Yes, there are people who hate others that have opposing lifestyles. But there are plenty of people in the world who care and support differences.
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At the age of two and a half my son started wearing girls’ clothes. I didn’t, at the time, know what to do about that. People didn’t let boys wear girls’ clothing, did they? It was 2005. But ultimately we allowed it, because we found him in the corner crying that he wished God had made him a girl. At the same time, there were several stories in the news about children who were LGBTQ committing suicide, many of them not supported in life by a good family system. Statistics show that LGBTQ children who are not supported by their families are eight percent more likely to commit suicide. While wanting to wear girls’ clothing did not mean he would be gay or transgender, still, we would not be those parents. After he began wearing pink shirts and sparkly jeans, he was so happy that we couldn’t understand why we had ever not just said yes in the first place.
Amid news stories that mentioned the shooter’s possible ties to ISIS was the statement from his family that he had expressed hate for gays. He hated LGBTQ people–like my kids, like my family.
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Flash forward seven years. We were ready for my nine-year-old son to tell us he was transgender or gay…but he told us he didn’t feel like a girl–he just really likes his fashion. My eleven-year-old daughter telling us she was a lesbian was a little unexpected. But we rolled with it, and reassured her that whether she loved women, men, both, or neither, what she needed to know was that we loved her no matter what.
Flash forward to this past Saturday, when my thirteen-year-old son and fifteen-year-old daughter, along with my two nieces, walked in the Boston Pride Parade. Three of them walked with GLSEN, one of them with my husband’s work group. They were proud to be a part of something greater, and we were (and are) proud of who they are. It was a great day, full of laughter and fun stories about walking in the rain and getting lost, handing out swag and feeling like they belonged.
And then there was a shooting in Orlando at a prominent gay club in the middle of the night. Amid news stories that mentioned the shooter’s possible ties to ISIS was the statement from his family that he had expressed hate for gays. He hated LGBTQ people–like my kids, like my family. I am not part of the LGBTQ community–I cannot imagine or feel the same pain and fear that they have when a safe space has been invaded. But as the mother of two LGBTQ teenage children, I can feel heartache and anger that I can never again tell them that there is a safe community waiting for them when they’re old enough to join it.
There have been a lot of recent so-called “bathroom bills,” anti-LGBT legislation, and as those stories arise there are comment sections full of hatred and the same hurtful phrases: “perverts”, “trannies”, “the gay/liberal agenda.” I have had to try to explain the gay agenda to my children–the gay agenda to be happy, stay safe, stay healthy, stay alive. To not be hated for being who they are.
I have to try to sit down with my children and try to reassure them that this madness won’t stand; that the powers that be will do something…and I have to hope that I’m telling the truth.
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We have always supported my children’s desire to be themselves, and yet I still remember my daughter telling me she was gay with her face turned away, in the dark so I couldn’t look at her. She was scared, even though we had always made sure they knew that was not something we would ever be upset about. So if you still think being LGBT is a choice, let me assure you: you’re wrong. It wasn’t something she chose; she was born that way. Beautifully, perfectly born that way. Likewise, he didn’t choose to be gender non-conforming; he’s been that way his entire life. I love them both for exactly who they are; but I know they wouldn’t wish for the sideways looks as they walk into the bathroom or the comments about gay marriage being a sin or to be confronted at the pride parade by a man holding a sign that says they’re going to Hell.
Bathroom bills, anti-LGBT legislation … this is what allows things like the Pulse Orlando shooting to happen. If the government thinks it’s okay to treat LGBT citizens as less than human, then why wouldn’t a madman with a gun? I have to try to sit down with my children and try to reassure them that this madness won’t stand; that the powers that be will do something…and I have to hope that I’m telling the truth. I have to tell them that there are people and places in the world where they won’t be welcome, but that there are people, like those who have come out in droves to donate blood, who will support them no matter what; that there will be people who will embrace who they are and that when they come home I will always be here to encompass them in my arms.
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Source: 30dB.com – %23GaysBreakTheInternet
“This hashtag popped up in our trending service. While the volumes didn’t quite break the Internet but the sentiment terms of pride and love may help provide some context for everyone struggling to make sense of this tragedy.” — Howard K. 36db
Photo: GettyImages
That was pretty outstanding, Mostly…and absolutely accurate from where I sit. It is important to understand, Sandy, that we not only focus on the event, but to look past that to the overwhelming sadness and support that has poured across the nation, how the subject of violence against LGBT’s has come front and center, thus taking one more step into the light of awareness and acceptance, and that acceptance is coming. I read a story right here recently, about a construction guy that had an LBGT daughter, and how he, his fellow workers not only accepted her, but made her… Read more »
This is going to sound…harsh, however it comes from the reality of living as an LGBT person (I’m trans). Don’t lie. Don’t tell them “It Get’s Better” (hint: it doesn’t). Hug them. Tell them people are screwed up. Let them know that LGBT people are made of tough stuff, and we are made that way, because we have to be. We face shit other people can’t even imagine. Sometimes they’ll go through periods of their lives where things seem very smooth, where they may be able to live their lives with their status as an LGBT person as just another… Read more »
It is so sad that heterosexuals are unable to accept the reality that people besides them exist.
This is supremacism in it nastiest, most vile form.
That is so sweeping of a generalization to not warrant proper response. It’s commentary like this Bill that just keeps us further apart.
The world is a big, diverse, dangerous place with lots of moving parts and sharp edges. And, as positive as we may want our outlooks to stay -as positive as we want the world to be- we can’t gloss over, explain away, or ignore all the bad potentialities (let alone all the bad things that do happen). Whether it’s in the First World or the Developing World, there’s enough bad things to jar even the most starry-eyed of optimists, and even make Gandhi want to swear & punch a wall- many time more than enough, in fact. But in spite of… Read more »
Thank you for your thoughtful words, which convey a positivity and hopefulness that I pray is more universal than not.
There is nothing in your post that refers to the Orlando shooter’s motivation for his actions, other than that he didn’t like gays. It is clear that he was Muslim and motivated by radical Islam’s call to kill the infidels, especially the gay infidels. If he had shot up a Christian church congregation or a schoolroom full of children, the end result would have been the same: an Islamic terrorist killing people he perceived, and was taught to believe, were infidels and deserving of death. To ignore this simple fact and pretend the Orlando tragedy is part of some war… Read more »
You tell them the same thing you’d tell them sans Orlando. The world is filled with folks who are good and kind and also with those that will hate you and kill you if they got the chance because you’re gay, white, black, female, male who resists being robbed, Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Hindi, trans, or anything else they feel compelled in their sense of moral superiority that at that moment you are less than to them.
If the question in the title is genuine, as a seventeen-year-old lesbian, I think the most important thing you can do right now is listen. Reassure your kids that you love them, because this is an incredibly difficult time for our community, and we could all use some love right now, but then step back and let them lead the way. In some ways, your kids are the experts right now, because they’re the ones who understand what it’s like to watch this tragedy from within and to grieve not only fellow Americans and fellow human beings, but fellow members… Read more »
Good advice, and thank you for sharing from that perspective.