Unconditional. Telaina Eriksen
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it changes your sexual preference/identity just like that.
But to have your parents question your identity in these younger years may be taken the wrong way; through no fault of yours, this may be seen as interrogation from a preteen or teen perspective. You know your own child best, so if you think you can ask that question and not over-question or inadvertently hurt your child, then ask. But if you’re not sure, just give them space. Create opportunities to talk positively about LGBTQ people. This should be easy to do between the news, social media, and daily events. Tell stories about your friends and/or family who are LGBTQ. Talk about their challenges as well as their daily lives. Leave some quiet space in your own life (I know how challenging this is) to allow opportunity for your child to start a conversation with you if they want or need to. When they feel the time is right, your child will come to you.
We’ve Come a Long Way
In the struggle for the LGBTQ community to get the rights that they and their allies have fought so hard for, it has been necessary to show stories and messages that allow straight people to see and understand how discrimination affects an LGBTQ’s person everyday life. For instance, the right to marry brings many everyday things that make LGBTQ people’s lives easier—the default right of inheritance, the default right of making medical decisions if their spouse is incapacitated and doesn’t have a power of attorney, visitation rights in intensive care, taxes, and even little things like some car companies letting your spouse drive your rental car too with no additional cost or paperwork.
The good thing is this has been very effective and these narratives are true. The downside is that easily digested stories don’t always reflect the nuances and difficulties of real life. Sometimes when someone says they are bisexual, it is a “stage” on the way to realizing and/or accepting they might be gay. Sometimes it means they will be bisexual for the rest of their lives. Someone can be both transgender and gay. People can be “gay” and non-binary gender, or prefer not to identify with either gender. People can be bisexual and “choose” their partner, regardless of their partner’s gender, just because they really love that particular person. I personally think that the Kinsey Scale, while old and often used in unhelpful ways (“oh? You’re a four? You’re mostly gay”), still does offer a useful way to look at sexual orientation. Some teens do get confused (questioning) because they have experienced attraction to both boys and girls. The Kinsey Scale, when not used to gather ammunition to label people, shows that all of our sexuality exists on a spectrum, and it can reassure a teen that they are not the only person on the planet who has had these seemingly conflicting thoughts. According to the Kinsey Institute website,6 “The Kinsey Scale does not address all possible sexual identities. The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid and the Storms Scale have stepped in to further define sexual expression. The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid, developed by Fritz Klein, features seven variables and three situations in time: past, present, and ideal. The Storms Scale, developed by Michael D. Storms, plots eroticism on an X and Y axis. This allows for a much greater range of descriptions. Kinsey, Storm, and Klein are three of more than 200 scales to measure and describe sexual orientation.” As Patrick Richards Fink says on his Huffington Post blog,7 “It (The Kinsey Scale) was a valuable and useful thing when it first came out, because it was one of the first attempts to show that there are plenty of ways to be human other than strict heterosexuality.” My friend who is a therapist and social worker says, “Sometimes when people are confused about their sexual orientation, I ask them about who they think about when they masturbate. That gives a clue.” Another friend, who identifies as lesbian, told me, “I’ve enjoyed sex with men before, but I’ve never fallen in love with a man. Only women.” Casandra jokes that she is 97 percent gay, but Misha Collins (who plays Castiel on the TV Show Supernatural) is her three percent straight. Identities can change, and as much as we love a neat and tidy story, there aren’t too many of those in parenting, or across the scope of a single lived life.
Some LGBTQ History
To understand a little of what your child is going to face in the United Sates as someone with a nontraditional sexual orientation or gender identity, you have to understand that until 1973, the American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as a mental illness.8 Gay men and lesbian women were condemned by pretty much all major religions, and many religions and sects keep up that condemnation today. The act of homosexual sex, even in your own home, was punishable by fines, 20 years in prison, or even a life sentence, depending on what state you lived in. (Except for Illinois—little known bastion of gay rights in the United States, who repealed their sodomy laws in 1962.) Despite the Supreme Court decision (Lawrence v. Texas) which struck down sodomy laws almost 14 years ago, sodomy laws are still on the books in 12 states, and in four of those states, sodomy is only legal if you aren’t gay.
But we’ve come a long way, and as a parent of a gay child, I am forever grateful to the people who fought so hard and so long so that not only can she one day get married to her future partner (if she so chooses), but they fought for her physical, mental, and emotional safety as well.
One of the key turning points in gay rights was the Stonewall Uprising, which began on June 28, 1969. According to the PBS special American Experience: Stonewall Uprising9 in the early morning, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. These raids were not unusual in the late 1960s. (This is why June is traditionally Pride month, to honor the Stonewall riots.) New York City had the largest gay population in the United States at that time, and aggressively upheld its anti-sodomy laws. Vice squads regularly raided gay bars and baths, and they solicited and entrapped the gay men there. These vice squads arrested on average over 100 men a week. “It was a nightmare for the lesbian or gay man who was arrested and caught up in the juggernaut but it was also a nightmare for the lesbians or gay men who lived in the closet,” Yale Law School professor William Eskridge says in American Experience: Stonewall Uprising. “This produced an enormous amount of anger within the lesbian and gay community in New York City. Eventually something was bound to blow.”
The Stonewall Inn was “a dive.” According to the pbs.org website describing the film, Stonewall was “operated by the Mafia, the bar served watered-down drinks without a liquor license.” But it was one of the few places in New York City (and really the entire United States) where LGBTQ people could just go and hang out and be their authentic selves. Many of the people who went to Stonewall were among the most marginalized of the LGBTQ community, the “outcasts” at the time—drag queens, transgender individuals, etc.
Previous vice squad raids of Stonewall had all followed the same pattern. The police came in and arrested people; the bar closed and then reopened in a couple of hours. But on that night, the people in the bar resisted arrest, and the police quickly realized they were vastly outnumbered. An LBGTQ crowd filled the street outside of the bar and threw things at the police, shouting things like “gay power.” The spontaneous uprising continued for six days.10
This happened when I was just over a year old. This tremendous battle for acceptance, equality, and basic human rights has been fought, inch by inch, in less than 50 years.
On June 24, 2016, President Obama designated the Stonewall Inn as a national monument.11 “I’m designating the Stonewall National Monument as the newest addition to America’s National Park System. Stonewall will be our first national monument to tell the story of the struggle for LGBTQ rights. I believe our national parks should reflect the full story of our country, the richness and diversity and uniquely American spirit that has always defined us. That we are stronger together. That out of many, we are one,” the president said.
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