My great niece is gay. I am having a hard time accepting it.

[live love laugh]

She will be 17 Sunday.

I love her to death. She would give you the shirt off her back. She lived with me for a while when I relocated--just me her and the dog. She has soft jaws which I never miss a chance to kiss -- or pinch. I have taught her everything I know about the military, the economy, politics, you name it. She used to laugh at my rants against Boosh but she understood why I hated (hate) him.

About two years ago she came out. I have continued to see her as my little girl but she is getting older. She dresses like a boy. Today she came over and I asked where she had been. She said she had been out walking with her girlfriend. I caught my breath. I love her.

She had violent fights with her mother over coming out. Her mother rejected her and even had her committed to a mental facility for a short time. Her mother and I stopped speaking because of this treatment and we barely manage a few words now.

At school she was suspended recently for some very petty issue that I won't detail. She graduates in June. I told her that the recent problems she is having in school I attribute to her being openly gay. I hugged her, told her that I love her and that she can expect to face more petty issues because of being openly gay even after school ends. She cried.

As much as I have taught her she is now talking about joining the military. I jokingly tell her I would disown her if she joins. She laughed. I think that she wants to escape. I try to tell her about the gruesome rapes of women in the military to change her mind. I don't think she will go.

I had a talk with my best friend of more than thirty years (since sixth grade) about her. My friend who is religious thinks that gay is a choice and that this is a fad. My friend wishes my niece would knock it off. I defended my baby telling my friend that the Jesus and the bible said that love is the most important thing mankind can do--and that whatever love people are blessed with in their lives no matter from whom--is what Jesus wanted. I stated that I don't like that she is not the cute, feminine girl that I hoped she would grow up to be but I know that she is not making a choice that would cause her so much hardship.

I do hair kind of as a hobby for a few friends. One friend of many years was over and my niece was there. I could see my friend looking at her curiously. We never discussed her. But I felt bad that my friend "knows".

I have distant family that I don't see often. I don't want them to know either. Last summer my sister remarried. My baby dressed up really girly to be in the wedding so that visting distant relatives did not know.

I am rambling. I fear for her safety. I think that girls who act like boys get treated like boys and boys get treated roughly. She is not rough.

She won't go to prom same sex dates at prom are not allowed at her school.

I took her to work with me many times. She asked recently and I don't want her to go.

I have grappled with gay rights issues from afar and now the chickens have come home to roost. I love my baby. She knows that I love her. I just still have some mixed feelings and I am not 100% accepting. I wish that it did not matter. But it's not so much that it matters to me as that it matters to so many others who are far less accepting than me--and I feel ashamed because I know how ignorant people are (not that I'm not ignorant somewhat myself.)

Just sharing and clarifying...