What to Do When Your Child Says: "I'm Gay" | Psychology Today

gay experience as a child

Jsi L. Stanley, Kim Bartholomew, Doug Oram, Gay and Bisexual Men's Age-Discrepant Childhood Sexual Experienc, The Journal of Sex Rearch, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Nov., 2004), pp. 381-389

Contents:

WHEN YOUR CHILD IS GAY

Many of the straight parents I terviewed for When Your Child Is Gay: What You Need To Know exprsed havg felt disappotment learng that their child was LGBT.

Would he be fired at his job if his supervisors found out that he were gay? Would he have to live a gay-iendly neighborhood? Natalie, 63, a mother om Long Island, found out that two of her three children were gay.

EXPLAG IT TO YOUR KIDS: WHAT DO 'BEG GAY' MEAN?

" Natalie felt that was a loss to the fay geic pool and kept wonrg if beg gay was a choice.

Richard Ogawa of Seattle figured out he was gay llege. Richard told me, "Perhaps if every parent toyed wh the possibily that any of their children uld be gay, would change the way they raise their children.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"

Gay children are no different—so ltle of their sexual orientatn has to do wh who they are as a whole. "It is rare to work wh parents of a gay child who have not stggled wh the feelg of loss at some pot the procs of acceptg their child as gay, " my -thor, Jonathan Tobk, M.

Parents feel sad that their gay child has lost the possibily of havg a life whout signifint difficulty. " Yet Tobk has found that "gay people tell you they are happy wh who they are and feel that they have emerged on the other si of g out as strong, sensive, and rilient dividuals.

Havg a gay child is not a loss of a child altogether.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* GAY EXPERIENCE AS A CHILD

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