Sara Gilbert: ‘It’s more important to let go of the idea that you have a son, than to lose your child’

On Dec. 29, Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teen from Ohio, stepped into the path of an oncoming semi truck on a interstate highway, leaving behind a suicide note describing having felt “like a girl trapped in a boy’s body” since she was four, and how her parents pushed her into conversion therapy and Christian counseling.

Recently, “The Talk” discusses teen suicide:

“I would just say to people out there who have different beliefs … just think it’s more important to let go of the idea that you have a son, than to lose your child,” says openly gay co-host Sara Gilbert.

Watch:

The Youth Suicide Prevention Program reports that over 50 percent of transgender youths have attempted to commit suicide at least once before reaching the age of 20.

Proud Mamma...

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people. I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny. 

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda" could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart. He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage. You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12th Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?"

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

Signed,

A Mom

A letter to the ‘Christian’ mom wishing death for her disabled lesbian daughter

Video has again captured a “Christian” parent behaving badly. This week, the Facebook page Stop-Homophobia broadcast out one depicting the plight of a lady named Kelly.

Public disapproval over who could marry whom was an issue for Kelly’s family early on. Her father is black, and her mother is white. Kelly and her brother were bullied frequently in the small town of Guntersville Alabama. They were the only mixed race kids in town. Kelly was quiet and shy and kept to herself.

When she was 16, Kelly found a name for the identity that had been growing within her: lesbian. Her feelings had been developing for a while, but it came to fruition when she started a relationship with a girl in her class.

Kelly was confident that the hardships her parents had gone through would make them accepting of who she was growing up to be. She was wrong.

“At the time I thought that being gay that my parents being a bi-racial couple that they would be more accepting. My father had nothing to say. Til this day he hasn’t spoken about me being a lesbian. My mother freaked out. She put me in counseling to try to make me straight.”

The counseling did not change Kelly, as her mother had hoped but in fact, made her more confident in who she is.

Kelly’s mother kicked her out of the house. While her father did not intervene, he divorced her mother shortly thereafter, and Kelly suspects that her mother’s behavior might have been a contributing factor. Kelly found refuge with her aunt in Huntsville, Alabama.

Kelly passed her GED, and did not see or hear from her mother for over a year. After a period, Kelly’s mother made contact again. She said she had reconsidered, and wanted to re-establish contact. Kelly was reluctant but over time, resumed sporadic communications.

Eight years ago, Kelly had moved to Florida and met a woman named Leslie.

Leslie fell in love with Kelly immediately, and had to work hard to get through the protective emotional walls that Kelly had built up. Kelly, over time, was able to trust this wonderful woman in her life and to trust that the love they shared was real.

As they quickly became soul mates, and were working towards a happy ever after in their life journeys, tragedy struck…

CONTINUE READING →

Not Ready to Love a Gay Child? Then Don't Have Kids

Parents annoy me -- annoy and frustrate me. I know that's an odd statement considering that I am a parent. (And yes, I annoy myself sometimes.) We parents need to do a lot better.

For the past couple of months, I have been answering some questions for The Parents Project, an organization that lets parents of LGBT kids ask questions and get answers. It's a great idea, and I feel honored that they think I might have something wise and helpful to say. A little while ago I was given this question:

My daughter recently told me that she is bisexual, but she hasn't told her father. She is concerned that he will have a poor response, and to be totally honest I am also concerned. I don't want to keep this from him, and I certainly don't want her to have to keep it a secret in our home, but I am not at all sure how to handle the situation. Do you have any advice?

I thought about this question for a few days, but in the end I gave up. Every response I could think of wasn't the least bit wise or helpful -- things like:

"Why did you marry this man with whom you do not share core beliefs?"

"Why did you marry a man you knew might not love and support your children?"

"Why haven't you divorced this guy already?"

See? Not helpful. And it's because I cannot fathom being married to and choosing to procreate with someone I know might not love my children. That's just ridiculous. Why would anyone do that?

Before, I have likened being gay to being left-handed. Anyone can have a left-handed kid. It's something that is different from the majority of people, but it doesn't make it wrong. It doesn't have anything do with what kind of person someone is. It's just an another attribute that makes up who they are. Once upon a time, people thought being left-handed was an awful, horrible thing to be. Kids were punished for being left-handed and were often swatted by nuns, if the stories my father tells are true. But these days nobody cares. We got over our collective selves and let the left-handers be.