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Striving for parental acceptance

By Sachiko Miyakawa

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Sara Thompson was alone in her Lawrence apartment, clutching the phone to her ear with a trembling hand. She was about to reveal her most personal secret to her parents, but was afraid to tell them face-to-face that she is a lesbian.

It had been a year and half since Thompson acknowledged to herself her sexual orientation. While she can’t remember the words she blurted out to her mother and father, she can’t forget the awkward silence at the other end of the line.

Finally, her mother spoke, asking her if it was just a phase.

She then outlined the explanation she had carefully rehearsed.

When she was finished, her mother said, “We’re not happy. We don’t want you to be a gay, but you’re our daughter and we still love you.”

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Striving for Parental Acceptance

Gay and lesbian students at the University of Kansas have revealed their sexual orientation to their parents — intentionally and sometimes accidentally — with mixed results.

Although at that moment, Thompson felt relieved at their reaction, in reality it made her parents so unhappy that they severed their relationship and ended their financial and emotional support in a phone call the next day.

Thompson is among gay and lesbian KU students who decide to come out in college, yet struggle to reveal their sexuality to their own parents. For some such as Thompson, coming out to families meant being rejected by parents. Ashlynn Horras outed herself by hugging and holding a girl’s hand in public. Crystal Hong hasn’t yet come out to her conservative father, even though she got married in an unofficial ceremony. Julian Rivera unwillingly came out of the closet in his parents’ kitchen thanks to an essay his sister accidentally left there for her mother to find.

Many gay and lesbian children don’t reveal their sexuality to anyone, including parents, until they reach college age because of the discrimination they face from peers in middle and high schools. According to the National School Climate Survey, conducted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network in 2007, nine out of 10 gay teenagers experienced verbal harassment and almost half of them were physically harassed in their schools.

Many of them come out in college where they experience support from a gay community and little discrimination from fellow KU students. However, when they decide to come out to families, they can expect a variety of reactions from parents — religious objections that being gay is sinful, beliefs that their homosexuality is a medical or psychological condition that can be cured, disappointment that their child has chosen a path that doesn’t lead to a traditional family and grandchildren, or concerns that their child will be discriminated against because of his or her sexual orientation, according to Wes Crenshaw, licensed psychologist and director of the Family Therapy Institute Midwest in Lawrence.

Crenshaw said discussions about sexuality would be different for each person because each family had a different experience and level of exposure to gays and lesbians. He said visiting a therapist before talking to parents could be helpful for students regarding how the news is received. He also said when students decided to come out, they had to prepare for several outcomes — from really good to really bad, and to decide how they would react in each case.

“I think the watchword is to be strategic, to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t,” he said. “For some, holding out on the disclosure may be necessary to preserve financial support. For others, waiting just staves off an inevitable conflict and makes it worse.”

Keith Floyd, licensed psychologist at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said whether people chose to come out or not, it was important for them to be comfortable about their decision. However, it could be hard for gay people to come out in an environment where they have no access to social support or other gay people to consult, he said.

Sara Thompson

Thompson, Salina senior, began to accept her sexual orientation during her freshman year at college. She told friends and her brother, who were all supportive. But she feared revealing who she was to her conservative parents.

“Pretending was really hard,” she said. “Having a big secret like that is just something that I can’t deal with.”

She called her parents in Salina a week before she planned to go back home, so she could give them enough time to think about it and then have a conversation.

Thompson recalled that on that first phone call, her mother’s response seemed better than she expected. Thompson celebrated that night with a group of gay friends.

But the next day, she was hurt when her parents said they would not support her anymore.

Her mother revealed her disappointment at losing her dream for her daughter getting married and having children. When Thompson reassured her mother that she would still have a chance for a family, she responded that that would be sinful. When her mother then urged her to reconsider her decision, Thompson informed her that being a lesbian was not a decision. That ended the conversation, and tearful Thompson ran to her friend’s apartment for solace and support.

When Thompson went to her parents’ home a week later, her mother was not there. Her father announced to her with a somber face that they would take back her car and not pay her tuition. The conversation about her sexuality never happened.

Thompson next saw her parents four months later, during Thanksgiving at her grandparents’ house, where the extended family gathered. She and her parents didn’t talk with each other, but her mother told her as she left her grandmother’s house, “I’m still upset about you. I hope it’s worth it to you.”

Thompson chose not to go back home for Christmas, instead going to Dallas to the house of her mother’s best friend, who disagreed with her mother’s negative response to Thompson’s sexuality.

