'Return the key': the parents who reject their gay children | Society | The Guardian

Contents:

• GAY MEN AND THEIR MOTHERS: IS THERE A SPECIAL CLOSENS?
• 'RETURN THE KEY': THE PARENTS WHO REJECT THEIR GAY CHILDREN
• WHY EVERY MUM SHOULD HAVE A GAY SON
• PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE
• MOM'S GEICS COULD PRODUCE GAY SONS
• HOW ONE MOTHER’S LOVE FOR HER GAY SON STARTED A REVOLUTN
• WALL STREET CEOS OPEN UP ABOUT THEIR GAY SONS
• THE UGANDAN MUM WHO WAS ONCE ASHAMED OF HER GAY SON
• TO HELP GAY SON, 61-YEAR-OLD WOMAN GIV BIRTH TO OWN GRANDCHILD
• MY SON IS GAY
• I TRIED TO STOP MY SON FROM BEG GAY. I WISH I HADN'T
• MOTHERS’ SUPPORT GAVE GAY SON LOVE TO LAST A LIFETIME

GAY MEN AND THEIR MOTHERS: IS THERE A SPECIAL CLOSENS?

”Before a roarg crowd, Jeanne Manford, an elementary school teacher, beme the first mom to publicly support her gay child, acrdg to Liz Owen, director of the munitns for PFLAG, the natn's first and largt anizatn for LGBTQ people and their fai and iends. The anizatn would eventually grow to over 400 chapters and 200, 000 members TV, Amerins were soon seeg parents marchg alongsi their gay children pri paras, many of them mothers wavg their own signs, acrdg to historian Lillian Farman, thor of “The Gay Revolutn.

'RETURN THE KEY': THE PARENTS WHO REJECT THEIR GAY CHILDREN

Neilson Barnard / Getty ImagAfter her son Matthew was murred a homophobic attack on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyomg, 1998, Shepard and her hband, Dennis, started the Matthew Shepard Foundatn, an advocy anizatn that succsfully lobbied for feral hate crime legislatn.

S., thoands of moms have picked up the torch that Manford igned 1972 — nnectg through social media, formg alns and nonprofs, speakg at events, marchg paras, standg at weddgs, and embroilg themselv polil Dyer, an admistrative assistant who liv the Dallas-Fort Worth area, said she stggled after her son, Nick, me out as gay 2007. Courty of Wendy VonSosenWendy VonSosen, 48, a Mormon mom the San Francis Bay Area, said she also stggled when her son Erik told her that he was gay at the age of 13.

WHY EVERY MUM SHOULD HAVE A GAY SON

“I went my bathroom and cried, ” relled VonSosen, “bee beg raised as Mormon, we were tght that beg gay was a s and was a choice and was a really, really terrible thg, and so I didn’t really know how to procs or what to tell him or how to parent a gay kid. ”Sara Cunngham and her son Parker March 2019Courty of Sara CunnghamSara Cunngham, 55, said she was vastated when her son, Parker, told her he was gay 2014.

PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE

In 1985, almost 90 percent of Amerin adults said havg a gay child would upset them — by 2015, that number dropped below 40 percent, acrdg to the Pew Rearch 1992, Manford’s son Morty, a popular gay activist, died of AIDS-related plitns at the age of 41. Longtime ally and supporter of the Human Rights Campaign, Sally Field wrote a lengthy say scribg her son's experience g to his own as a gay man, and how important beg a part of that experience was to her. "It's difficult for me to unrstand a fay member judgg or not lovg or acceptg another fay member bee they are gay, "Ally said an terview wh the Wdy Cy Tim, "It's like when a member of the fay marri someone who is of another race or relign.

Ante Beng and Warren Beatty's son Stephen is a gay trans wrer, poet, and activist who's has also posted -pth about his experience and inty on YouTube (you n check out one of his vios here). This was found to be te for many of the mothers and sons I terviewed for the study scribed the book: Comg Out, Comg Home: Helpg Fai Adjt to a Gay or Lbian Child ().

