queerness in any form

i'm not quite sure how to tell this story. i was in the clinic this morning making small talk with a participant's mother. there's so much time to kill that i find myself trying to keep the parents talking. somehow, we got from the mother's ambrosia salad (which she kept calling fruitcake) to her relationship with her family, and how she's not always popular because "she tells the truth, tells it just like it is."

"just like &#@ don't like it when i tell her what i think of her lifestyle choice," the mother went on. oh god, please don't go here, i thought. "she be goin' to hell, and she don't wanna hear it. all thinkin' she's a man, actin' like a man, kissin' on girls like she do." there, she's gone and said it, i thought. her 16 year old daughter came back in the room and she quieted down. then, as i was doing some paperwork, i heard them start arguing. "yeah, well, so-and-so saw you kissin' up on her on my stoop. i swear, child, all i ask for is a little respect." "how is it different from a girl kissing a boy on the stoop?" asked the daughter.

what blew me away most is that this mother/daughter team have a great rapport--they seem to feed off of each other, constantly making each other laugh. how is that kind of closeness possible when your mother's just told you that you're going to hell?