After coming back from Dallas, she returned to her parents’ home. Her father told her he worried about her riding a bike to work and decided to give her the car back. Thompson said she tried to repair the relationship with her parents and her mother brought in a priest.

He sympathized with Thompson and suggested they call each other every week. After returning to Lawrence, she faithfully called her parents for the first several weeks. Thompson’s frustration and anger grew bigger when they never called or called her back. She eventually stopped calling them.

Now she has to find a place to go every holiday, which makes her feel lonely. She tries to think about positives she gained through the separation, such as her financial independence.

Her mother recently called and said she was always welcome to come home, but Thompson wasn’t ready to spend time with her mother, who still wants her to undergo counseling to reorient her sexuality.

“I told my mother it is part of my everyday life, and I don’t want to have a relationship with people who don’t accept me,” Thompson said.

Someday, she hopes to have a family with a same-sex partner and restore a relationship with her parents when they fully understand and embrace her.

Ashlynn Horras

Horras never got to choose the right moment to tell her father, mother and stepmother that she was a lesbian. Instead, she was outed by her own actions — publicly holding hands with a girl in her hometown, Knoxville, Iowa.

Horras, a junior, didn’t realize she was a lesbian until she was strongly attracted to a girl in her high school. The girl she dated was so special to her that Horras wasn’t afraid to hold her hand or hug her in public, which triggered a confrontation at home.

It happened on a summer evening, right after her junior year of high school. Horras was babysitting her half-brother and half-sister in her father’s house. Lynelle, Horras’ stepmother, who asked her last name not be used, came home from work and asked Horras to come into the patio room.

Lynelle said she learned about Horras’ intimate relationship with the girl through her daughter, who saw Horras with the girlfriend, and demanded to know about it. Horras responded that it was not different from relationships she had with boys previously. Her stepmother yelled at her, citing Bible passages that condemned gays and lesbians as sinners. She also demanded to know if Horras had done anything to her siblings and informed her she could no longer take care of them.

Her father summoned her the next day and asked why she became a lesbian and what he could have done differently as a father. Horras sat in silence crying, just listening to him blame himself and her mother, his ex-wife.

“In his mind, it’s not possible to be gay and happy,” she said. “I think that was his main concern.”

She ran to her mother’s home and came out to her, and told her that her father and stepmother were upset at her for being a lesbian.

Her mother, Alda Knight, was accepting and said she already knew about Horras’ relationship with the girl. Knight admitted she was concerned that Horras couldn’t get married or have a happy family, but she thought she had to be supportive.

Horras stopped visiting her father’s house for a while, but received Christmas and birthday cards from her stepmother. She started to spend time with her father and stepmother again, recognizing their attempt to repair the relationship.

It has been four years since Horras’ sexual orientation became open to her family. She feels her father doesn’t completely accept her, but she also recognizes changes in her father. He used to avoid talking about her relationship or girlfriend. However, when she visited during the Thanksgiving break, he asked her about her girlfriend for the first time.

Crystal Hong

Hong and her partner, Jocelyn Bencken, were married in Florida in March, although the ceremony was not recognized by the state. Hong’s mother and brother attended the wedding to hear them pledge to spend the rest of their lives together. Hong wished her father could have been there, but he still doesn’t even know she is a lesbian.

Since accepting her sexuality in her senior year of high school, Hong, Rose Hill senior, hasn’t hesitated to talk about it to anybody — except her father.

Fearing his rejection and possible loss of his financial support, Hong has passed up many opportunities to come out. She doesn’t want to disappoint her father who has dreamed of walking down the wedding aisle with his only daughter.

“I’m not going to ruin my dad’s life or anyone’s until I know that it’s worth it,” she said.

Hong was born of an American mother and Korean father, who immigrated at the age of 15. Her parents were divorced when she was in seventh grade, and her father got custody.

Before accepting her own sexuality, Hong admitted she was homophobic. Her church taught that homosexuality was sinful, and she couldn’t lose her homophobia until she first dated a girl in eighth grade. She quickly ended the relationship, frightened that others might find out. She then forced herself to be straight, dating men until her senior year.

Meeting gay friends in her high school helped her overcome her fear. Once she was comfortable about her sexuality, she shocked teachers and peers, holding the hand of her former girlfriend publicly. Some of them reacted with overt discrimination to her and disgust. Hong said she was excited to come out to her mother, who herself came out as a lesbian a year earlier.

