| Children Speak Out |
| In an online interview conducted on the COLAGE website, people submitted questions to children of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transsesxual parents. Some of the questions and answers are listed below (responses by the children were anonymous |
| Does the fact that your parents are gay affect your own sexuality? |
| * "My choice in sexuality was soley my choice. It was, I think just as hard for me to tell my mother that I was a lesbian as I think it would be for somebody telling a straight parent. I dated several guys, but I came to the conclusion that men were not my forte. I noticed myself at an early age being attracted to my female friends. I think that my experience with having a lesbian parent made it easier for me to explore my feelings and allowed an option to be open for me" * "But I think if the question (of lesbianism) hadn't been raised virtue of my living with my lesbian mom, I would have come out earlier and more easily...So in a nutshell, having a lesbian mom made me try harder to be straight!" * "I don't believe that sexuality (a person's sexual orientation) is a choice. I feel that it's something that is inborn, but I thik that growing up with gay or lesbian parents does have an effect on whether a person is able to accept his or her sexual oreintation. However, I don't think that it affects the sexual orientation itself" * "I don't believe so. If anything, it allows a child to feel more open about their sexuality, and see more options available to them instead of the typical influential heterosexual relationships shown on tv and other forms of media. It enables kids and teenagers to realize that there are lots of people who are not straight |
| How has having a gay or lesbian parent affected your psychological development? |
| * "The only negative things are I was teased about it, and I don't like mom's wife. * "I've honestly never gotten a negative response to my mom's orientation. Maybe it's just the people I've chosen to hang around with, but the only reactions I've ever gotten from people is 'wow, your mom's a lesbian? [T]hat's kinda cool'. I realize most people aren't that lucky, but such is my experience...The only real difference between having a straight mom and a lesbian mom is that my my mom brings home girfriends, and most people's bring home boyfriends...It's an otherwise standard home--laughter, tears, arguments, support, board games and family dinners and fighting and fighing over what tv show we get to watch on a Wednesday night. And as far as other people's reactions, and how they maybe affect our development...I'm tempted to say it's not so different from the straight kids who live in trailer parks, or never quite manage to wear what's in style, or whose mothers are into new age hippie whatever, and all the kids at school are making fun of them because of it." |
| Why do you think society opposes homosexual parenting? |
| * "I think it has a lot to do with the religious right's rhetoric about gay parents will recruit their children, and that kids need a mother and a father. I think the more loving adult figures in a child's life, regardless of their gender or biological relation to the child, the better the child will be. I've got a biological mom, a biological dad, my dad's partner, and my best friend's two parents... That's a lot of role models right there. And...I think I turned out jut fine." * "Society thinks [g]ay parents are child molesters. [W]e just live in a very homophobic society." |
| Do you get teased about your family life? |
| * "I personally haven't been teased about my family life in a long time. It stopped back in middle school." * "Maybe it's just a matter of when my dad came out, but I've never been teased about it." * "My friends last year--while I was in the 10th grade--all knew about my [l]esbian mother and her partner and the whole school was fine about it! At my old school if someone said shut-up "fag" etc. they would then automoatically say sorry to me even if they didn't say shut-up to me. At my old school when I told them my mother is a [l]esbian they all started telling me how they knew someone Lesbian, Gay. Bi, Trans, Questioning etc. person!" |