"My parent/sibling/child is Gay." Tell your story

In My Humble Opinion
41

My sons aren’t old enough to tell, yet. (I talked to my mom, though, and she was glad I included my sister’s story, and wanted to add that she couldn’t wish for a better daughter than my sis… or me, for that matter, and I’m bi.)

I wouldn’t be surprised if Gabe (my 5 year old son) was bi. He was always split on flirting - flirted as much with boys as girls, from the get-go. Has wanted to marry his best friends (both girls and boys) and now thinks getting married at ALL would be horrible, all that SMOOCHING required. Ick! I also wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up being something of a cross-dresser, gay, straight, or bi. He always loved beaded purses, jewelry, and pretty shoes. His little brother has a shoe fetish going already (as much as that happens at 18 months!), but is more interested in eating jewelry than wearing it.

Something that makes me sad is seeing people say ‘I’m sad because they’ll never get married or have kids’ … um, even without a legally sanctioned marriage license, weddings DO happen a lot for gay couples (the UU church does service of unions all the time, and they are quite lovely). And loads of gay couples have kids (adopted or their own from either side of the couple, or both). Not to mention those who got married and had kids before coming to terms with their sexuality, and therefore have kids even if the marriage didn’t work out. There is nothing legally barring a service of union (all the trappings of a wedding) or pregnancy/birth for the women, or surrogacy (in the few places that’s legal for anyone), or in many places, adoption (though that one is more variable).

My mom was pretty cool with my sister being gay, but flipped a bit when I said I was bi. She thought I’d make a good mom, and didn’t want to see me NOT have kids. Not her choice, thanks, but even if I’d ended up with another woman instead of a man, I’d probably have been making babies somehow. It just irks me to have that assumption that the only way to have kids is to be married to an opposite sex partner. Like it never happens ANY other way…

42

For a moment there, I thought hedra & hildea were the same person.

Thanks for your (plural) input.

43

My mom is a lesbian. I can’t remember a time that I didn’t know - that we sat down and had a talk about it. I just always understood that some times a man and a woman love each other and other times a woman and a woman love each other and other times a man and a man love each other.

She was married to my father until I was 3, about 7 years all told. He didn’t know then I don’t believe but of course now does, though we barely skirt around the issue, if it comes up at all.

I’m straight, though for a while there I did wonder, more I think than most kids would who grew up in a hetero household.

The toughest times for me around hmy mother’s being a lesbian was in grade and high school. I remember kids saying “that is so gay” as an insult and being really upset by it but not saying anything at all. And it was a rare day that I’d invite anyone home, because I didn’t want to have to explain why there were two women living there (my mom and her then-partner) but only my bedroom and one other bedroom. I do know now that a very few close friends must have known, but it was never commented on.

Now though I feel like it is hardly worth remarking on, and most folks who I tell don’t react in a signifigant way at all. But then I do live in San Francisco :D.

I also had a cousin, on my father’s side who was gay and he died of AIDS in the late 80’s.
Twiddle

44

My stories aren’t happy ones :(.

My great uncle was gay. He left my aunt in the late 1950s/early 1960s sometime (when I was between 10 and 14). All I remember is a lot of whispering and how everyone was sorry for my great aunt. No one used the word gay or even homosexual in front of the kids–just the limp wrist hand gesture. We never saw or spoke about him after that, although we saw my aunt a couple times a year. This may have been because she was the blood relative and he was the in-law.

My mother is a lesbian. To understand the family reaction, you need to know that my mother is one of those people who is always getting in on the latest fad. She discovered aerobics and now she was going to be happy. She was born again…happiness at last. She became a buddist. …a vegetarian …remarried… moved from San Francisco to Wisconsin … took up country music. It was always some new ticket to nirvanna. So, when she was in her early sixties, she discovered she was gay and now AT LAST she was going to be happy. Perhaps we kids were insensitive, but our reaction was, um…er…ah, ok, so you’re gay. Glad to hear it. That explains why you left your latest husband.

