Recent Letter to the ElderWisdomCircle™
FAMILY: My Parents Are Homophobic Original Letter Hi. Before I begin, I'd like to say thank you for taking your time to read this. Now, I'd like to talk to you about my sexuality. I am an 18 year old lesbian, living with homophobic parents. They don't know about my sexuality, and I can't come out to them because of their homophobia. Every time we see a gay couple, I'm staring in admiration while my parents are talking about how disgusting and 'sinful' it is. (Note: they're only religious when it comes to homosexuality.) I feel that having to hide my sexuality is really taking its toll on my relationship with my parents. Before I knew about liking girls, my parents were who I went to about everything. Now, I can't go to them about the thing I need to talk about the most. I feel like I'm lying to both them and myself by hiding it, but I can't tell them. And if, one day, I do find a girl I wish to be with, I would have to hide it from my parents. That's not something I want to do. I've asked them multiple times what they would do if one of their daughters came out as lesbian to them, and they said (and I quote, it's burned into my memory) 'What kind of question is that? We would disown them. None of our daughters would ever think about being with another girl, and if they do, then they aren't our daughter.' Again, thank you for taking your time to read this. Elder Response I'm sorry that you are having this problem with your parents. Let me see if I can help. First, you are not alone. In fact, there are many online resources you can turn to for help. One is: https://www.studying-in-uk.org/the-complete-guide-to-studying-and-living-in-uk-as-an-lgbt-student/ I put "lesbian support" into my search engine and came up with a lot of good online sites. There are also guidelines to follow to help you decide if and how to come out to your parents. One is available through Psychology Today at https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/gay-and-lesbian-well-being/201103/should-you-come-out-your-parents Sometimes, parents think that by threatening to disown a child, they can stop them from being gay. That never works. Often, parents are willing to educate themselves on the subject and end up accepting their child for who she or he is. It's impossible to know what your parents' response may be. Please read all you can on coming out to your parents before you take any action. If you are dependent on them for support to finish school, I recommend you wait until you can be financially independent. Ultimately, whether or not they accept you is entirely up to them. But I can assure you that you can be happy regardless of what they choose to do. Your future happiness is in your own hands. You are entitled to live your life as you please. Almost every city has a LGBT community that you can access to find local resources, friends and more. So again, I want to emphasis that you are not alone. I hope this helped and I can't wait for the day when no one will have this problem. That day hasn't arrived yet, but it's coming! Best Regards, Gma-GG |
