Originally posted January 2013
You don’t have to be queer to read it, but this message is not for straight people. This message is for all of my GLBT Facebook friends, because I’m issuing a clarion call. I hope you hear it loud and clear.
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT OUR KIDS?
If there is anything that my friend Diane has taught me over the last 23 years, it’s not to wait for someone else to step in and do something about gay kids killing themselves. It’s our community, they’re our kids, and we are their “parents,” but only for lack of a better term.
We are the non-bio superparents that these kids need because at home, they may not really exist. Coming out may be seen as an invitation for their parents or siblings to commit incest. Coming out may be seen as an invitation for their parents or siblings to commit assault, battery, or homicide.
Less physically damaging, but truly emotionally awful is that coming out may be seen as an excuse to pretend that their child/sibling has died. If you think that I am using hyperbole, it happened to my ex-partner.
If you are a child and GLBT, the chance that your news will be met with violence is high. Look at it this way: when a black child gets made fun of at school, in most cases, he/she comes home to a black family that will raise him/her up and teach him/her to be proud of his/her blackness. What are the odds that you have that type of family life as a gay kid?
There is no shortage of love in this community, but we have been taught to stay away from children. We have been indoctrinated with the falsehood that gay people molest children, and so we ignore them… but not because we don’t love them. Because we don’t want to be seen as inappropriate, so we walk away. I know I’ve felt it at times, and I’m done with that kind of shame. I hope you are, too.
The tables are turning. It continues to get better. But some of the kids we ignored took their own lives.
The children that are taking their lives now could have been us in a different situation. We need to ask ourselves what it was that helped us through, and find a way to take that strength and give it to others.
I am putting out the idea, but I cannot do it by myself. What are we going to do?
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT OUR KIDS?
Stories That Are All True 