Of course, coming out, whether to one's family, employer, friends, or self, does not have to be done on a particular day. But, having a National Coming Out Day does draw attention to the LGBTQ+ community, their allies, and the notion that visibility does, indeed, matter. To quote the Human Rights Commision website:
"Coming out - whether it is as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or allied - STILL MATTERS. When people know someone who is LGBTQ+, they are far more likely to support equality under the law. Beyond that, our stories can be powerful to each other."
Coming out, though, is still, for too many people, fraught with danger. Danger of being fired. Danger of being rejected by family or friends. Danger of being kicked out of your home.
It occurs to me that awhile back, I came out as an ally, and as a family member of someone in the LGBTQ+ community. It was in this blog post that I came out, not just as an ally, but as the mom of a lesbian child.
Now, for anyone who follows my Facebook feed with any sort of regularity, this cannot come as a surprise. Certainly not the ally part, and probably not the family member part. A confirmation, perhaps, but not a surprise. But, I know that there are people who can't, or won't, see what's in front of them, so sometimes one needs to be blunt.
My daughter is a cis-gendered, homosexual, homo-romantic young woman.
For those of you who may not be up on the various terms, that means she both has two X chromosomes and identifies as female, is sexually attracted to females, and is romantically attracted to females.
She is also a junior in high school, loves theatre, is a little scared about college, is sometimes unsure of herself, at other times thinks she is invincible, and frequently thinks her mother is a goober. Typical 16 year old stuff.
I am incredibly proud of my girl. And I am also incredibly protective of her. And the inherent conflict between those two, of course, leads me to the bulk of this post.
Visibility matters. Knowledge matters. Understanding matters.
I grew up in a very rural, small town. I had a friend who used the N-word repeatedly, and claimed to hate "N-words". Except....she was good friends with an African-American who was in the class behind us. When I asked (OK, confronted) her about this once, her response was, "Oh, but he's different, I know him!"
What she was actually scared of was the unknown. So, yes, I get it. By being open, by being herself, my daughter may make any number of people rethink their biases. They may have that, "Oh, but I know her!" moment that makes them think long enough to realize that, if she's not so scary, then maybe other members of the LGBTQ+ community aren't, either.
But then I think of Orlando. Or of Matthew Shepard. Or of the day, towards the end of last December, when my brave, strong, daughter came home in tears because someone told her she didn't matter, and was going to burn in hell anyway, and while she had heard that before from strangers at Pride marches, this was in class, from someone she's known since elementary school.
So, yes, if you pay attention to my words, and my posts, and my girl, and you wind up opening your mind and your heart a little, yay. As the Mirandized George III would say, "Awesome! Wow!!" I'm happy, really.
But, damn, folks, you are asking one hell of a price for me and my family to pay for your enlightenment. You are asking me to let my daughter go out into the world and declare herself among the nations of the hated. The reviled. To put herself at risk of emotional and physical harm.
And here's the thing: you don't need to. You're using my kid as the easy out, so that you don't have to recognize the LGBTQ+ person in your office. Or on the Board of Directors with you. Or in your Sunday School class. Or on your kid's soccer team, or in their band, or choir, or Scout Troop, or study group, or youth group.
Or sitting across the dinner table from you, telling you about their day, and the math test they took.
You don't need my daughter. Trust me on this one, she is NOT the only LGBTQ+ person you've encountered in your world. And this matters, a lot.
According to a chart on the CDC website, in 2014 suicide was the second leading cause of death for the age ranges 10-14, 15-24, and 25-34. According to the Trevor Project, the rate of suicide attempts for LGB and questioning youths are between 2 and 4 times the attempts of straight youth. These attempts are also more likely to result in injury, poisoning, or overdose that requires treatment by a clinician than the attempts by straight kids.
So, yeah, in short, simple, words, our kids are killing themselves, and most of the ones who do, or who try to, are LGBTQ+ or questioning. One of the things that is most likely to keep an LGBTQ+ teen from attempting suicide? Knowing that they have an accepting support system. Hopefully family, but teachers, coaches, mentors, and so on will do in a pinch.
