Advice on dealing with parents in the coming out process.

Rob Barton

Over the years dealing with LGBT issues within my own family and among my friends and in working with youth, I have had occasion to be involved in the coming out process many times. I have been the child, and the parent I have also been the friend and the advocate and advisor. I grew up in a family with multi generational bisexual members, four generations so far. I have seen peaceful acceptance and painful rejection. I have worked with youth and with parents. Based on all of these varied experiences I have done a lot of work directly with youth on coming out to parents and I advise a specific set of general things which lead to as peaceful and supportive an approach as is possible. I have advised these same things again and again and I thought that I would write them down here for anyone and everyone to consider.

When we are considering coming out to anyone there is a fear of rejection. Fear of rejection by our own parents is more of a massive, inexorably looming horror. This rejection is a serious threat to our very concept of belonging and we are in a place where we are facing the possibility of our very being and who we are coming into conflict with where we belong. Do we deny who we are in order to belong? Do we lose where we belong in order to be who we are? Can we lose neither one nor the other and find a way to maintain both ourselves and our place? For some the answer to one of the first two questions is yes and that is a choice that some people make or which is forced on them. I do think that the answer to the third question can be yes in many instances. I also believe that the person who is coming out can and should manage the process in a way that tries to address the needs of everyone involved and which helps to maintain as much comfort as is possible and minimizes conflict.

There are some mistakes of thought that can cause a great deal of difficulty in the coming out process, there are mistakes of thought by the parents and there are mistakes of thought by the children. The first mistake of thought is the feeling of many parents that “I know my own child better than anyone, even the child” there is a corollary mistake of though by the children in which the child believes that he or she knows his or her parents better than the parent. The next set of thought mistakes have to do with parents seeing a child as an extension of themselves and when a child sees the same situation. In the coming out process you must remember that you are an individual and learn to recognize when your parent is making this mistake.  I’m not saying that you should challenge the mistake in thought directly, just that you recognize it and deal with it when you hear statements that stem from this belief. When you hear a statement such as “I would know if my own child were bisexual” or “you’re not gay, I know you’re not” or accusations that you have just been “influenced by friends” or that you are “in a phase” you need to recognize the source of this denial.

Different aspects of the sudden knowledge that a child is bisexual, gay, lesbian or transgendered can be rejected and it is important that we understand what is being challenged, rejected or difficult to accept. Bi or homophobia may be part of what is  causing difficulty in acceptance, but other things can figure into the equation and each thing should be considered for its own role in the process. It can be easier for us to believe that another person is mistaken in his or her opinions and perceptions than that we are ourselves mistaken. It is sometimes simply easier for a parent to believe that the child is wrong or going through a phase than for the parent to radically rethink their own idea of the identity of the child. Your parent has spent your whole life constructing an idea of who you are and when you come out you may be bringing about a lot of challenges to that idea. Your parent also may very well feel that he or she should have known. Your parent may experience guilt that he or she caused this. Your parent may be bothered that his or her own past actions toward we who are not straight may have inadvertently caused you pain. It is important that you try to identify what is motivating different parts of the reaction and it is very important that you not assume that it is simply homophobia. Yes, some parents react with horrible homophobia but others react with little or no homophobia and have trouble accepting that is based on entirely different issues. So ask yourself if the reactions are based on homophobia, social embarrassment, the assumption that the parent knows better than the child, guilt or any other issue.

I have in my life known one person who suddenly realized that he was gay at the age of 16 and had no struggle or questioning. For most people our realization comes to us in stages after a lot of thought, concern, denial and or many other things. I am constantly telling youth that they are unreasonable if they are taking an issue that they themselves took several years to resolve and expecting their parents to groc the whole thing and reach a state of acceptance in ten minutes or a few days. That is just not reasonable. You may be asking a parent to radically alter his or her idea of who you are and you should expect that it will take time and pass through stages. The same way you had to look things up and find more information and the way that you had to question and perhaps deny and finally resolve issues and recognize yourself is very much what may be needed by your parent. It is important that you realize that while you may have been in this process of self realization and coming out for a while and you are now ready to tell your parents they will be taking the very first step in that process and you can’t expect them to suddenly be where you are with the whole journey.

Only you can know when the best time to tell your parents comes. People will tell you that you should wait until you are on your own while others tell you that you should get right in and confront your parents as soon as you are sure. There is no right answer here because every relationship is different. If you feel that your own safety and wellbeing would be at risk than you have no duty to come out right away. There is no duty to the community or to anyone else to do this. If you do not feel that you would be in danger and you feel that the stress of hiding something is too much then you may want to come out. If you feel no stress or that you are hiding something then you may want to wait. My point is that there is no person who can tell you when you should do this. Your own health and wellbeing and the health and wellbeing of your family should be the first and second concerns here.

I recommend that we avoid being confrontational in our approach and that we try to make things as comfortable as we can for our parents in this process. Do not go into this with the feeling that you have to challenge the beliefs of your parents. From what I have seen when the love for a child comes into conflict with a belief the parent most often begins to challenge the belief him or herself. I also feel that if you try to directly challenge the belief in a confrontational way then the belief begins to challenge the love for the child. Simply put, if you stay calm and loving as a child then that parent is most likely going to automatically start to challenge beliefs that threaten his or her love for you. Then the parent starts to challenge these beliefs. And this is preferable to the child challenging the belief because that may feel to the parent like the child is challenging the parent, and this can lead to confrontation about people.

When you decide to tell your parent about yourself, don’t rehearse it and don’t have a long lecture planned that will give lots of information. Keep it simply and inform the parent calmly then let the parent take charge of what he or she needs to know or wants to know. Too much information at once can feel overwhelming to a person who may be suddenly experiencing a serious emotional event.  Stay calm and answer questions as they are asked. Address pieces of disinformation as they are presented and so dispel misconceptions as they are becoming concerns.  By doing this you will allow your parent to process through these thoughts and feeling at his or her own pace and in the order that he or she can best deal with them. Don’t assume that you know what the most important things for your parent to hear is going to be or that you know what they most important concern that your parent has is going to be. Simply allow the natural process to take place and support that process with honesty, love and information.

If you want to give your parents some support through pamphlets, websites and organizations. If you want your parents to have some articles or essays that can help inform or if you want to guide them other sources of information and support you should. This gives you a chance to see to it that your parent has sources of support and information that can help in the situation. Try an approach that allows for the parent to choose when that information is used. Don’t just come out and hand your parent a stack of papers to read because this tends toward the too much too fast effect. Rather you should place these things in a folder and simply tell your parent that you have gathered some materials that may help explain how you feel and that you are going to leave it in a particular drawer to be looked at when and if ready.

An approach that is designed to keep everything calm and to stay as much within the comfort zones of everyone involved can reduce the emotional stress of this process. I also believe that families can be allowed to deal with these issues in a far healthier way if we all try to remain comfortable and to reduce how uncomfortable we make others feel. Education and sincere love for one another can help this process. Not every family deals well with these issues but I would like to see every effort made to help every family to deal with these issues as effectively and peacefully as is possible.