I’m having a conflation of thoughts this Hallmark holiday.

It started with wondering why some women get so bent out of shape about terms like “people who menstruate” or insist motherhood is sacrosanct — conferring absolute divinity because you managed to both get wasted AND forget your diaphragm on the same night. (Not ALL conceptions…)

And you know, for some, who actually LIVE that good mother truth, sure. I co-sign.

But every mother sure as hell ain’t a Mommy.

Before she left this earth, my own mother, heretofore “Toots”, had explained, in my presence, no less than a dozen times, how the pill is NOT 100% effective, and I am the physical evidence.

She also noted abortion wasn’t yet legal back then…

Toots was all about affirmation.

She also said often, “I probably shouldn’t have had kids” and her kids agreed wholeheartedly.

So while I have seen good mothering, it was not my general personal experience from the woman who bore me.

So when she occasioned to turn around and place expectations for how a mother was to be honored, I chose the attendant greeting cards carefully. They weren’t mushy. They made their obligatory point, often with humor, and that was that for another year.

Where I’m going with this is Here:

The tired arguments trotted out time and again against the LGBTQ+ community wanting or choosing marriage, parenthood, or any version of family unit — are hypocritical AT BEST.

Y’all desecrate your own institutions on the daily, but want to shield them from us.

Hint: we are your family! We are your offspring! You brought Us here!

While we are indeed absolute fucking Magic, we ain’t otherworldly.

You want to use the word sanctity as if your community has any right to the word.

Let’s turn the tables for a moment. Silly, I know, but let’s try.

You, if you identify as a member of the cishet (insert the Googles) community, are now responsible to explain, ad nauseam, the messiest example of your group.

Forever.

Every time we ask.

Because we won’t accept the validity of your existence as anything until you give us an acceptable explanation for all your mishaps and train wrecks.

Every. One.

You wanna celebrate your prolific vagina? You gotta go collect missy off the pipe. Until her kids are fed — you’re a failure, too.

Being a monolith isn’t fun, is it?

Some of y’all get off on telling Us about what’s “best” for children when y’all ain’t begun to take your own advice.

For example, what’s absolutely PROVEN to be BEST for trans children (they will always exist in Reality, as they have since humans began to human, and they’ll never be extinct) is gender affirming care including the timely use of (fully reversible) puberty blockers.

Later, at around 16, hormone therapy May be introduced where/as appropriate. Surgeries happen after the age of maturity. But you know that, because you’ve been told eleventy-hundred times already.

That’s BEST for THESE kids. And Their doctors agree.

Yet what trans youth are getting from y’all are laws proposed against their well-being, being banned from children’s play (sports is PLAY — it’s exercise and physical activity and nothing much more, for the love of Monsanto…) AND Othered literally to death.

Not good parenting. No card for You.

Many of our kids get kicked to the curb because of who they are.

If neighbor Betty threw out Dara because she ain’t answer to Matthew anymore — people like Betty (and you, by obvious extension) maybe shouldn’t be trusted with kids. I mean, you’re all the same, right? Like you think we are. So you own Betty’s bigotry.

Oop.

(Ask me one more goddamn time about Milo Yiannopoulos, I dare you. Besides which, he claims to be your problem now. Sorry not sorry.)

So for this Mother’s Day I suggest you start collecting your people. Do it for the children. We didn’t light this fire, and we shouldn’t have to extinguish it alone.

Be better.

Hell, Be Best.

Happy Sunday.