Coming Out Stories

Let me start this off by saying: Kristen, I'm sorry your mom outed you to the media, mostly because it is unknown if you would have done it yourself on your own terms. However, I'm not sorry about how happy it makes me, and how it is even better the news came from your mother. You are incredibly lucky to have not only a loving mother but a proud and supportive one at that. The world needs more people who think like your mom when it comes to acceptance and love, mostly because the world is in desperate need of acceptance and love. Congrats on having a wonderful family!

This can be applied to Miley Cyrus as well, what with her recent coming out story. She also comes from a supportive family, and in turn has used her status in the pop world to start the Happy Hippie Foundation to help homeless LGBT youth. It goes to show how individuals who live in a loving environment are motivated to ensure the love is shared all around. People need that, and it starts with acceptance in the family.

I remember when I came out to my mom I was terrified. I almost threw up because of the fear, and prayed that she wouldn't forever see me as a mentally diseased person (which I had thought of myself for a while before coming to terms with my sexual orientation). It wasn't an easy process at all, and it led to so much family drama. My mom, having promised not to tell anyone else besides my father (I wanted to tell my siblings one at a time), went and told everyone she thought fit to share the weight of the news with. The youngest was ten when I came out to her, and her mind was so innocent that she was furious and screamed how she hated me because she thought I had given her "the gay". Let me back this up: my youngest sibling loves musicals, and her obsession started at a very young age. One musical that she enjoyed at the time was RENT. So, taking from Angel's deathbed scene, she associated being gay with having AIDS, and that the disease was inherited in the bloodline. It's funny to think of her naive reasoning now, but her reaction made me incredibly upset. Everything kind of cleared up when I took time to explain to her how her favorite comedian at the time, Ellen DeGeneres, was gay and didn't have AIDS.

She's got a contagious dancing bug, though.

Overall, I wish there was more than just PFLAG for my mom to fall back on when I came out to her. I think if she had seen stories of parents accepting their child's identity, her process of coming to terms with my coming out would have been a little bit easier. I would like to think so. Nowadays, it's kind of hard not to see stories on the television or internet that revolve around someone's coming out or, as a shock-factor, of a teen's suicide due to lack of acceptance. Eleven years later, all that matters to my mom is my happiness.

Bottom line is it's great that there's a steady increase in coming out stories in mainstream media, with some of those stories coming from loving parents. The world needs to know that these parents are not ashamed or feel personally responsible for how their children identify. This goes out to all the mothers and fathers who are using any and all possible resources to show that any child who is gay, lesbian, bi, or trans is as normal as can be, especially if they are all raised with the power of love. Honestly, isn't that what creates a family in the first place?