u/Top_Organization3101

If you are anti gay or anti trans kids skip this post as I will not engage with bigots on the internet. My kid is perfect the way she is and doesn’t need “saving”.

Buckle up, this is a long story and one hell of a shit-show.

Some background- I had recently moved in with my parents after receiving a terminal diagnosis after multiple X-rays, blood tests, and an MRI confirmed I had a service connected lung disease due to burn pit exposure when I was deployed to Iraq back in my 20s. Other than suffocating when I lie down and getting short of breath sooner than I should, I’m in the early stages and still fully capable otherwise. I don’t need any assistance yet and won’t for several years. I had been living in another state for several years prior but my mom asked me to move in to spend the last of my “good days” spending time with family before I get to where I do need help.

I currently get 80% disability but I’m under review by the VA and have already been told by my doctor definitely getting the raise to 100% with my terminal diagnosis, the VA just has to process it so it’s a waiting game. Despite that, since I’m still physically able and I’m not the sedentary type and will climb the walls if I’m not doing something I was looking for jobs I could do in my parent’s town.

I’m also openly not Christian (I’m Pagan and worship the Greek pantheon) and have very obvious religious tattoos on my arms but my family is primarily Southern Baptist or Catholic. I will pray with my family (I just silently pray to the old gods, not the new) and when the odd bigot says they’ll pray to God for my soul I say Thank you, I’ll pray to my Gods for theirs too. POS has always hated this about me.

I have a 16 y/o daughter and have a joint custody verbally agreement with her father who despite his failings as a husband (cheater) is a surprisingly great coparent. Our daughter came out when she was 10 (I suspected she was either gay or bi when she was 4 and came home from her first day of preschool absolutely crushing over a girl “with the most beautiful smile and I want to see her smile all the time” but didn’t want to force any labels on her and waited for her to come to her own conclusion on what she liked. She came out to family as bi at 10 and started dating exclusively girls just this year when she realized all the guys she tried to date were strongly feminine in features and they still gave her a kinda yucky feeling she didn’t get with girls.

My parents are going through a LOT right now as my dad had a heart attack last year and my mom had surgery Monday on a hernia in her diaphragm where her stomach had pushed past it and was compressing her lungs and their youngest great-grandbaby also was diagnosed with an aggressive childhood cancer, and their youngest daughter (me) got my diagnosis.

Dad is not my bio dad (I’m the product of my bio mother’s affair with a married man) but Dad met and married my bio mother when I was a newborn and been there my whole life even after my parents divorced when I was 10, so he’s never been considered a step dad, he’s just Dad.

Mom is also not my bio mother. Dad remarried when I was 11 and my meth addicted bio mother moved out of state with us kids and started pimping my twin sister and I for drug money when I was 12. I escaped when I was 16 and my (step)mom has been my only Mom since.

Mom has a daughter (12 years older than me) from a previous marriage who had 3 boys, the oldest one has always been my mom’s golden child grandkid who could do no wrong ever even when he’s been on the run from warrants over several years and is the POS in this situation.

The POS has strong religious ideas about ‘the sin of homosexuality’. He’s also a convicted meth dealer and fentanyl addict (according to him he would never touch meth because it’s trash and all meth addicts are trash but it’s fine to sell to support his fentanyl habit) who just got out of rehab last week. He’s been seen by both his brothers hanging out with the same guys he was using and dealing with before he got arrested and went to rehab.

*enough of the background, here is what happened yesterday*

Mom had a large family get together this Saturday to celebrate the POS getting out of rehab. I agreed to no political talk and no talk about “his previous life choices” before he ever arrived as he needs all the support he can get to stay clean. I know he’s not staying clean, the rest of the family knows he’s not staying clean, but’s her house and I respected her wishes. It’s not my place to lecture him and I can be polite for a family event.

POS made a comment about with my kid being 16 I’m probably going to be a grandma in 5 or so years and his brother lightheartedly quipped without thinking about who he was talking too not likely since my daughter prefers girls.

