There is no right or wrong in acknowledging who you are. Most people do not find out who they are until they are well into adulthood. Even then you may discover you what to be someone else or do something other than. Nothing is written in stone and change is inevitable. I can only image the pain of repressing who you are because you are fearful or ashamed of letting the true you be known. A few years ago, I had to face the fact that I am the mother of a gay man. This is my testimony that coming out is a family affair. I hope to provide you the reader with a reference where I had none. I hope to encourage your heart and allow you to know it will be okay.
I grew up in New York City but people are still ridiculed for being different. To be sexually different was the worst type of different to be. In my home no talked about homosexuality and I remember getting into fights with boys who called my younger brothers the f-word. After all my brothers were not homos. Homophobia at ten is difficult especially when you don't know what it means. I understood the danger of hate. I knew how hard it was to be picked on because you are different or at least viewed to be different. So when my only son showed signs of being gay-I was mortified and unable to express it.
I knew my son laugh was high-pitched like a girl, played with his younger sister's hair too much and loved perfumes. I knew for years that he might be gay but I did not have a reference. There were no positive experiences with good outcomes that I could use to measure how-to-handle my feelings. I resorted to negative words, ugly words and unjustifiable statements. Somehow my son knew I was not able to accept his true identity so he hid it, he denied who is. I thought of only myself. The grandchildren I would not have; the ridicule I would face, the alienation from family and friends. It was better for both us-there in denial. So in denial we stayed for years.
As a mother you want only the best for your child and your child looks to you as a parent for approval and acceptance. It was these reasons that led my son and me to have had heart-to-heart when he was seventeen. My son took me out to dinner and came out. Finally, there over dinner I had my suspicions confirmed and my heart did not stop. I saw relief come into his eyes as I absorbed his words, “Ma, I am bi but I still your boy.” I remember joking with him about him being freaky or loving kinky sex. There at dinner and on the way home we laughed and joked. I cautioned him on being safe physically, sexually and emotionally.
He came out and it freed him. His coming out freed me and created a positive reference that you can draw from. If you have not come out to your love ones or if you have suspicions that your love one is gay, bisexual or lesbian; remember the key word is love. I did not have any experience with the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered community and every reference I had was negative. Do not allow narrow-minded, judgmental or religious notions to drive a wedge between you, your love one and the love you share. I realized my son was still my boy-he needed love not rejection. He still needed to be reared not reviled. I made an effort to understand and not judge. Yes I cried and I mourned because I had to bury an image that I created. My imaginings included a daughter-in-law and grandchildren. I feared he would be ostracized, alienated and disrespected. Somehow I blamed myself for not being a better mother. Then I faced reality.
I held a large picnic in a public park for nearly sixty of his friends and associates that he meet at LGBT community center. I was grateful that he was able to find a place that helped find the strength to come out. I was moved by the love I felt at this gathering. I learned more in that day then I could have in a lifetime. That day I had sixty babies. We hugged, laughed, cried and laughed so more. Different ones shared their coming out experience with me; others still had not come out in their home or community. Then, there were those who had come out and been rejected. The latter hurt me the most. I felt I could not reject my son and I would not understand others who chose to do so because of whom he chooses to love. I found young men and women who were searching for love and wanted to give love and they deserve to be loved.
I had to learn to listen to my son's relationship issues. When he decided that he was homosexual, I had developed a listening ear. We talk and I don't have to agree with everything he says or does but he knows he can talk to me. We as a family have created a good place to give positive support and critics. I want to be a voice telling parents and a child confronted with coming out, life is too short and you had better love it. Do not waste precious moments being someone you are not. If you are the parent of a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender child you are still a parent and your charge is parenting. If you are a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and suspect your parent won't accept you or is in denial-face that dragon and slay it. You may free you and your parents-at the most free yourself. Be safe with your heart, and be good to those who are different.
Above all, my son's coming out freed me from a narrow-minded view. I grew to get over a Dark Age phobia and decided move pass my problem. If you have been bless with a child who is lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered do not lose time waddling in your problem with an image you created. I strongly advise on showing the love and sharing the life you have.
