This is a true story. I always thought I was the type of person to support my children as long as they were happy and weren’t out in the world hurting anyone. But as I began to see the signs that my daughter may very well be a lesbian, I began to question myself deeply. I’ve heard stories and know that other people react terribly to their children when they come out to their parents, even throwing them out of the home and sequestering them in private schools for the mentally ill. I knew I could never be like that. Yet every fiber in my being wanted it not to be true. I can barely utter the words, “I think my daughter is gay.”
Research told me how kids and young adults feel about being gay, how they hate themselves and try to deny it to themselves. Many even start having sex with the opposite gender just to prove to themselves that they are not gay. The drastic behavior so many gay teens and young adults go through was in my book, evidence that they were not making a choice to be this way. Gay teens and young adults have a 75% higher chance of drinking and doing illegal drugs before the age of 21.
I’m pretty sure one of her friends is gay. It’s pretty obvious with the way she dresses and her short boy-like hair and the way she struts. But my daughter doesn’t look or act like that. As much as I resent myself for it, I don’t want her hanging out with her gay friend. Logically I know that it’s not contagious, but maybe she’s just a little confused or curious and if she hangs out with her straight friends more, she’ll go back to liking boys. If she ever liked boys. Come to think of it, she’s never been impressed with a boy for as long as I can remember.
I want things for my daughter. I want a wedding and grandchildren and a life that other people won’t judge her constantly for living. I want her to go to college and have a career and be proud of who she is. Who knows what her future might be like if she is gay?
I went to a very close friend of mine and I confessed my fears. She told me the worst thing I can do is press her before she’s ready to talk about it, but how can I wait that long? I find myself questioning everything she does and taking everything she says as though she is trying to send me a coded message. My friend says that the one thing gay kids worry about the most is that their parents will stop loving them and end up resenting them or trying to fix them. I can’t stop loving her, but shouldn’t I get her help?
All the signs are there. The way she looks at her friend when they are together and the way she passes boys like they are invisible. She gets all dressed up and does her hair when her friend comes over or they go to a movie, but when boys drop by she’ll sit and talk to them in her pajama pants with her hair a disastrous nightmare. I don’t believe in going through my children’s belongings, but I read a note that her friend gave her in school. There was nothing explicit, but it was much more emotional and coy than any note I ever wrote to a girl in school. I would have written something like that to a boy.
I am desperately trying to convince myself that I could accept her as a lesbian, or whatever she confessed herself as, but I am afraid I may fail her. What parent would want this for her child? It’s not normal. People will mock her and judge her for the rest of her life. She’ll never have children. Or if she does then she will have to explain why she’s not normal to her child and everyone else around her. She’ll have to work harder to get ahead because everyone will be uncomfortable around her. Maybe she needs professional help.
I have been a good mother. I truly do not understand what I did to create this in her. She has never been sexually abused and her father has been loving and attentive and has encouraged her to grow into a beautiful young woman. I am sure that we have been better parents than most. Why would she do this to us?
My Mother Thinks I am Gay
I know that my mother suspects that I am gay. She’s been trying way too hard to get me to go out on a date and has told me I spend too much time with my gay friend, Allison. I probably do, considering that she is my first girl friend. I was hoping that my mother wouldn’t figure things out until I did, but I guess I have been too obvious or something.
I used to think something was different about me, but I wasn’t sure what it was. The girls in school were way into boys when we were twelve. I thought they were stupid and boring, but I always liked my friends that were girls, sometimes a little too much. I often thought that I was just in a phase or something, or maybe I was hoping I was in a phase.
When I realized that Allison and I were not just friends I got really scared. I didn’t want things to be this way. I wanted to be normal. Allison and I have had these feelings for each other for almost two years, and I only accepted it about three months ago. I hate that I feel the way that I do about her and I would give anything to change it. I went to my guidance counselor at school. I was pretty sure that my mother would freak out completely, and I think I was right considering how she’s been acting lately. She’s always commenting that she thinks one of my guy friends likes me and how I should go out with them. I told her Danny and I were going to the movies and she even lifted my normal curfew until she realized I was talking about Danny Oberman, a girl. At that point she cut my curfew by two hours. She knew.
