Programme 2: Friends and Lovers

Background Information

How do parents and carers generally react when they find a son or daughter is gay?
For parents, totally unprepared, the general reaction is one of shock, bewilderment and fear. Responses can be many and varied: some blame themselves, others reject the child and some want to help but don’t know what to do. Many feel alienated in spite of themselves. Even where there is a close bond, there can still be shock and pain, and those who consider themselves liberal and understanding do not generally expect someone in their family to be gay.

Why is it so difficult for parents and carers when they first find out?
Parents and carers, in common with many others in society, have often absorbed all of the myths and misunderstandings that exist about homosexuality. They may think it dirty and shameful, feel in some way they are responsible and worry about what their own friends and neighbours will think. They may even worry that they themselves will become alienated. Finding out there is a whole side to your son or daughter you don’t know about can often come as a shock to parents.

A common response is ‘Why did my child choose this way of life?’
It has to be emphasised that a true homosexual orientation is not chosen, it is simply a part of the person. One way of looking at this is to think of all the fear, pain, abuse and humiliation that homosexual people can be exposed to, and reflect, would anyone really make a choice so fraught with such pressures?

Why tell a parent or carer?
There may be many reasons young people want to do this but the most common are to do with honesty and love for someone you are close to, and not wanting to live a lie. The issue of telling a parent or carer that you are gay is a major one for both the young person themselves and for the carer. Individuals and families vary to such an extent that there can be no prescriptive advice. However many reactions are common to different families and knowing these can help all involved in making the right decisions for them. For parents who think they have a son or daughter who is gay they may not wish to raise the issue in case they cause offence or are seen to violate the privacy of the young person.

What about religion?
There are wide ranging perspectives on homosexuality among the world’s faiths and frequently a range of interpretation and tolerance within any one faith. For example, within Christianity there is no consensus on the nature of homosexuality nor on policies to enforce on gay and lesbian members, candidates for ordination etc. More liberal denominations have gradually changed their positions in recent years to adopt a more inclusive stand. In the past people have often continued to practise their faith even though the faith itself may not have been tolerant of their sexual orientation.

What sort of issues do young people who stay in the closet face?
These are potentially many and varied and revolve around loneliness, isolation, living a lie, anxiety about people finding out, feelings of not achieving full potential, lack of sexual fulfilment, lack of real understanding and support from others and health problems including depression. It may also cause people to make choices about relationships and marriage that they might later regret and this could have a major impact on the lives of partners and children in the future if they decide to come out.

Why have gay groups struggled to make the gains made by other groups in society?
Virtual invisibility has held the gay community back from making advances to parallel the legislative and social policy changes achieved by women, black and minority ethnic communities and disability groups. Media images often focus on the sexual side and on the gay consumer to the detriment of understanding the nature and diversity of gay people in the population. The figure is often put at between 5-10% but is not really known because of the difficulty of collecting data. A large percentage will only be out to themselves. Many of those known to be gay in the world within the arts, politics and commerce are often reluctant to align too closely with ‘the movement’ fearing stigma.