I don’t know what she was expecting–but we didn’t give the reaction she wanted. So she decided were were homophobes. Sigh. She moved in with her lover, who was antagonistic (actually hostile) towards all of us, because we had made my mother cry by not accepting her gayness. Nothing we said convinced either of them that we just plain didn’t care about their sexuality. I mean really, who even wants to think about their parents “doing it.”

She moved from Wisconsin to North Carolina (and now, at last, she was going to be happy). Then she got mad at us because she never saw her grandchildren. She blamed all this on how we hated her because she was gay. (It might, perhaps, have to do with the fact that she now lived 20 hours away instead of 3 and had a significant other who disliked us.)

Any way, mom’s in her eighties now, still convinced that the reason she’s distant from her children is because we don’t approve of her being a lesbian.

It is very sad. In retrospect, I wish I’d jumped up and down and got all excited and told mom how terribly happy I was that she’d discovered she was gay and that I was sure than now at last she’d be happy. The thing is, her orientation didn’t really matter, I loved her just the same. And I thought saying that would be enough. It wasn’t.

45

Slight hijack, but this brings to mind the story of one of my friends.

Freshman year of college she had a good male friend who admitted to her that he was gay. He had had relationships with guys, never with any girls. This friendship lasted for some time.
One night, they were both drunk, and he kissed her. The next day they discussed it, and he had feelings for her (and she did for him for a long time, though she thought it would never be an option). Since then they’ve been going out in a pretty healthy relationship. She frequently tells people, “My boyfriend is gay.” and jokes about it to his face.
This brings to my mind the whole “Kinsey Scale” about the degrees of gayness. I have a feeling that this guy is leaning very much towards the gay side (and that gives me worries for my friend about the future of the relationship, which is only 3 months old), but he seems to care about her very much.

46

My uncle is gay.

Well, so am I, but I digress…

Unfortunately with my uncle, I really haven’t had much time to get to know him at all since I was told that he is gay. In fact, last time I saw him was in 1992, when I was 10.

He just kind of disappeared around that time, moved first into Pittsburgh, then off to California. I didn’t find out that he was gay until one of my other Uncles died last year.

I’ve been wanting to get back in touch with him for a while, and NoClueBoy, I thank you for bringing it to the forefront of my attention tonight. I shot off an e-mail to one of my other Uncle’s requesting all of the family E-Mail addy’s, and I know he communicates with my Uncle Ron via e-mail, so I am going to get that e-mail address too.

47

Speaking as a Kinsey 5 (probably around where this guy stands), I would tread very carefully when dating a woman. I’ve heard that marriages involving a gay spouse are often quite normal and workable for the first couple of years (1-5ish), then taper off as the gay partner loses interest in their spouse, sometimes developing into a fear of sex, or at least general avoidance.

If I were in the guy’s shoes, I’d at least date for 2 years. Should the passion remain, I would only then consider marriage… and only if the lady wanted it. Divorces are more than costly… they’re painful for everyone involved, even under the most amicable of circumstances.

The watchwords should be “Slow, Calm, and with eyes wide open”.

48

I have two gay cousins (brothers), Shane and Ryan. Ryan I always suspected; he fits some of the stereotypes, and I just got the vibe. He helped a LOT with my own coming out to my family, and though I see him only a few times a year (He lives about 24 hours away) we’re pretty close.

My family as a whole was pretty cool with it, especially, oddly enough, my 84 year-old grandmother. Shane’s partner, Rich, came to all of our family gatherings and holidays for a couple of years after being disowned by his own family. The only thing the family was concerned about was that he ate enough dumplings. I remember my grandmother being absolutely disgusted and enraged that Rich’s family wouldn’t allow him to visit them unless he ‘turned straight.’

49

My sister had a baby at 16, disappeared with the child for two years, and came back as a lesbian, living with a woman and her four daughters. Since I’ve always felt “As long as you stay out of my boudoir, I don’t give a fck who you’re fcking” it wasn’t a problem.

I also married a gay guy so he could get a Green Card. It was the best relationship of my life. He convinced me I wasn’t a stupid loser, got me to get my GED and go to college. I fell apart after he left me for a guy. We never divorced, but he died 18 years ago.