I’d like to feel like I could tell her, but what am I supposed to say? “Hi, Mom. So it seems I like girls and I if I ever get married there will be two brides.” That probably won’t go over all that well. She expects normal things from me. She talks about how I should be thinking about going to college and landing a good career and getting married and having a family. It’s not like all those things won’t happen, they just won’t happen with a man.
I hear the way people talk about it, like being gay is some sort of disease or something. I don’t want to be like this. I’ve tried pretending that I am not like this. I slept with a guy not that long ago. Sure I like him, but I can’t like him the way he likes me. I felt like being suffocated. It made me nauseated and I couldn’t breathe and I felt like I was giving away something that didn’t belong to him. I haven’t gone that far with Allison. I don’t have to. The emotional connection we have is real and strong and I don’t need physical sex to know that this is how I am.
My mother will probably never forgive me. What she will never understand is how badly I never wanted this for myself, and how hard I tried not to be like this. Sometimes I’m so afraid how she would react I’d rather just be dead than face her as who I am. I’m not sure how she figured it out, but she did. Maybe we can just go on pretending that everything’s normal. It will only be a couple more years before I can move out on my own and maybe by then she’ll have forgotten.
8 Responses
In my search for guidance in dealing with a similar situation, I found this article and I closely relate to this mom. Is there more to the article or other recommendations of resources that can help navigate through it?
Ok listen first of all this “story” seems very fake and that’s coming from a gay teen girl. Sure there are moms like this and worry that we are not normal, but why is liking a girl that much different from liking guys? It isn’t. At all. Honestly, everyone is getting so worked up about things like wanting grandchildren, but in reality you just want to live vicariously through your daughter by being a mom again. You don’t have to do anything to “fix” your daughter and if she is trying to hide it, then I’m afraid you haven’t been a very good parent in the first place.
I don’t have anything against gay people but I ask you to sit down and just reflect on how you were brought into this world, think about the circle of life. Let it sink in that if it wasn’t for a man and a woman having some sort of relationship you wouldn’t be here. So think about it if your mom or dad were gay you wouldn’t have been here. If the people continue being this ignorant we going to become extinct cause two man or two woman can’t bring life into this world.
My daughter is gay – or thinks she is. She has manageable mental health issues so I keep hoping it’s a phase. She pretty much lives with her girlfriend and I’m really struggling with the situation. I find her revolting and although pretend to be supportive on the outside I actually wish she was dead. I feel incredibly sad, embarrassed and ashamed. I’ve cut off all my friends as I can’t bare anYone bringing it up. I didn’t think me and my wife (she doesn’t have a problem with this) would make it. My lies allow this to work for now but don’t know about the long term. The prospect of her getting married with children etc. makes me feel sick. Searching for support and understanding on YouTube has been very frustrating. I’m not a Christian and their other films just look like something from a daytime TV show – lots of acceptance and tears and so on… I’m very angry and indescribably upset. It’s nothing to do with me what people do in the bedroom, but this is MY daughter. This isn’t who we are. We’re good, strong, normal working, European people. Not this. I don’t see how this will work in the long term and it’s tearing our family apart. There doesn’t seem to be any help for people like me in the U.K.
This comment was so heartbreaking it nearly brought me to tears. You wish your own daughter was dead? I can’t believe that a father would be disgusted and hateful of his own child. How dare you even call yourself a father. Your hatred is what brings you shame. You’re the cause of your misery, not your daughter. She’s her own person whether you understand her choices or not. As long as she’s not hurting anyone, she’s a good person. We have to love people unconditionally. And if we can’t, they are better off without us. No child deserves to be regarded so cruelly by their own parent. Instead of questioning her decisions, why don’t you look at yourself and ask yourself why you are the way you are – hateful and cruel. That’s worse than anything else so get off your high horse and work on yourself.
Very well put!! I couldn’t imagine thinking things like this of my proclaimed leabian teen daughter. Do I as a Christian believer struggle with her choice? Yes definitely, but wish death on her? Absolutely not!! I will pray for this man and others who feel this way. Well thats my 2 cents.
