Whenever you get a group of gay people
together to discuss their parents things tend to get grim very quickly.
There are those whose parents never speak of it and instead suffer quiet
illusions about whose company their children prefer. There are those who
are supportive, or who are supportive in time. And there are those who
go absolutely off-the-wall insane over their children’s sexuality.
Not everyone is around to tell their
stories, especially those in the latter group. I have known queers who
have come out to their parents and promptly had said parents go utterly
crazed with hatred and confusion. Sometimes when a parent says that they
have no son, they promptly go to not having a son in the literal sense
on account of the kid blowing his head off a few days later. I can only
wonder how many people actually believe that a dead kid is better than a
live homo.
I am so sick of burying the children of
cowards who put ideology in front of family.
The aftermath of these instances is often
difficult. How do you say to your own family, “Oh, I’m upset because
a friend of mine killed herself after her parents reacted badly to her
coming out... oh, wait, just like you did?” I don’t want to say that
parents should react to their children’s coming out with roses and
rainbows, as this is rarely the case. I also don’t want to say that a
child’s suicide is the fault of the parents. Clearly in the end it is
a personal choice. But amid all of these complicated feelings—suicide,
coming out, depression, and families that are difficult to
articulate—are some disturbing trends that we need to fight against.
It is an oft-quoted statistic that queer
teens are several times more likely to kill themselves than their
straight peers. We are also more likely to engage in most every other
sort of self-destructive behavior—drinking, promiscuity, and drugs,
among other things.
The gay community has created a variety
of different resources to help allay these problems. But all of the
PFLAG meetings in the world don’t help fundamentalist parents who
refuse to go. Support groups are similarly relatively unable to provide
much more than books, pamphlets, and a hug to children who have been
disowned by their families after not getting so much as a “thank you
for being straight with us.” We can put rainbow family stickers on our
cars and talk about making our own brothers and sisters all day long,
but it really would be nice to have the people who raised us on board
with this nutty acceptance idea as well.
What we as a community need to do is look
at ourselves. Are we actually a community of any sort, or just an
outcast diaspora thrown together just because we want to sleep with our
own? If the former is true, and I believe that it is, how do we help
ourselves? And more importantly, how do we reach those who think us
unaccessable? And who wants to stop living a comfortable life and
actually do that?
Once again I find myself at a loss for a
reasonable solution. The only thing that comes to mind is mass education
of the ignorant, making the schools gay friendly, and doing all of those
other things that are on the “radical gay agenda.” Actually, that
sounds like a brilliant idea. I can envision myself every night before
bed for the rest of my life, though: “Damn it, didn’t end homophobia
today.” Outreach is difficult, particularly getting into the schools,
but once we get past being accused of perversity en masse it would be
well worth it.
Forgive me if this column isn’t twelve
simple and clear steps to eradicate homophobia all ‘round the world
and stop queer teens from being depressed and suicidal. I’m just sick
of burying friends.
Kristen
Minor is a member of the class of 2004 at Dartmouth College and can be
reached at kristen@youth-guard.org.
She would like to dedicate this column to The Juice, with hopes that
better peace has been found.
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