Your sexuality should not define you as a person.

I am very open about who I am and I am very blessed to be accepted by the people who matter most to me. I was 18 years old when I came out to my dad, and his reaction was “So what? I still love you.” I personally have never had to go through my parents disowning me or kicking me out of my house because of my sexuality, but I have been friends with people and I have dated girls whose parents weren’t accepting, and it is a totally different world, and it really shouldn’t be.

Your sexuality shouldn’t define you as a person. Sexuality is fluid. It is a mere characteristic of who you are, it’s not the most important thing about you as a person. I find it that more and more people are coming out and, as they should, coming out when they are ready. It’s the 21^st century, being gay isn’t a phase, and it’s not a choice. I don’t have the choice and I am who I am. However, in my generation, being gay or bisexual or whatever you are is becoming more and more of a fad, and you hear people say "Well, I am in college, so why not?" That is completely okay, you should have the option to experiment and see who you really are, because you might not know yet, to a certain extent.

Some people I know and some people I am very close with, their parents aren’t as accepting as I wish they would be, and it truly breaks my heart. Some parents think it’s a phase, or you haven’t had sex with the right boy or girl yet, or you’re in college, so you must be around so many gay people that you just become gay. All of that isn’t true. Being gay is not a choice; would you really choose to be gay in the world we live in during the past 50 years? The answer is probably no.

Let me explain to you how it feels when your child wants to bring their girlfriend around you, and wants to introduce them the way they would if they were with the opposite sex. It’s exhausting, not just for your child, but for the significant other as well, knowing that your family doesn’t care, they aren’t comfortable, and they just don’t understand. When you love someone or you want someone to see the other side of you, where you come from, but you’re embarrassed because you don’t know how your family will act and you don’t know what the reaction will be, that is where the heartbreak comes in. That’s when you feel like a failure and when you think maybe you are living the wrong life and that you need to change. The reality check is that it isn’t you, nothing is physically and or mentally wrong with you as person; it is the people around you that haven’t caught up to you just yet, but they will, in time.

The truth is that there is so much more than just parents who don’t accept their child. Kids get kicked out of their home, abused, disowned, and much more that isn’t in the limelight and which people don’t see.

My advice to parents having a hard time coping with their child's sexuality is this: take the time you need to face it, talk about it to your child, and no one else. Then let it go, because it isn’t something that is going to drastically change your life. Yes, it’s a different way to think of how you pictured your child’s life, but think about it from your children’s perspective. It has literally changed everything about their life, and they have to cope with it, with or without you in their life. When it comes down to it, you either get with the picture or you might not be in the picture anymore.

It is becoming more and more acceptable to be yourself in a world where it never used to be, and I encourage everyone who wants to come out or wants to just be yourself, you aren’t alone. Someone else has gone through exactly what you are going through.

My advice to parents is to let your child be your child. They aren’t different people because they like girls or they like boys, they are still that little boy or girl who you loved dearly the day before they told you.