Sometimes in novels, TV shows or movies, an LGBTQ child comes out to a distant parent. The distant parent stands in shock. Depending on the narrative, the distant parent hugs their child and says they love them anyway (ouch) or hits them (oh God). These are the two stories that play out the most frequently in popular culture. And like most over-used tropes, they are damaging in their simplicity, reducing real life to two not-so-good extremes. I’m not saying neither one of these things ever happen, but in addition to these two stereotypes, there are a lot of other parental reactions. Those reactions, and the consequences of those reactions, need to be discussed in a realistic (non-romanticized / non-Hollywood) way.

      In many cases, your child has been thinking about coming out to you for a lot longer than you have been expecting them to come out. One of the clichés that surrounds being the parent of a gay child is that before your child comes out to you, “you must have known on some level.” When my daughter Casandra came out to my husband and me shortly before her 13th birthday, I did not even suspect that she was attracted to girls. My sister is a lesbian and many of my close friends are gay. Because of my relationships with them, very early in my life I realized that sexual orientation is just one small aspect of any human being. My cluelessness about my daughter’s sexual orientation wasn’t denial. Like many parents of adolescents, I just didn’t know what was going on in her head. Whatever stereotypes there are about gayness, my daughter doesn’t fit them (some kids do and some kids don’t). Casandra played with dolls. She loved Blues Clues. Her favorite Disney movie was Mulan. Casandra liked her long hair braided. She didn’t care if she wore a dress or sweatpants (now jeans and a t-shirt are her favorites). She was (and is!) my beloved little girl—not my beloved-little-girl-who-might-be-gay.

      The trouble with finding support (or sharing with other parents) when your child comes out is that you might inadvertently out your child to others before they are ready. Your LGBTQ child may also have already heard horrible messages about gay people from our culture and society—even from friends, the media, or perhaps from their religious community. To add further complexity to this delicate situation, your child has probably planned this talk with you for days, weeks, maybe even months or years. They’ve been looking for the right opportunity to discuss this and you may have been oblivious. You’ve been stressed about work, worried about what’s for dinner, and trying to remember what time you’re supposed to pick them and/or their siblings up from basketball practice. So you might very well be driving them home from soccer practice or school and your preteen or teen might turn to you and say, “Mom… I think I might be gay,” or “Dad, I’ve been questioning my gender.” And yes, you could have had your suspicions. Or you could have known for sure. Or you could have not had a clue. All of these are possibilities. None of them mean you are a bad parent. And it will still be different because it will be the first time they’ve vocalized this and entrusted you with this important aspect of who they are, regardless if they are nine or nineteen.

      Dead silence to the coming out pronouncement is probably your child’s greatest fear next to a screaming match. Even if you are totally baffled and blindsided, try to say something nonjudgmental like, “Can you tell me a little bit more about this?” or, “Okay, let’s talk.” Don’t let this be a one-time conversation. Bring it up again when you feel more prepared and have had a chance to think about what your child has shared with you. Affirm your child with love—tell them you love them and want good things for them, regardless of their gender or the gender of their future spouse. When my daughter Casandra came out, she was young and didn’t know all the words surrounding gender and sexuality. She was still working through what she felt. My husband and I told her we didn’t care whether her future partner was a man or a woman. What we cared about was whether he or she loved Casandra and treated her well. I told Casandra I wanted her to have what her dad and I have—a long, good marriage full of ups and downs and personal growth and couple growth (and secretly I was also thinking grandchildren… but no pressure, Casandra!).

      This may be not politically correct to say, but it is okay to mourn. You and your child have lost something. You’ve lost belonging to a social norm, and with it the rights and privileges of “normal.” It really upset me at first that I would never see my daughter get married in a Catholic church. My husband and I were both raised Catholic, and our children even attended a Catholic school for a time. I watched that dream die and I had to be okay with it. I knew that sending a message of unconditional love to my daughter was even more important than that particular (and unfortunately deeply homophobic) way of expressing my religious faith. I was very worried (and still am) about Casandra’s physical, psychological, and emotional safety. But just remember that with everything that is “taken away” with an LGBTQ identity, other things are given. Casandra (who is now 20) and I are close, and part of the reason for that is because we have had to face “not normal” together. Your child will see the world in a different way because they are in a minority. So yes, mourn, but then remember that the loss of normalcy offers up other gifts to you and to your child, including the loss of the sometimes toxic heteronormative (the assumption that everyone is straight and a family consists of a mother and father, etc.) expectations of our society, expectations such as how someone of a certain gender should dress or act: “the woman” being expected to do the bulk of household chores, boys not crying, etc.

      Whenever anything happens that might cause our child pain or put them at risk or in harm’s way, we tend to blame ourselves as parents. We will cover this in the next chapter, but recent studies have shown that being gay probably has to do with genetic protectors called epi-marks5 and that being transgender is probably the brain structure with which a child is born. It’s not something you or they can control, any more than you could have controlled their eye color or their height.

      When you are responding in that series of conversations to your child coming out, please try to be as gentle as you can. Remember how much your parents’ opinions and reactions mean(t) to you, especially in those younger, vulnerable years. Words that would be fine to a friend, sibling, or co-worker may be taken in a different way by your child, who will be reading every bit of your body language for clues to what you are thinking. And don’t trick yourself into thinking they can’t read you well. They’ve spent their whole lives with you. They probably know what you’re going to say and do before you do. Parents can inflict a lot of damage on their LGBTQ children, or they can do a lot of good. Good is a lot easier and better for your kid, as well as for our aching, conflicted world.

      Try to avoid saying, “Are you sure?” in response to whatever they are telling you. If they are talking about this, they are pretty sure. And even if they aren’t sure, they don’t want to be asked this question as a first response to their initiating this discussion. That doesn’t mean if you say, “are you sure” or if you’ve already said, “are you sure?” you’ve scarred your child for life. Just keep the lines of communication open, and ask them what they’ve been thinking and what they are feeling.

      If you suspect your child might be LGBTQ but they have not said anything to you yet, it is hard to know what “the right thing” to do is. Asking someone if they are gay should not be seen as a negative question, but unfortunately, sometimes shame is attached to that word, especially in the heteronormative culture in middle and high schools. Your child might have already been teased at school for being gay and they may not have told you. Male students at my son’s high school frequently call the male swimmers and water polo players gay “because they wear Speedos” for practice and competition. (This reminds me of a saying that went through my high school in the 80s about guys getting pierced