Anyone who knows my father knows he has no filter. He will say anything and everything that comes to his mind, no matter what the topic is, how offensive it is, or who is listening. This is often the reason that he stays quiet in public spaces, so as to not offend strangers. That's also why when I came out to him on the phone last year while I was away at school, when he told me that he still loved me, I believed him.

My mother had known that I liked women since I was 18. At the time, she didn't understand why I had been so upset that my "friend" from work had suddenly stopped talking to me. When she asked why I was crying about it, I blurted out in tears, "Because I liked her, and we kissed, OK?" After that, she became very quiet and so did I. Even though this was her first time hearing it from me directly, I don't think it caught her off guard. She knew my friend from work was a lesbian, we were hanging out after work a lot, and when we weren't together, I was always texting her or talking about her.

This wasn't the first time that I have told my mom something while keeping it from my dad. I've always felt much more comfortable sharing things with my mom, who listens much more than she speaks. Growing up, I worried about how my father, a Puerto Rican man who grew up with traditional Latino values, was going to react. To my mother and me, keeping this a secret from him made the most sense.

As a femme-presenting, pink-loving, style- and beauty-obsessed Latina, this wasn't a difficult task at all. I don't think he would have ever known if it weren't for the fact that suddenly I was taking on jobs and winning awards that suddenly had the letters "LGBTQ" in front of them. Within one semester at school, I started writing for the Her Campus LGBTQ+ section, won a scholarship for my leadership in the LGBT community at my school, and got a job where I would be providing support for LGBT freshmen in the dorms. So when he asked one night on the phone if there was a reason I suddenly started receiving all these very specific opportunities, I blurted out, "I like girls." Right when I did, he laughed. When my father laughs, you can never really tell what it means because he tends to laugh at everything. My heart skipped several beats as I nervously laughed along with him. When he eventually followed it with, "OK, that's all you had to say. I love you," I was able to breathe again.

Until the interrogation that followed the next day on the phone.

"Does this mean you're gay?" "No, it means I like girls." "So you're bi?" "No, because that leaves out a whole gender spectrum."

As soon as that flew out of my mouth, I could visualize his bushy black eyebrows furrowing together. Now I had really lost him and I realized I had to backtrack. My father, like most Latinos of his generation, doesn't really know anything other than gay, straight, and bi. As far as the gender spectrum, he knew about trans people, but that's about it. He didn't know that gender and sexuality exist on a spectrum that is limitless, and completely up to the individual person and how they want to live their lives.

So I explained myself.

"I just like everyone. I like guys, I like girls, but I also like people who don't identify with either gender, and I also like trans people. The technical term is pansexual, but I'm not too crazy about it because I feel like it makes me sound like a mythical creature. So I usually tend to stick with queer."

I prepared myself for a stingingly offensive response. I was surprised when there were more questions.

"So you would go out with a girl who felt like a guy and a guy who felt like a girl?"

In this moment I decided that I would leave the lessons about how trans-ness didn't work like that for another day and just said yes. He thought some more and said OK. When I came home the following week, he had more questions.

"What do I tell people if they ask?"

This was a moment of instant dread for me. I was still in the process of coming out to people and was mostly out at school in Wisconsin, but not in my hometown of New York. I thought about it for a moment and decided that if my parents had my back, I didn't really care about my nosy family members or people in my neighborhood finding out. I was trying to make peace with who I was and, more importantly, I felt safe to come out. So I told my father to tell people exactly what I had told him: That I liked people.

"OK," he said. "I'm not ashamed to tell people about my daughter. I just want to look like I know what I'm talking about."

My father and I are the first ones to get into an argument about anything (my mother lovingly calls us cabeziduros, or "hardheaded"), and my sexuality is a topic that I know I really have to keep my cool about if I want him to understand. Just recently, he made a comment about my younger brother's acting teacher, calling him a "queen." When I told him, "That's not OK," he asked, "Why?" I said, "He's a person, and that's a stereotype," and he just laughed. I was and still am very quick to check him when he says offensive things like that.

But I also know he's trying. One of the most rewarding moments came last week, when my father and I were talking about my future. Instead of saying husband, for the first time, he said partner. It was something so small, but it touched me so much. He was showing that he was really trying to understand and respect my identity. It's the subtle changes in language such as these that can mean the world to a person.

My experience with my father by no means is reflective of the experiences of any other queer Latina woman. This is a journey that my father and I are going on by ourselves, and I know that there are other families out there who have had better, worse, and similar experiences. My father is still asking questions, and I know he will continue to as long as he has them. I will continue to correct him, check him, and answer these questions in the calmest way that I can. But most importantly, I know that he loves me enough to keep asking these questions, and in the end, that's all I can really ask of him.

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