Gay Like Happy

Skye of Planet Jinxatron linked me to a blog post today that she needed me to hate with her.

And oh, do I.

I won’t link to it directly, as I didn’t comment on the post, and don’t feel like getting into an argument with someone who clearly does not approach anything in life the way I do, and I don’t want the blogger to feel attacked, as she is entitled to her own feelings – no matter how I feel about it.

The post, which is on blogher.com, involves this woman’s real, actual, honest reaction to her son coming out as gay.

Awesome. This is an important thing to read.

But.

She speaks of collapsing to the ground, crying like a baby. She tells of how she’s had gay friends before..but was deeply disappointed and hurt when it became obvious to her those friends were gay. She says how her solace in this is that her kid admits he did not choose to be gay.

I’m not even sure where to start with any of this. Admittedly, in some ways, it hits a little close to home. My parents did not handle things well when my sister came out. Or when she announced she was engaged. Or when her wife had their baby. Or when she announced she was now having a baby…

I know that I am neither religious nor politically conservative, but collapsing to the ground and crying like a baby because all your dreams of going wedding dress shopping with his bride-to-be are gone seems a bit excessive.

..Also, I’m pretty sure I would have eaten arsenic before inviting my mother-in-law-to-be to go shopping for wedding dresses with me, but that’s not at all the point.

I can see crying out of fear of how the world will treat your kid. I can see being sad about how your dreams for your kid will have to change*. I can even see crying out of shock of it all.

Her solace is that he didn’t chose this. Of course he didn’t. What kid would – especially growing up in a family where having friends who fall in love, or worse, have sex with, people of the same gender as themselves results in the family being deeply hurt?

I wish the world could get past this. I wish that a kid coming out didn’t have to be this big traumatic THING. The place that kids should feel the safest is in their homes with their families. When she mentions how her kid had been moody and struggling with something since he was eleven, it makes me so sad. I hate that so many kids still don’t have more support in their families for whoever they are.

And I know I’m coming at this from a different side. My sister is a lesbian. My kid wanders around the gender boxes and has answered to “she,” “he,” and “they” in the past three days without any apparent concern over who thinks they’re what. I’ve had to come at this from a different angle – any other way is impossible for me to even consider.

I won’t let my kid feel like I don’t accept them. I won’t let my kid feel like I’m not a safe space or person to talk to.

And if/when I do end up in a conversation with my kid that leaves me weeping – let me be as strong of the original blogger, as for all that I’m struggling with her post – she smiled, told her kid she loved him, and hugged him hard.

*People do this? My dream for my kid is that they’re able to support themself** and are mostly happy with how their life is. Married? Kids? Partnered? Gay? Pan? WHATEVER.
**Pronoun help: Themself or themselves for a singular person?