Conversation

When I came out to my mom, when I was 18, I was nervous as anything.

She's a great mom, she always raised me and my brother to treat folks compassionately, and even before I came out to her she talked about LGBTQ+ people with care and love. But still, it was terrifying, nerve-wracking. I had peers who'd been kicked out of their homes, and even though I believed my mom would be accepting, the possibility of our relationship changing because of my sexuality was dreadful.

Before I came out to her, I came out to my three best friends at the time, one after the other. My reasoning was that if things went poorly, I would want community around me. A parent's rejection hurts more than almost anything else, I instinctively knew, and I took pains to make sure I was safe.

Of course my mom was loving in her response, and she is an outspoken ally of the queer community in her role as a minister in the United Church of Canada. At this point, she might have even been to more Pride celebrations than I have, and she's certainly waved the rainbow flag more than me (I'm not very flashy :P )

But even with all that, if someone - a teacher, a parent, a peer - had outed me to her before I was ready, with words I might not choose for myself, things could have gone much differently. I know this because it's happened to many, many, many of my queer kin.

For LGBTQ+ youth in hostile or precarious households, being outed to bigoted parents has consequences, it is an act of harm. "Parents rights" have nothing to do with their child's sexuality, gender, or anything else except insofar as it serves to help the child grow and flourish. A teen keeping their pronouns private from their parents may be the best thing that teen can do to keep themselves safe and housed.

ALL kids deserve the right to privacy, - even from their parents - kids deserve to grow into adults on their own time, to grow into whole people without worrying they might be homeless.

This move across Canada by conservative governments to turn teachers into gender-cops has NO purpose except to cause harm to LGBTQ+ people. It's a resentful, spiteful little law, that only the worst kinds of people who have a very specific, very intentional hatred of us, would write.