“under the rug” is about the challenges of living a “controversial” life. It’s about the willingness for families, no matter how well meaning, to choose denial over truth, idealized visions over reality, comfort zones over places of value that must be worked toward to be earned. It’s about our willingness to censor ourselves and each other for the sake of ease or status quo.
If I don’t discuss my transgendered body with my family, then it doesn’t have to exist if they don’t want it to. I choose not to discuss it with them because the alternative seems too challenging, too painful. They choose not to discuss it because they don’t want other people to know and don’t understand or support my decisions. The result is limited contact, limited conversation, limited time and energy, and limits on our understanding and love for each other. Things left unsaid become a huge lump under a family rug that can’t be walked over. But it certainly gets walked around.
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