Neverthels, this closens uld have a downsi, at least temporarily, as many mothers ially blame themselv and the close relatnships for their sons' homosexualy. So, perhaps is not pletely surprisg that once they learned their sons were gay, some of the mothers I terviewed felt that they had done somethg to damage them.

MOM'S GEICS COULD PRODUCE GAY SONS

Even though rearch sce the 1950's has bunked , this theory persists people's mds and rears s ugly head for mothers when they ially learn their sons are gay.

Fortunately, for many mothers of gay son—wh time and tn, they learn that the ia that they had somehow ma their son gay is ad wrong This was te of the mothers my study who also me to see the benefs havg a gay son as will be scribed later this post.

HOW ONE MOTHER’S LOVE FOR HER GAY SON STARTED A REVOLUTN

My rearch, clil and personal experienc suggt that there is ed a al lk between male homosexualy and a close maternal relatnship but flows the oppose directn than what was prevly thought. I thk personally [beg gay] ma me a more emotnal person, more sensive, more touch wh both the male and female sis of myself, but allowg me to even acknowledge that other si ma me closer to my mother.

Once mothers this study got over their feelgs of guilt and got ed to the ia that their sons were gay, they were able to regnize the benefs of havg a gay son. However, we get to hot water when we allow stereotyp to get the way of unrstandg the uniquens of dividuals and their circumstanc—so is important to remember that not all mothers and gay sons are close. Sadly, some mothers simply nnot adjt to their sons' homosexualy, due to their guilt, relig ncerns, or abily to "let go" and accept the ways they live their liv.

’”Chris, sadly, isn’t alone his story of parental fa of equalyAt the time I terviewed him, a Brazilian mother who killed her teenage son for beg gay is sentenced to 25 years prison. Celebry stori of heartbreakg parental rejectn are also November, the Amerin thor and producer Robyn Crawford released a book nfirmg she had had a romantic relatnship wh Whney Hoton – but had to abandon out of fear of the repercsns om Hoton’s by Oprah Wey if would have bothered her if her dghter was gay, Cissy Hoton said “Absolutely.

WALL STREET CEOS OPEN UP ABOUT THEIR GAY SONS

But when they were growg up, I’d sometim wonr whether Phil was gay, pecially after my bt iend Pamela mentned – her late brother was homosexual, so maybe she uld read the signs. I’m lucky that I’ve got three unrstandg men my recently dragged me and his dad to a Gay Pri party – Geoff didn’t bat an eyelid at all the men their lourful stum. Tell about your experience below‘I’m a sensive person and Mum feels fortable tellg me anythg’ Sger Gary Williams, 39, om Berkhamsted, Herts, is the first person mum Kathleen, 67, turns to for a heart-to-heart Gary saysMum and I have always been credibly close, and ’s difficult to say whether that’s bee I’m the youngt of four – I have two olr brothers, Michael and Sean, and a sister, Debbie, all straight – or bee I helped her and Dad through their divorce, but beg gay fely has a bearg on .

For further rmatn, vis ‘Mum’s as happy at posh rtrants as she is at gay bars’ Mark Leon, 42, a salon owner om Tibshelf, Derbyshire, liv next door to his mum Christe, 62 Mark says My relatnship wh mum is unique.

THE UGANDAN MUM WHO WAS ONCE ASHAMED OF HER GAY SON

We never take her anywhere too out there, but we go to lively bars where she n talk to the youngsters – gay boys gravate towards her bee she’s such a giggle.

AND GOODIE BAGS: BEING MUM TO A FAMOUS SON GARETH THOMAS, RUGBY LEAGUE PLAYERWhen Gareth announced publicly that he was gay, he went to see his parents the night the news broke. Parents of gay children may be shocked when their kids e out of the closet, but once the dt settl, most parents realize that their child is the same one they have loved and red for all their liv, they jt happen to be gay. So, for example, boys that play wh dolls and have primarily girliends or girls who are tomboys and prefer to play wh guns may have an creased likelihood of growg up to be gay.

