Over the weekend, Charlie (twitter user @maggieglenn) found herself in a text fight with her homophobic aunt. She took screenshots of the texts on her phone and posted them on Twitter, where the whole conversation quickly went viral, due to the aunt's horrible remarks, and Charlie's hilarious reply.
Her aunt's text read:
I hope I didnt upset you earlier. That was not my intention. You need to stop being so sensitive I did not mean faggot in a bad way I just mean you gay people have a lot of drama. I tried to understand this bi shit you claim to be but you teenagers make stuff up all teh time. Youre young you will find a man. You can change. You used to be so clever. If you think you cant accept my help dont come to Indies birthday I do not want you ruining the day.
After receiving the offensive text from her aunt, Charlie texted back:
Hi aunt Marie,
Don't worry about it! I know what you're like after a few bottles of wine. I can't make Indie's birthday I'm afraid, I have a huge lesbian orgy that day and me and the other faggots have been planning it for months. By the way how's your divorce going? I saw uncle Lee with his new girlfriend, she's 20 years younger than you right? Speak soon!
(The tweet with Charlie's awesome response to her aunt has been re-tweeted almost 40,000 times on Twitter.)
And then the rest of Charlie's family started jumping in, as she got texts from her mom, dad, and presumably cousin Hollie.
Of course, people on Twitter responded to Charlie's tweets, sharing their own experiences and just generally giving her support.
In an interview with Fusion, Charlie said that she'd come out to her family as bisexual two years ago, and her father's side of the family had been mostly supportive. Her mother's side, though, was struggling a bit more to understand. Charlie told Fusion, “In the past I’ve never called out my family or friends for being homophobic because most of the time it’s down to lack of education, they don’t realise why they can’t say the things that they’re saying. I think a big problem with them is that they don’t want to change their views because it’s how they’ve grown up.”
But her aunt's homophobia was too much for her to take passively. Charlie said she thinks her response to her aunt resonated so strongly with a lot of people because "LGBT teenagers/children are very passive when it comes to ignorance and abuse from their family because it’s their family. They feel as though they can’t argue with them or even defend themselves because we’re taught that family is the most important thing and conflicting views shouldn’t change anything.”
Charlie said the one thing she wants other people to learn from this whole exchange is that it's okay to stand up for yourself. As she put it: “You should remind yourself that you are worth more than the ignorant people in your life. Whether you’re out or not you’re amazing and there is definitely nothing wrong with you, you should always be you and put yourself first.”
Have fun at that orgy, Charlie—you probably won't be missing much at Indie's party anyway.