POS whipped he’s head around to me, literally sneered, and asked me if I really allowed it. I told him I allowed my kid to be herself and all I care is that she’s alive, healthy and happy and he started his usual bullshit about what his God says. I told him if he wants to have a meaningful discussion about religion I’m game but if he’s going to hate on my kid or gays in general save his breath as my kid is not up for discussion. My dad heard this part of our conversation and didn’t say a word, just gave a little nod and walked off. Mom was further away in another conversation and heard a snippet of POS taking about God and the word gay and yelled at us to drop the subject while glaring at me. I didn’t start it and was actually trying to end it, but whatever. Message received subject dropped.

POS started on again almost immediately after her attention was drawn elsewhere about how it’s a sickness and gays should go to conversion camps and I started telling him my kid is absolutely not sick and as his God is not my God I care about what the bible says about my kid about as much as he cares about what the Quran says about women covering their heads (he hates Muslims and thinks they should all be round up and killed) and both my parents yelled at just me only this time to drop it. Again, whatever.

My dad walks away from me at this point to talk to one of my other nephews (I was basically trapped in my chair by POS so me leaving too wasn’t an option) and then POS lowered his voice a little and in an almost sympathetic tone said “a lot of lesbians just need a good dicking” and that “he’s converted gays before” and “it’s not incest since they’re not blood related”. I quietly said absolutely fucking not and get the fuck away from me.

I was civil the rest of the time and figured I would tell my Dad about it later.

After the guests left later I told my dad I was upset about something POS said and he said to go ahead and tell him about it I and I was immediately cut off the moment he realized it was about conversation about my kid and screamed at me about disrespecting family and my mother by bringing anything up in the first place- again, I was never the one who did bring any of it up, nor was I the one continuing the conversation and I had tried to steer it away despite the fact that I was getting visibly upset from the get go.

A lot of yelling went back and forth with me trying to get him to just let me talk and tell him what happened, then he would tell me to go ahead and talk and then I would start again. Before so ever got to the gross pedo part he would interrupt me and tell me I’m being childish by not respecting Mom’s request of no political discussion, conversation over. I responded conversation absolutely not over and POS was lucky I didn’t knock the rest of his teeth out, Dad just needed to listen to me for a second.

He then interrupted me again and told me my daughter is going to face bigotry her whole life because she’s gay and I just have to deal with it. I said yes she will have to deal with it her whole life and I will fight anyone and everyone right beside my only child with my dying breath.

Mom heard the yelling came downstairs and started in on it too and I said if I can’t even talk to them about POS then I’ll just call my Uncle since I no longer had an apartment out of state to move back to.

Dad told me go call my great-uncle then, thinking I was bluffing and trying to pull some manipulative childish bullshit. Went to my room and called my uncle and simply told him my parents and I had an argument about POS and he didn’t need any explanation as he knew POS history. He was running some errands for the farm- my uncle raises beef cattle- but would head my way when he was done. I started packing.

Dad says if I go to my uncles I am no longer his daughter. I told him I will always stand up for my kid even if it means I am no longer his daughter and he told me to pack my shit in the truck, he’s driving me there himself right now.

While packing everything up it was discover POS had stollen a weeks worth of my Sertraline I take for PTSD from a SA and some cash- I only had $4 but the amount isn’t the point- from my wallet when he went come in the house to supposedly take his youngest son to use the toilet.

Mom and I had the text conversation attached during my ride.

2 hours of long quiet car ride later and I’m writing this from my uncle’s guest room that he’s said is mine as long as I want.

Mom called after Dad left. She had asked POS what happened and he happily admitted everything he said because he was ‘just offering to do family a favor’. Mom apologized again over the phone. Mom NEVER apologizes, so those apologies over both text and over the phone are huge. She also asked me to come back. I told her they both chose her golden grandchild over me and my kid for the last time. I’ll forgive her since she’s genuinely sorry now that she has all the facts but I’m staying at my uncle’s and Dad knows how to reach me if he wants to apologize too. Dad has not reached out at all.