While knowg your child is gay may help you ease the transn to adulthood, 's cril to remember that a gay child is jt a child like any other and a parent of gay child is jt a parent, like any other. The arrangement of a mother's gen uld affect the sexual orientatn of her son, acrdg to a new fdg, tailed the Febary issue of the journal Human Geics, adds fuel to the -long bate about whether so-lled "gay gen" might rearchers examed a phenomenon lled "X chromosome activatn" 97 mothers of gay sons and 103 mothers whose sons were not gay. However, when the rearchers the current study examed cells om the 42 mothers who had at least two gay sons, they found that about a quarter of the women this group showed somethg different.

TO HELP GAY SON, 61-YEAR-OLD WOMAN GIV BIRTH TO OWN GRANDCHILD

"We thk that there are one or more gen on the X chromosome that have an effect on the sexual orientatn of the sons of the mothers, as well as an effect on the cells we were lookg at, " Bocklandt chromosom implitedBocklandt was also volved an earlier study that looked at the entire human genome of men who had two or more gay brothers. The rearchers found intil stretch of DNA on three chromosom—7, 8 and 10—that were shared by about 60 percent of the gay brothers the study also found mothers to have an unually large role their son's sexual orientatn: the regn on chromosome 10 rrelated wh homosexualy only if was hered om the rults om the two studi suggt that there are multiple geic factors volved termg a person's sexual orientatn and that might vary pendg on the person.

"We thk that there are gog to be some gay men who are X chromosome gay men and some who are chromosome 7 gay men or chromosome 10 gay men or some batn, " Bocklandt said a telephone rearchers now thk that there is no sgle gay gene that ntrols whether a person is homosexual or not.

Relig lears who believe that sexual orientatn is a choice argue that such rearch is an attempt to legimize homosexualy; others worry that a tailed knowledge of the geics unrlyg homosexualy will open the door to geic engeerg that prevents Bocklandt don't thk the ncerns should prevent scientists om askg the basic qutn of whether homosexualy has an unrlyg geic ponent to or not.

MY SON IS GAY

They asked if they uld kiss her; they asked if she would talk to their parents; they told her that they uldn’t image their own mothers and fathers supportg them so publicly, or supportg them at woman’s name was Jeanne Manford, and she was marchg alongsi her twenty-one-year-old gay son, Morty.

The anizatn they dreamed up that day, which started as a sgle support group Manhattan, was ially lled Parents of Gays; later, was renamed Parents FLAG, for Parents and Friends of Lbians and Gays; nowadays, is known only as PFLAG. The same year Avril was born, Morty’s psychiatrist summoned Jeanne and Jul to his office and rmed them that their beloved goln boy and sole survivg son was the bt of her knowledge, Jeanne Manford had never known anyone who was gay.

Polil anizg was virtually impossible—one early gay-rights group that attempted to officially rporate New York was told that s mere existence would vlate state sodomy laws—and posive cultural reprentatn was all but nonexistent; there were no openly gay or lbian policians, punds, relig lears, actors, athlet, or micians the mastream.

I TRIED TO STOP MY SON FROM BEG GAY. I WISH I HADN'T

Newspapers ed the words “homosexual” and “pervert” terchangeably, and the handful of gay people who appeared on televisn to discs their “life style” almost always had their fac hidn shadows or otherwise obscured. In 1974, when “The Pat Colls Show” aired a segment on parents of gay children, the host troduced by sayg, “Even if he mted murr, I gus you’d say, ‘Well, he’s still my child, no matter what.

”You uld f most of the solar system to the chasm between how the average Amerin of the era would have reacted that hypothetil suatn and how Jeanne Manford rpond upon learng that Morty was gay.

The first time he attend a gay-rights prott, he wore sunglass and turned away om the news meras, but he soon beme, his sister Suzanne (now Suzanne Manford Swan) told me, “unaaid and unstoppable.

MOTHERS’ SUPPORT GAVE GAY SON LOVE TO LAST A LIFETIME

” An eighteen-year-old regular at the Stonewall Inn, Morty was there when a fight broke out between patrons and the police the summer of 1969, an event that talyzed the gay-rights movement.