She recalled riding in the car on the way to dinner at Applebee’s when she told her mother she was dating a girl. As expected, her mother was accepting and even joked about her being homophobic when she was younger.

Hong’s mother, who asked her name not be used because she works for an Army Reserve, had lived with fear for most of her life before coming out.

“I don’t want her to live a life like me,” her mother said.

She said although she was worried about her daughter’s safety and challenges she might face in her life because of her sexual orientation, she was glad she could come out earlier.

While Hong appreciated the support of her mother, coming out to her old-fashioned father is more challenging.

“He’s a very traditional Christian and thinks homosexuality is wrong, and he always talks about me getting married and having kids,” Hong said. “He’s got a lot of hopes and dreams for his only daughter. If he finds out that I’m gay, it’s just the end for him because his only daughter is a lesbian.”

When Hong was living with her father, she was frustrated with his authoritarian behavior and lack of affection for her or her brother.

She was jealous of friends’ fathers who hugged and kissed their children. He tried to be a correct father, she said, but he failed to pay enough attention to her life and emotional status.

While they had disagreements and she sometimes even confronted him, Hong always tried to be a good daughter by earning good grades and participating in extracurricular activities.

After Hong moved to Lawrence, her relationship with her father actually became better. Through her intercultural communication classes, she learned that the way he expressed his affection might be cultural, because East Asians tend not to be as expressive as Westerners. She started to appreciate what her father gave to her and her brother, providing the family a nice house and paying for her college.

“I know that’s how he shows he loves us, by trying to give us things he didn’t have when he was younger,” she said.

Hong has brought her partner, Bencken, to her father’s house several times, although she introduced her as a friend and not her spouse. His attitude surprised Hong, because he seemed more accepting with Bencken, talking to her and remembering her, which he never did with her other friends.

“I want to tell him so he realizes who she is in my life,” she said.

Hong thinks her father may be starting to realize she is a lesbian because she has brought only women home.

“I think he’s working on getting used to it in his head whatever he thinks is going on,” she said. “But then of course, it may be a completely different story if I actually tell him. He can’t escape it and then the whole world may fall apart.”

Hong said she would wait to tell him until after her graduation in May.

“Telling a little white lie is not harmful, but lying your entire existence about who you are — that can only be detrimental for you.”

Julian Rivera

Rivera inadvertently came out of the closet in his parents’ kitchen. That’s where his mother found an essay left there by his sister Shaina that referred to his sexuality.

Until that time, he had struggled with whether he could be both gay and a good son, deciding that staying quiet was one way to protect himself and his parents.

“In my head, I thought that’s something they don’t need to know,” he said. “It’s something that would complicate their life more — the way they interact with their friends, like, ‘Oh, they have a gay son?’ I never want that sort of pity on my parents.”

After his mother read Shaina’s essay, she walked into her sister’s room sobbing, asking if it was true. Shaina said their parents, who had been in denial of Julian’s sexual orientation, were both worried that their son would experience discrimination and that they wouldn’t have grandchildren.

“I was mad at my sister at first. I wanted it to be part of my story,” he said. “Now, I have to move on.”

Despite the revelation, Rivera was relieved when his parents still treated him well. He and his parents haven’t yet talked at length about his sexuality, but he is hoping to have that conversation soon.

Both of his parents came from the Philippines to work as nurses in the 1970s. Rivera was born in the United States and grew up in Lenexa.

Rivera struggled with his sexual identity in high school. Many friends at school knew he was gay, but his parents didn’t. He said having a double life aggravated him. He recalled having an impulse to yell at his parents one evening when they expressed disapproval of his gay friends at school.

“They were the only people who understood me,” he said. “I just really wanted to say, ‘You know, I’m gay!’”

Rivera even once considered attending reorientation therapy to change his sexual orientation because it conflicted with his Catholic faith and parents’ expectations.

“I thought that was what would make them happy,” Rivera said.

Reading books about homosexuality made him realize that the therapy could not change his sexual orientation and could only be harmful to him. Rivera said his mother was always like a best friend. They talk about everything, from his major to family gossip. They now need to talk about his sexuality.

He said he once introduced his boyfriend to her as his friend, and she cooked him a meal. Rivera said he was sad his mother recognized his boyfriend as just one of his college friends and didn’t know how important he was to him.

Rivera graduates in spring and said he hopes to have the conversation about his sexuality with his parents before then.

“I hope they continue to be proud of me and still see me as the same person.”

— — Edited by Jessica Sain-Baird

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