My mom is super Catholic, and also super homophobic. She doesn’t know I’m gay, and I’m not planning on telling her any time soon. Does this make me a bad queer person? I feel really guilty, because she’s an amazing mom and I can forget how she treats other queer people, but then she will talk to me about them and about how much she hates us and I don’t fight back. I never say anything rude, and she never says it directly to queer people we know, but she donates to our church and I know a lot of that money is going to hurt queer people in our community. What can I do?
Penny,
You are not a bad queer person, or a bad any kind of person. You’re someone in an incredibly painful, difficult spot, one that is unfortunately all too familiar to so very many LGBTQ+ people. I’m so sorry that this is a place you find yourself in and have to sort out how to navigate. I’m also so glad that you’re reaching out for support, and I hope I can at least get a start on filling your cup in that regard.
I deeply appreciate your concern for other queer people, but I want to put most of my attention on you. You, after all, are yourself a queer person who your parent is and has been doing direct harm to, and are undoubtedly also going to be the person who that harm hits hardest, since it’s coming from a parent.
By and large, despite all of our relationships with our parents (for those of us who have them) being so diverse, one near-universal experience is that our parents’ treatment of us tends to be deeply impactful and influential. If they show us love, that love can land and stay in a place often deeper than when it comes from anyone else. It sounds like you might have experienced and even may still be experiencing some of that with your mom. Sadly, it’s just as impactful, sometimes even more so, when our parents abuse us or otherwise treat us poorly. Your mother’s talk about and treatment of queer people is, because you’re a queer person, also her talk and treatment of you, and it sounds like in that department, things are pretty hurtful and awful.
It doesn’t make you a bad queer person that you haven’t come out to her, nor that you haven’t felt able to call her out or in about the way she’s talking. Of course you don’t feel safe coming out to someone who has voiced hatred of queer people and otherwise treated us poorly as a group. Of course you haven’t felt able to say anything to her. If anything, it sounds like you have been protecting yourself in staying silent all around, and I think that it’s better for now that you have protected yourself as best you can. You’re just as important as every other queer person and you deserve to be just as safe as you possibly can be, just like every other queer person. Your safety and well-being matter and what I hope is that they can be better supported starting with this exchange.
It’s so hard to be in the space with a parent you are, where in some respects they are a wonderful parent, while in others, they are abusive and hurtful. This, too, is unfortunately very common: people who feel and engage in bigotry and any kind of abuse (like saying hurtful things about queer people like that they hate us) are still complex, three-dimensional people, often capable of being good to someone in some ways while being cruel in others. It’s so difficult to try and make sense of, and all the more difficult to live with. The fact that you’re the one feeling guilty in this situation, and the fact that you’re who feels they need to hide out, despite you not being the person who has done any wrong or harm here, tells me that your mother’s bigotry and her expressions of it have had a deep impact on you. Again, I’m sorry. While many of us have had parents we were not safe with in some or all respects, or who we haven’t felt safe with, all of us have deserved for our parents to be the people who make us feel more safe in ourselves, our homes, and the world, not less.
I think that keeping yourself emotionally and otherwise safe is a thing that is not only important for you to do, but something that also helps other queer people. We are all helped and supported by our mutual survival and well-being. Doing whatever work any of us needs to do to survive and take the best care of ourselves and our hearts and minds that we can is not just important self-care, it is also important community work, because our communities need us. Even from this brief letter, I feel like I have a sense of who you are and have no doubt that when you’re in a safer space, able to live separately from your parent, able to surround yourself with more queer and allied community, and able to stand up for yourself safely and when it’s right for you, that you will do more things that benefit other queer people. But for the time, being, I think the best and most valuable thing you can do for your community is to stay alive and as emotionally safe as you can. When you’re taken care of yourself, then you can pass that care on more to others, whether that’s about direct community care, about using your own money to counter things like the harm to LGBTQ people the Catholic church or other groups have done, or about someday being a parent yourself who is more accepting, affirming and kind.
I think that one really important thing that you can do, since you asked, is to find yourself some safe community — be that queer people ourselves or solid allies — where you can be out if you want to be out, and where you can hear positive, supportive and affirming things about yourself, including your queerness, and other queer people. I deeply hope you can find at least some of that in person. You can look into whether or not your area has any kind of youth-serving or general LGBTQ+ community center, can look for queer and trans student support or affinity groups if you’re enrolled in school, and, if you’re old enough, can use queer-centered or inclusive or community dating apps (you just make a profile that says you’re looking for community or friends), if you need some ideas of places to start.
You didn’t mention yourself having any desire to go to church, but in the event that faith-based community is also something you want, know that there are faiths, denominations and churches who are both intentionally inclusive and strongly protective of LGBTQ+ people, and the leaders of some of those are even queer or trans. If faith is something that speaks to you, you might find that engaging in faith community that actually supports you and other queer people is something that feels good for you, may be healing, and may also give you some helping opportunities for queer folks done harm by other churches. That’s something else we’d be happy to help you find locally via our direct services if you wanted help with that.
If not now, soon, but in the meantime, you can at least find some virtual community in places like our message boards at Scarleteen, our sub-Redditexternal link, opens in a new tab or other safe and supportive online kinds of community.
If and when it is possible, I also think that whatever you can do to limit the harm you are taking in by listening to a parent, a church, or anyone else saying hurtful things about all of us is something very much worth doing. Hearing this kind of stuff day in and day out really roots those feelings of being hated and reviled in us, and it’s so bad for us to take that kind of poison in all the time. I think you should do whatever you can safely do to be exposed to less of it, whether that’s leaving the room when your mother is going off, or changing the subject if you can, or avoiding church by being sick that day or having something else to do, be it homework, a volunteer job, or care for a friend. If and when the opportunity presents itself, I hope you can also access both some queer community for yourself and quality therapy so that you can get quality help healing from the harm that’s been done to you in your home.
I hope a day will come when you feel safe enough to try and talk with your mother about her beliefs and the behaviors that have stemmed from them. You’re not obligated to do that (and here’s hoping you also won’t be the only person who does), but for yourself, and because it sounds like you value your relationship with her, I really hope that someday you feel you can. Who knows how she’ll respond, it could be anywhere from her actually hearing you, taking real responsibility and making amends, to her being as directly verbally abusive and hurtful to you, about you, as she has been to queer people in general. But whatever her response, being able to do what we can to name the harm that has been done to us to the people who have done it, and at least let them know that they have harmed us and we hold them responsible can go a very long way to helping us move forward and heal. I also obviously very much hope that if you want to be able to come out to your mother, that a day comes — and with it, a radical and positive change to her thinking and behavior — where you can both feel able to do that and be loved and accepted for the wonderful person you clearly are.
