You’ve listened to your child without prejudice, read a few articles on homosexuality, and maybe even found a support group in your area, but now what? What does the fact that your child is gay really mean? In this article I will try to explain the essence 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’s impossible to fully explain what being gay entails in an article, but here it is.
- Being gay is not just about sex. Think about your own heterosexual relationship or marriage. Is heterosexuality just about sex? Of course it’s not: being attracted to the opposite sex includes love, closeness, understanding, starting a family, planning for 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 is a chemistry that binds them together, but as time passes, chemistry takes its place among many other aspects of your relationship. With homosexuals this happens between two people of the same sex, and that is the only difference.
- Being gay is not the same as being transsexual (gender dysphoria). A. Gay men don’t necessarily want to be a woman and a lesbian doesn’t want to be a man. It is stereotypical nonsense that all gay men have feminine gestures 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 means nothing – many gay men are as macho as a man can be, and many lesbian girls are as feminine as their peers.
- Being gay is being part of a social group. It may be due to discrimination from the heterosexual community, or it may be simply because birds of the same plumage come together, but being gay makes you part of a gay community. The gay community is like a mafia or rather a family. We could fight each other, but the moment other people attack one of us, we are all in arms. Gay people have what we call gay radar: a sixth sense that makes it possible for one gay person to feel another. We fight for our rights, we have our own clubs, we party together and we unite in pride and parades. All of this is not true for all of us, but we are all part of the gay community on some level. We communicate internationally, but understand the needs and pains of others without arguing.
- On the other hand, being part of a community does not make us aggressive or negative towards everyone outside the group. I have heard a lot of negative comments about parades and Gay Pride. Straight people often say they don’t have straight pride and parades, so why do we? I think we have parades and pride 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 Pride is not aggressive or destructive, it is just our way of asking people who are still in the closet out.
- Being part of a gay culture does not mean that we want to recruit straight people. Most gay men / women are only interested in other gay men / women. There are some among us who fall in love with straight people, and there is a small percentage who enjoy conquering straight people, but that’s not true for the average gay man / woman. The fact that a large part of the heterosexual community rejects us makes our life more complicated, and therefore we do not wish it for our heterosexual friends. Most of us believe that you were born straight, so it is ridiculous to think that we can make you gay. It is not our goal.
- Being gay doesn’t mean we’re going to shove it down your throat. Most gay people are discreet about their sexuality, due to rejection and discrimination against us. We do not ask you to like or like what we do; we simply ask for the right to be who we are without discrimination.
- Being gay does not make us rapists or abusers. Heterosexual people are interested in the opposite sex, but that doesn’t mean that people of the opposite sex should fear them. Homosexuals are interested in people of the same sex, but that doesn’t mean that people of the same sex should fear us.
- Being gay does not mean that you are promiscuous. In the past, homosexuals could only settle for one-night stands or secret relationships. For their own safety, they married people of the opposite sex to hide behind him. It could be said that the heterosexual community forced homosexuals into promiscuity. In our time, gay people have more rights and are allowed to have gay relationships, so they don’t need to jump from one partner to another. They can have stable relationships and many of us do.
- Being gay does not mean that you are more likely to be HIV positive. Everyone, gay or straight, who leads a promiscuous life has a greater chance of becoming HIV-positive. The problem lies in promiscuity and not in sexual orientation.
- Being gay does not imply that you are not spiritual or religious. There are many people who are gay and religious / spiritual.
For all of the above reasons, it would be helpful for parents of gay children to talk about their gay lives with their children. Many ideas about homosexuals are ridiculous stereotypes. Many of the things you’ve heard about gay people are simply not true, so make sure you know the facts before you react.