Here's one of the other things you need to know about my girl. At the end of her 8th grade year, she was hospitalized for about 3 weeks for depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. Thankfully, this was not related to her sexuality; I say thankfully because sexuality can't be changed, so at least we weren't working against that. But still. My not-yet-14 year old was so depressed that she thought of taking her own life.
Here's what happens when your child is suicidal. First, you go spend a lot of time (like, 36+ hours, if you're lucky) in the behavioral section of the local emergency room, because there are never enough beds. While your child is there, you can stay with them. Eventually, though, a bed opens up in the psych ward, and your child is admitted, and at that point, you're limited to a maximum of three visits a day, for no more than an hour. Only family. Can't go out of the ward.
Eventually, hopefully, your child improves, and you start talking about going home, and then the real fun starts. You see, before your child can come home, you need to be able to convince the hospital that they'll be safe once they do. Which means getting rid of anything they might use to harm themselves. Anything.
What that means, if you're me, anyway, is you go buy a cabinet that locks, and into it you put:
For those of you who may not be up on the various terms, that means she both has two X chromosomes and identifies as female, is sexually attracted to females, and is romantically attracted to females.
She is also a junior in high school, loves theatre, is a little scared about college, is sometimes unsure of herself, at other times thinks she is invincible, and frequently thinks her mother is a goober. Typical 16 year old stuff.
I am incredibly proud of my girl. And I am also incredibly protective of her. And the inherent conflict between those two, of course, leads me to the bulk of this post.
Visibility matters. Knowledge matters. Understanding matters.
I grew up in a very rural, small town. I had a friend who used the N-word repeatedly, and claimed to hate "N-words". Except....she was good friends with an African-American who was in the class behind us. When I asked (OK, confronted) her about this once, her response was, "Oh, but he's different, I know him!"
What she was actually scared of was the unknown. So, yes, I get it. By being open, by being herself, my daughter may make any number of people rethink their biases. They may have that, "Oh, but I know her!" moment that makes them think long enough to realize that, if she's not so scary, then maybe other members of the LGBTQ+ community aren't, either.
But then I think of Orlando. Or of Matthew Shepard. Or of the day, towards the end of last December, when my brave, strong, daughter came home in tears because someone told her she didn't matter, and was going to burn in hell anyway, and while she had heard that before from strangers at Pride marches, this was in class, from someone she's known since elementary school.
So, yes, if you pay attention to my words, and my posts, and my girl, and you wind up opening your mind and your heart a little, yay. As the Mirandized George III would say, "Awesome! Wow!!" I'm happy, really.
But, damn, folks, you are asking one hell of a price for me and my family to pay for your enlightenment. You are asking me to let my daughter go out into the world and declare herself among the nations of the hated. The reviled. To put herself at risk of emotional and physical harm.
And here's the thing: you don't need to. You're using my kid as the easy out, so that you don't have to recognize the LGBTQ+ person in your office. Or on the Board of Directors with you. Or in your Sunday School class. Or on your kid's soccer team, or in their band, or choir, or Scout Troop, or study group, or youth group.
Or sitting across the dinner table from you, telling you about their day, and the math test they took.
You don't need my daughter. Trust me on this one, she is NOT the only LGBTQ+ person you've encountered in your world. And this matters, a lot.
According to a chart on the CDC website, in 2014 suicide was the second leading cause of death for the age ranges 10-14, 15-24, and 25-34. According to the Trevor Project, the rate of suicide attempts for LGB and questioning youths are between 2 and 4 times the attempts of straight youth. These attempts are also more likely to result in injury, poisoning, or overdose that requires treatment by a clinician than the attempts by straight kids.
So, yeah, in short, simple, words, our kids are killing themselves, and most of the ones who do, or who try to, are LGBTQ+ or questioning. One of the things that is most likely to keep an LGBTQ+ teen from attempting suicide? Knowing that they have an accepting support system. Hopefully family, but teachers, coaches, mentors, and so on will do in a pinch.
