Welcome back to your favorite blogger’s favorite blog! It’s me, your host, back with another edition of “Who Is This Diva?” This week’s Diva is my sibling, Mil. If you know me, then there is an almost certain chance that you know Mil.
You know those videos where people are like, “My sibling had to live 19 months without me, but I’ve never known a life without them”? That’s how I feel about Mil. There is no Julia’s childhood or Julia’s life without Mil. I mean, let’s be honest, who would I be if I had not been incessantly teased and tickled for my entire childhood? Who knows, maybe I would be way less inclined to speak up for myself or be as confident as I am.
Now, guys, seeing as it is June—perhaps the best month of the year—I decided that Mil had to be the guest for this edition of the blog. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me just tell you: HAPPY PRIDE MONTH, WOOHOO!
Why should Mil be the Diva for Pride Month? Well, I am so glad you asked. Mil is non-binary and queer. Woohoo, go team! I thought it would be fun to tell you more about what it was like for us to grow up together and now be the adults that we are.
Picture this: Mil was about two years old, and the biggest blessing ever came into their life. Me! Me, the squishiest, pinkest, most perfect baby girl to ever be born (according to my mommy and papa). Fast forward a couple of years, and Mil and I were living our best lives with matching bowl cuts and bangs that cut straight across our foreheads. Dare I say, you may even find pictures of us in matching red and green plaid dresses and white cardigans outside the church on a crisp winter Sunday!
On an average summer day in our childhood, we could almost always be found somewhere on Masonboro Island, chasing crabs or looking for treasures. We’ve spent countless hours together running around our backyard and playing with the neighbor kids. We were blessed to grow up with a group of kids in the neighborhood that we would play with just about every day—one of whom we still consider to be our best friend to this day!
Then, in elementary school, we were truly separated for the first time. I was two years behind Mil in school, so when I was in Kindergarten, they were in third grade. We rarely saw each other at school, but even then, as the younger sibling, I had the pleasure of living up to Mil’s former teachers’ expectations.
Then we went to middle school, where we really lived separate lives. Our friend groups were different, our personalities could not be more opposite of each other, and we were in the stages of sibling rivalry where (much to our parents’ dislike) we would argue all the time. Now, it was in these years that I feel I finally became sentient and started to make real friends and form my own hobbies.
One thing Mil and I still did together was attend FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes). Now, you may be thinking, “Hmm, I didn’t know y’all were athletes…” If so, you’d be correct. They let anyone join, so that’s how we got there. If you’ve never experienced FCA, allow me to tell you more. Our group, at least, was a conservative one. Lots of talk about fire and brimstone, how the gays are going to hell, etc., etc.
Guys, I’m going to be vulnerable with you. This was back in the day when both Mil and I believed in those things. We would sit around with our friends and talk about how we would never, under any circumstances, drink alcohol. And the thought of relations outside of marriage was atrocious. We were taught to be evangelical, to save those poor, poor people who didn’t know their evil sins were condemning them to the pits of hell.
Well, this is my official apology for those years of my life before I actually formed an opinion of my own.
Fast forward to high school. Mil and I both went to nerd school, aka early college. Our school was tiny; I had a graduating class of 60, and that was the biggest that school had ever had!
Now, this was when we finally began to realize that the world was wide and that we were wrong. It’s quite a humbling thing to realize that you’ve been pushing out these hateful beliefs just to later realize that they were indeed hateful, which is against the very premise of the faith we believe in. Any which way, we ended up on the other side of the spectrum not long after.
Then, in my 9th-grade year, Mil announced that they wanted to start going by they/them. Now allow me to tell you the exact scenario that this played out in.
Imagine this: Me, Mil, and our friends were all at our friend’s house for a sleepover. I had hypothetically just had my first-ever Dirty Shirley and discovered that I was a major lightweight. Fast forward, we were sitting on our friend’s counter with the music blasting and us yapping loudly about who knows what, when I heard someone refer to Mil as “them.”
You can imagine my surprise, but I didn’t say anything until one of my other friends asked if they wanted to be called only by they/them pronouns, and they said yes. I rocked with that. I just hadn’t seen it coming, which probably is because of sibling blindness, because from the outside looking in, I’m sure others could’ve predicted this.
Since becoming reformed, I was one of those people who was like, “It’s not that hard to just use the right pronouns!” But y’all… let me just say that growing up my entire life with my best friend by my side, whom I always called by one set of pronouns, and then suddenly that shifted and I had to be locked in at all times, was kind of hard.
Now obviously, I am not saying that it’s excusable when people say that it’s too hard to use the correct pronouns. I’m here to tell you it definitely is not too hard. It is just a change that we have to make, which is new for a little while and then becomes the norm.
Now, an added layer of this is the experience of using the correct gender-neutral pronouns in certain spaces and then continuing to call my sibling by the pronouns they used to use around our family. That probably added to my trouble with the changing of things.
I also had a bit of a hard time with the concept that I no longer had a “sister.” I was sad because I thought Mil had just become a different person overnight, and that I could no longer connect with them over the shared experience of growing up as women in our family. Never fear, it was not long until these myths were busted, and I quickly realized that nothing had really changed.
Mil was Mil, and I was me, the same as we had always been since we first met all those years ago.
I often think about people who argue that trans people choose to be trans for attention. In what world does the logic of one choosing to put themselves in danger for the rest of their life because they want attention make any sense? Or even someone who chooses to live their truth but suffers through abandonment by their family or constant criticism from those who claim to love them? Or the fear of never being able to live as you truly are? To never have access to the medicine and support you need to be as you were meant to be?
Why would someone like Mil choose to live as a queer person among our family, who continues to live by the fire and brimstone faith? Why would they choose to sit through countless sermons from family members begging them to find Jesus again just because they “wanted attention”?
Why would they choose to listen when people they love tell them that loving who they love will cause them to suffer for eternity? No, that’s simply not a choice. You know what a choice is? Hating someone for loving who they love.
When I see my sibling getting told these things by people who are supposed to love them, all I see is the little kid that I grew up beside, and who knows me better than anyone. The sweet, precious angel who loves playing in the woods and kissing their pet chickens. The one who
loves so hard and sticks by their friends unconditionally. I see that little kid with a bowl cut running around the island, and I think about how I can never understand a homophobe.
Moral of the story, readers: My sibling is one of my best friends, and they shaped me into who I am today. I hope someday I can be as fiercely loving and brave as they are.
Well, thank you for reading this week’s edition of “Who Is This Diva,” and I hope you enjoyed my rant. See you next time!