My Baby May Be Gay

Gregory Mason

Social • Apr 23rd, 14

Recently I had the privilege to go to a panel discussion on LGBT Homeless Youth Services and what my community in Grand Rapids is doing to help youth who are homeless because they have been kicked out of their family home for coming out as LGBT.  It was a great conversation about what we can do as a community to help out youth and finding out about resources and advocacy efforts currently being made. However, one thing that struck me was a question regarding family reunification and informing parents about their children early on in parenting so these issues can hopefully be prevented.

Parents often rely on books and educational resources for information on becoming a new parent and what will come in the future, but never focus on the question of, “What if my child identifies as LGBT?” There was a comment in the discussion that children can start to show signs of sexuality and attraction as early as 2 years old and this is something that parents never think about becoming informed on until it is too late.

There are programs that help families navigate and understand the sexual identity of their child to help with family reunification, but we as a community should be more proactive in the beginning of first becoming parents. If parents are given just general educational tools to consider and be informed, it could make a difference in LGBT youth homelessness and being kicked out of the family home. For some parents their child may one day come to them and tell them they identify as LGBT.

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