For Parents

Beginning to understand?

To explain homosexuality in simple terms is not an easy thing. Basically, it is a whole emotional pattern, present from early years, which the child develops as he or she matures. It need have no effect on their lives beyond the fact that their deepest relationships will be formed with people of their own sex. Like all of us, lesbian and gay people want and need to give love and to have that love returned.

Is homosexuality an illness?

The question is often asked, "Can this condition be cured?" The answer is that homosexuality is not an illness. It is a natural state of affairs for lesbian or gay people. They do not choose to be thus, anymore than anyone else chooses to be heterosexual. Sexual orientation, whether homosexual or heterosexual is not of our making and we are not responsible for the reason or process of creation.

Is sexual orientation a choice?
It cannot be repeated often enough that sexual orientation is not chosen, that instead, it is an emotional pattern present from the beginning which develops as the child grows. As with all children, sexual awareness comes as the body develops. At this point it is very important to make a distinction between a lesbian or gay experience, which many children have, and lesbian or gay orientation.

Rejection and ridicule.

Gay and lesbian young people fear rejection by their parents and possibly by anyone else they might normally turn to for guidance. They fear scorn, or even aggression, from their friends or classmates, some of whom may be repeating the sort of "queer" jokes that abound in school playgrounds and regretfully, among st some older people. They fear they might give themselves away with a look, a glance, or even an untimely remark. They experience great difficulty in meeting other lesbian/gay people and, in isolated circumstances, can feel "they are the only lesbian/gay person in the world" to quote a phrase we have often encountered. In short, lesbian and gay young people feel exactly the same sense of shock and fear that parents encounter when faced with this knowledge of their daughter's or son's orientation. They face it alone. It is not uncommon for a young lesbian/gay person to spend three or four years summoning up enough courage to talk to their parents.

What did I do wrong?

Similarly, parents often ask, "Where did I go wrong?" This is only an issue if being lesbian or gay is thought to be a "problem". They have not gone wrong. There is nothing that they have done, or failed to do that made their child lesbian/gay.

 Manchester Parents Group. (n.d.). Retrieved March 01, 2016, from http://www.manpg.co.uk/faq

Kids of Gay parents speak out