Helping Straight Parents of Gay Children (Part 5 - Understanding Your Gay Child-3)

By Brand Doubell  |   Submitted On May 27, 2014

You have listened to your child without prejudice, you have read a few articles on homosexuality, and maybe you even found a support-group in your area, but what now? What does the fact that your child is gay really entail? In this article I will try to explain the core of being gay in a few simple paragraphs. The best way to explain something is often by saying what it is not. I will use this method in my explanation. It is impossible to fully explain what being gay implies in an article, but here it is.

1. Being gay is not just about sex. Consider your own heterosexual relationship or marriage. Is heterosexuality only about sex? Off course it isn't - the fact that you are attracted to the opposite sex includes love, closeness, understanding, building a family, planning the future together, and communicating your deepest needs, fears, dreams, joys, and disappointments with each other. At the beginning of most, if not all, relationships there are a chemistry that draws you together, but as time goes on the chemistry takes its place among many other aspects of your relationship. With gay people this happens between two people of the same gender, and that is the only difference.


2. Being gay is not the same as being transsexual (gender dysphoria). A. Gay man does not necessarily want to be a woman and a lesbian does not want to be a man. It is stereotypical nonsense that all gay men have female mannerisms and all gay women have dirt under their nails. Parents of gay children often say something like "my son can't be gay, because he loves contact sports". That doesn't mean anything - many gay men are as butch as a man can be and many lesbian girls are just as feminine as her peers.


3. Being gay is being part of a social group. It may be because of discrimination from the straight community, or it might just be because birds of a feather flock together, but being gay makes you part of a gay community. The gay community is like a mafia or rather a family. We might fight among each other, but the moment other people attack one of us, we are all up in arms. Gay people have what we call a gaydar - a sixth sense that makes it possible for one gay person to sense another. We fight for our rights, we have our own clubs, we party together, and we rally together in prides and parades. All of this isn't true about all of us, but all of us take part in the gay community on some level. We communicate internationally, but we understand each others needs and pains without discussing it.


4. On the other hand, being part of a community doesn't make us aggressive or negative against everybody outside of the group. I have heard many negative remarks about gay prides and parades. Straight people often say that they do not have straight prides and parades so why do we have it. I think we have parades and prides because we are a minority, I think we have it because of the discrimination against us, and I think we have it to show the majority that we are not alone. Parades and prides is not aggressive or destructive, it's just our way of inviting the people who are still in the closet to come out.


5. Being part of a gay culture does not mean that we want to make recruit straight people. Most gay men/women are only interested in other gay men/women. There are those among us that fall in love with straight people, and there is a small percentage that enjoys it to conquer straight people, but that is not true about the average gay man/woman. The fact that a large part of the straight community rejects us makes our lives more complicated, and for that reason we do not wish it for our straight friends. Most of us believe that you were born straight so it is ridiculous to think that we can make you gay. It isn't our aim.


6. Being gay does not mean that we are going to force it down your throat. Most gay people are discrete about their sexuality, because of the rejection and discrimination against us. We do not ask that you like us or like what we do; we merely ask for the right to be who we are without discrimination.


7. Being gay doesn't make us rapists or molesters. Straight people are interested in the opposite sex, but that doesn't mean people of the opposite sex should fear them. Gay people are interested in the same-sex, but that doesn't mean that people of the same-sex should fear us.


8. Being gay does not mean that you are promiscuous. In the past gay people could only settle for one-night-stands or secretive relationships. For there own safety they married people from the opposite sex to hide behind it. You could say that the straight community forced gay people into promiscuity. In our time gay people have more rights and they are allowed to have gay relationships, therefor they do not need to jump from one partner to another. They can have steady relationships and many of us do.


9. Being gay does not mean that you have a bigger chance of becoming HIV-positive. Everybody, gay or straight, that lives a promiscuous life has a bigger chance of becoming HIV positive. The problem lies with promiscuity and not with sexual orientation.


10. Being gay does not imply that you are un-spiritual or nonreligious. There are many people who are gay and religious/spiritual.

For all the reasons above it would be fruitful for the parents of gay children to discuss their gay lives with their children. Many ideas about gay people are ridiculous stereotypes. A lot of the things you've heard about gay people just isn't true, so make sure about your facts before you react.

https://www.facebook.com/Cobragay?ref=hl
http://www.amazon.com/Just-Another-Gayboy-Brand-Doubell-ebook/dp/B00K0T9KB6

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