love them." It's more like, "No, you just have to live with that truth."
And I think in light of that, I've been thinking about my relationship to my parents and how I want us to be able to remember our relationship down the line. And one thing is, I think I've put a lot of pressure on them to be the parents that I've been told by whatever, by Western society is like an appropriate type of parent.
And the other thing is, I've based so much of my self worth on their approval, which isn't my fault, but it's something that I really need to work against because it's actually led me really far from what my true... my honest objectives in life are.
And it's also actually maybe contributed to a lot of conflict in my family because I'm very sensitive to their approval or rejection or that kind of thing. So being able to see them as flawed humans has also allowed me to see them as people that I don't need to just impress all the time, but people that I just need to respect and in turn, I deserve their respect as well.
Yeah. I think that's also just a part of growing up, especially with parents who are immigrants. It's like being aware of the cultural differences and the generational differences and being realistic with what we can expect and also knowing that I have needs that won't be met by them, so I deserve to find community elsewhere.
Lantigua: Actually. I wanted to ask you a little bit about finding that community. Within your family, have you found other folks that are maybe more ready, that are maybe more open-minded, that are more hip to how it is to be in the world as you, and then how have those relationships evolved in terms of you sharing with them, them sharing with you?
Veda: It's interesting. Yeah, that's definitely the case. I have a couple aunts who I talk to much more freely about my identity and what's interesting too is I think I talk to my mom more freely now. I've been able to see her progress, even though she was the one who definitely had the hardest time with me coming out to her. She has taken a lot of responsibility to learn or at least to accept things about me.
But yeah, no, I have a few relatives who I've been able to be open with, who also might not receive all the approval from our older family. And it made me realize that, yeah, sometimes the people who are the most approachable are the people who aren't looked up to the most in my family.
Veda: Yeah, no, I guess it's just a testament to how unimportant it is what others think of you and that applies to family as well.
Lantigua: Okay. My last question is a little bit of a broader question because I was having this conversation with a close friend of mine about, when we are living in a world now where it is celebrated, accepted, normalized to be fluid but when we're also so many other things, how much do you feel or how much should anyone feel that they have to present that part of themselves when there are so many parts of themselves, right?
Lantigua: And we really got into it because one of her children is now beginning to identify as queer, and she was born and basically raised cisgender, female. I'm her auntie, the adopted friend auntie. And so, I want to be all in the conversations. I want to learn. I want to understand, right.
How much of that is anybody's business? How much of that does she have to bring to a job interview? How much of that does she have to bring on a date? Right. So anyways, I'm not asking you to give me the answer to the question. I'm wondering if you think about these things also because you obviously are also a multifaceted person.
Veda: Oh my gosh. I think about this so much in so many different contexts. One being the difference between how I feel I need to display my identity now whereas when I lived in New York. And it's nobody's fault, but I definitely did feel a lot of pressure to be more public about my identity because-
Lantigua: In New York you mean?
Veda: Yeah. Yeah. And I do think that queerness is one of those things that's often co-opted to bolster one's identity and it's like some sort of edge, social edge. It gives you access to these exclusive spaces that should remain exclusive. But yeah, it can be really complicated. So, that's one angle of it.
It got really frustrating to me because I was like, "There's a lot of people I don't relate to who are saying that they relate to me and I'm very confused. We use the same identifier language and we're so different. So, what's that about?"
And that can lead to a lot of resentment, but also, I have to remind myself everyone is entitled to their identity and it's so personal. So yeah, I had to let that one go.
Veda: And then also, I guess the other thing that I'm thinking about too is you were saying, you're an auntie for this, I don't know, daughter-figure for you maybe, or child, person who's queer.
Lantigua: Yeah.
Veda: [inaudible 00:12:42].
Lantigua: She's a senior in high school about to go to college and having all of these very real moments of, "Well, who am I in the world?" You know?
Veda: Yeah. And this person that I'm actually getting prepared to lose right now, she always calls herself my surrogate mother and she calls me her daughter. And I think I came out to her before I came out to my parents.
She was my childhood piano teacher, but we quickly became really, really good friends. I've known her since I was four or five. And I'm thinking about how open, how accepting she was of me and how she would say things like, "If I was guaranteed I could have a child that came out like you, I would've had one," but it's like, you're never guaranteed that.
And maybe it's easier for her to be so accepting of me because I'm not hers. That's something I think about too, because I don't think my parents are bigoted necessarily, but I do think that the tensions that we had when I was open with them about myself, those tensions only rose because I'm their child. I bring it back to this because they felt so deceived because I hadn't been more obvious about my queerness before.
Lantigua: How? [inaudible 00:13:59]
Veda: Right. Which is actually not true because I had tried to open these conversations with them about it. But I think a part of being read by your identity, whether it's in your gender or your whatever, really, that is never in your control.
So at the end of the day, you do have to relinquish control over how others see you and find peace within yourself with who you are and be okay with people being wrong sometimes, but at least making the effort to get your pronouns right.
Lantigua: True. This is very true. I think for parents, it's very difficult to separate what they tried to imbue you with versus how you just came out, how you just made yourself.
Veda: Yeah.
Lantigua: I mean, I'm raising two little ones and sometimes I just look at them like, "Where did you even get that from? Nobody in our family does that. Where did you even get that?" Like weird mannerisms.
Veda: Yes. Yes. And my mom says that to me all the time. She's like, "But you do belong in this family after all. You are one of us. So, why are you running away?" And it's like, "I'm really not. I'm just the first of grown up here."
Lantigua: Right, exactly. Veda, thank you so much for coming. I'm so glad you came back. I'm so happy for this update. Thank you.
Veda: Of course.
Lantigua: Thank you. Thank you.
Veda: Thank you for having me.
Lantigua: Veda's original episode is called talking to their parents about being non-binary. You can find it in our feed and on our website. We've also linked to it in the episode notes.
Thank you for listening and for sharing us. How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the show producer, Kojin Tashiro is our mixer, Manuela Bedoya is our marketing lead. I'm the creator, Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram we’re @TalkToMamiPapi. Bye, everybody. Same place next week.
CITATION:
Lantigua, Juleyka, host. “OG Check-in: Still Not Ready to Speak with Parents about Being Nonbinary.”
How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything,
LWC Studios., July 25, 2022. TalkToMamiPapi.com.