Here's one of the other things you need to know about my girl. At the end of her 8th grade year, she was hospitalized for about 3 weeks for depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. Thankfully, this was not related to her sexuality; I say thankfully because sexuality can't be changed, so at least we weren't working against that. But still. My not-yet-14 year old was so depressed that she thought of taking her own life.
Here's what happens when your child is suicidal. First, you go spend a lot of time (like, 36+ hours, if you're lucky) in the behavioral section of the local emergency room, because there are never enough beds. While your child is there, you can stay with them. Eventually, though, a bed opens up in the psych ward, and your child is admitted, and at that point, you're limited to a maximum of three visits a day, for no more than an hour. Only family. Can't go out of the ward.
Eventually, hopefully, your child improves, and you start talking about going home, and then the real fun starts. You see, before your child can come home, you need to be able to convince the hospital that they'll be safe once they do. Which means getting rid of anything they might use to harm themselves. Anything.
What that means, if you're me, anyway, is you go buy a cabinet that locks, and into it you put:
- Knives/razors/X-actoes
- Any medication anyone in your family takes, whether OTC or prescription.
- Matches
- Scissors
- Needles
- Anything else you can possibly think of that might be used to hurt oneself.
And then you clean your kid's room. You go under the bed, in the drawers, between mattress and box-springs, through the closets. You take down the posters and pictures to look behind them. If you're like me, and don't let your kids use poster putty because it puts grease spots on the walls, you don't put the posters back up, because the only other way to hang them are push pins, which are sharp, and could be used to cut. You wonder how worried you should be about bed sheets. You wonder if you should put something on the windows. And, at the end, you make the room as safe as it can possibly be. But in doing so, you've erased your child's personality from it.
And then, for the next few months, this is how you live. You unlock the cabinet every night when you need a knife to cook. Or before bed when your kid needs her meds. Or when you need to take your allergy medicine. Or when someone has a headache. You monitor your child's psych meds, because she has to take them, but you've got to make sure she doesn't take too many. You unlock the cabinet if someone has a birthday so you can light the candles.
At some point, you have to go back to work. And you spend an inordinate time worrying about what your child is up to when you're not there. But you text them. And if they don't reply in what you think is a reasonable time (for me, about 3 minutes), you panic. Because, you see, you've heard you child say that they just didn't care if they lived or died. So you text her brothers. And you freak out until one of them answers you and says, "yeah, she's in her room, she's just napping". And sometimes, God help you, when they do answer, you scream at them because they took all of 90 seconds to get back to you, and don't they realize that you're picturing your baby lying dead and cold in her room because you didn't check on her?
Yeah. Fun times.
But you know what? I'm lucky. In a godawful, twisted, horrible way, I'm lucky. Because I got to buy that cabinet, and lock everything up, and make those texts, and yell at those boys (God, boys, I'm so sorry, but bless y'all for sticking with me).
I didn't have to bury my child.
So, yes, if reading my Facebook posts, and my blog, makes any of you out there realize that you DO know someone in the LGBTQ+ community, great.
But what about those kids you already know? What about the ones in the Scout troop, or the choir, or the band, or the team, or the class? What about the ones who are too damn scared to tell their parents who they really are? What about the ones who are looking for someone, anyone, who they can depend on to love them, and support them, and accept them, no matter what?
What about those kids? They need you. They need you right now. They need you before they wind up in the hospital. They need you so that their parents get one last chance to make it right and accept their child.
My kid is OK. Way before she came out, she knew it would be a non-issue for me, her Dad, her step-dad, her siblings, and her extended family. She lives in a town that is accepting and caring. She has teachers who support her, and who watch out for homophobic slurs.
Can you say the same for the LGBTQ+ kids in your life? And if not, what the hell are you waiting for? They're out there. They need you. Are you going to hide behind my daughter as your token LGBTQ+? Or are you going to step out of your comfort zone to make sure you help the other ones in your life?
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