This is me as well. I have a college aged daughter who says she’s bisexual but I’m realizing she may just be biding time with it at college until she comes out as lesbian. I’ve tried to be as understanding and supportive as I can with her figuring this out but at the same time having such trouble pulling my hair out at everything indoctrinating her into the lgbtq lifestyle. She acted similar as this daughter and was sheepish with dating guys in high school but had guy friends. She was caring and graceful, very intelligent and funny. Insecure tho, and needing confidence as we all did in teen years, but I figured it was fine, plenty of time to date. But Gone are the days when we say we’re just not ready to date guys yet. We all have to know our “identity”, and challenge it to mean something other than hetero. Then she compassionately befriended a lesbian volleyball teammate and in months everything we knew she was went out the window. I can barely even identify or tolerate her new values anymore. I barely know her and that is because she knows I don’t agree with this new mindset. It’s destroying our family. For instance, unless a guy is very docile or gay, she finds him intimidating and treats him completely unkind. Which now causes new issues to be dealt with her younger brother who is a wonderful and caring boy.. And unless now your on her side politically, your an outright enemy because your a bigot and can’t be trusted. We are her parents, politics never mattered, but now they do and she sees us as a direct threat. Villains. And treats us as such. Her disdain at the family who loves her is heartbreaking. It’s like something kidnapped her mind.-and it’s been tearing our family apart since. So in the comments above, I believe “wishing she were dead” was to be directed at the girlfriend of the daughter, as I know and I admit that was how I was feeling to this girlfriend that preyed on my daughters sympathy. Of course we don’t really wish that, but I feel like I got robbed of my true daughter. She’s become socially, politically and emotionally opposed to everything I am. Now hating family members because of their occupations(police) and me because of my “traditional” lifestyle-which has been able to only make her life possible. It’s hard to see eye to eye so we either don’t talk about it, or I find myself compromising my own values just to keep in good graces.
As far as her confidence and lgbtq fears-Shes “out” to whoever cares to ask. She’s not worried or scared of what it means. She has become secure in telling ppl she’s bi. She’s currently dating a guy but unfortunately I’m realizing he may be a “litmus test” in order for her to confirm her sexuality..And with her current state of ire, he doesn’t stand a chance. And I am devastated. And trying to find a safe place to unload all of my emotions without being shamed and called a bigot. Three years of trying to navigate this and still no real luck for parents struggling so hard. Yes I did dream about our future together. Yes I am devastated instead of celebrating the fact that we may never share the same ideals again. I’ve yet to meet a parent does not have hopes and dreams for their kids that don’t coincide with their own. Why would I have children and not want them to share the same values and morals as my own? To spend decades doing and being everything I can to create our family only to be told they’re not interested in what I have to offer? Rejecting what I spent my life believing in and creating. Who gets pregnant saying I can’t wait for that day??. So Yes. This is beyond devastation. And heartbreak. Can we all just stop denying that?
The comments I see here are exactly right, as far as support-there is next to none. Yet I keep seeing so many of us who are suffering. Our children have received oodles of support, constant media focus and plenty of acceptance even media vilification of their own parents. Right now parents need help. How can we be on the road to acceptance when the only advice is either fake it til you make it, or shaming you if you can’t just hop on board. And this from those who have no stake in my own family’s lives.. Vilifying parents if they don’t celebrate the occasion. Since this has all happened we struggle to see eye to eye on even mundane daily events much less social and political views. The pain is immense. The future feels bleak. It goes beyond gender and changed everything she thinks and feels from this time forward. I’ve truly lost her and yes mourn what we could’ve had going forward as a mother and daughter. I hate what it has done to us. I feel like all I could identify within her is fake or gone, yes like she has died. And this stranger standing before me now demands not just my acceptance but my unwavering support of so much I am not in agreement with…or else.
I feel so bad for you. This is what I think. Your daughter. Is very confused right now and it may take a very long time for her to figure everything out. When she does, she is going to need you and your wife and her brother to help her recover her life. Until that time, I advise that you and your wife pray for her everyday and for yourselves to do as God wills. You do not have to tell her that you accept her lifestyle. Or pretend that everything is fine. If she asks, you can tell her it is against God’s law and that you wish she had chosen a different path but that you will always love her and want what is best for her. This behavior is against God’s law and we are wrong to cover over that fact. We are God’s creatures and being right with Him is more important than any other relationship we have. I am not gay, but sometimes I think that people choose the gay lifestyle because it is less demanding—-if you are a girl, it is easier to be emotionally simpatico with another girl than with a man sometimes. I believe you are right for wanting a different life for her. Make sure she knows that because you love her (and for no other reason), you are telling her it is against God’s law. And that you will always love her and want what is best for her. Before you speak with her, spend a long time praying and asking for God’s guidance and grace.