When I was growing up, I never really thought that having a parent that fell into the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) community was super weird. However, I feel like I had a unique experience when it came to having a queer identifying parent.

Growing up, I had the picture perfect, heteronormative ideal image of a family. It was my dad and my mom, me, and my little sister. My dad worked and my mom stayed home with us kids, doing the stereotypical “homemaker” tasks. It was very cookie cutter and at the age of six, I didn’t think that anything was wrong about that.

When I was seven though, we moved out of state and my parents announced to my sister and I that they were getting a divorce. Later, I found out it was because my mom came out as being a lesbian.

This is where I feel like I get a unique perspective when it came to having a queer parent. I didn’t grow up in a home where I had two homosexaul parents. I had both the influence of my father and my mother, but then I later got the influence of my stepmom and long-term girlfriends that my mom had.

Being in second grade, I didn’t think that my mom being gay was something scary or weird. I really didn’t even care. That is what made certain tasks super awkward and confusing at times. I remember it being Mother’s Day and we were suppose to draw a picture of our moms to hang out in the hallway by our classroom. Little second-grade me drew the picture and was then very caught off guard when my classmates interrogated me with questions of why my mom looked like a boy and why she didn’t look like their moms. I got defensive, explaining that it didn’t matter and that she didn’t look like a boy, she was my mom.

Situations like that became more common as I grew older, as did conversations about LGBT people in society and media, as well as people around me coming to terms with their own queer identities. I felt like I had an influence that was so beneficial when it came to being able to relate to people around me, but it also made me aware of how cruel the world was.

From a very young age, I remember attending Gay Pride in Oklahoma City every summer. I was surrounded by smiling faces, same-sex couples pushing strollers, holding hands, and walking dogs. The love and happiness that surrounded me those weekends would fill me and I would just be amazed that all these people were just like my family. However, I was also introduced to the ignorance that surrounded the stigma that came with who my family was. I remember walking post protestors at the Pride, saying that we were going to Hell and that it was terrible and disgusting to be gay. I didn’t understand. Why would they think all these people were bad? I didn’t get it because they obviously didn’t see what I saw. Did they not know that my mom came to all my award ceremonies and hung all my pictures up in her office at work? Did they not see all the cute families with smiling babies and animals playing fetch? How could they think that these people were bad, when all I saw was kindness and love.

I educated myself more as I grew older and became more aware with how the world viewed families like mine; however, I didn’t let that influence me on how I felt. They saw a label and negative stigmas, I just saw my mom, who loved me and did everything in her power to make sure I had a good, sturdy upbringing.

I still feel like growing up with a queer identifying parent gave me a unique advantage in this world. I learned to be accepting of all people, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, race, or disability. People were people, not a label. I learned to stand up for my beliefs, but in an educated, kind way. People could have opposing opinions, but that didn’t mean that cruelty and harassment were the answers. I learned that blood didn’t make a family but, that you could make a family out of people that cared for you and wanted you to succeed. Family wasn’t abusive or harmful, even if those people were related to you through the same gene pool. I even learned that sometimes, it can take years of denial and fear before you realize who you are and that is okay, because when you do come to terms with your gender or sexual orientation, there are tons of people feel the same way and who are there to help you.

Like hundreds of other children in the world, I grew up with a parent in the LGBTQ+ community. Where some may see it as a setback, I see it as a blessing.