How New Research Helps Parents Cope With Gay Kids

Coming out is difficult at best, and coming out to our families--especially our parents--is perhaps harder than to anyone else. On their side, it's at least equally difficult for most parents to accept the fact their son or daughter is gay or (harder!) transgender.

Unfortunately, as piles of statistics have shown, all-too many times, parents don't accept this situation. Even in our relatively enlightened age, many parents believe that they can beat sexual orientation out of their kids; or pray it away; or push conventional notions of "masculine" and "feminine." In the worst cases, the child is pushed out of the house and faces homelessness; or the rejection becomes so horrendous that he or she is driven to drugs, dropping out of school, or even suicide.

Caitlin Ryan has spent the past several years studying this situation. But she's doing more than just studying it. Her research has yielded concrete ways in which parents can deal with the coming-out of their children.

Ryan brings a world of gay advocacy in the social sciences to her research. She was one of the first social workers to work with AIDS patients; she went on to co-found the National Lesbian and Gay Health Foundation, and the National Association of People With AIDS.

She helped organize some of the earliest conferences on the disease and headed the prestigious Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C. Her resume goes on, and includes co-director of George Washington University's AIDS Policy Center.

She comes to her most recent advocacy via the San Francisco-based Family Acceptance Project (FAP), of which is a founder and director. She brings a real passion to her concern for gay youth--and, just as important, an empathy for what their parents are going through.

The problem cuts through socio-economic, ethnic and religious fault lines. She's found many parents even in her present home base, the People's Republic of San Francisco (as the wingnuts would have it), who have never heard of transgendered persons or have no facilities to cope with the situation.

The basis of her entire program is that parents love their kids and want what's best for them. "We're not there to change their beliefs," Ryan notes. "Many parents think being gay is wrong or sinful but love their children."

What she tries to make clear to them is that certain behaviors put their loved ones at risk.

Teaching Tools to Help Parents Cope
For the past two years, the FAP has been developing brochures, videos and other tools to help groups reach out to parents. Ryan herself has written one book, "Lesbian & Gay Youth: Care & Counseling," and co-authored another, "Serving LGBT Youth in Out-of-Home Care."

Ryan applauds groups like PFLAG and Gay-Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), as well as local-based organizations.

One such organization is the Greater Boston PFLAG Chapter. President Stan Griffith started working with Ryan a year and a half ago. His organization represents a good example of how her research is put to good use.

"It was clear that if we were truly going to address the needs of families with LGBT kids and LGBT kids' parents, we were going to have to make significant adjustments in the way we do our work," he recalls. His group has been historically good about working with schools; not so much with parents--especially working with them before a child comes out.

"There's definitely a need to get to parents proactive, ideally before they have a gay kid," Griffith says. "The ultimate objective is to have public health policies before they have kids, because what you really want to do is make sure kids are not raised in a homophobic household."

So when they realize they are different, which happens pretty early (as anyone reading this can attest to), they aren't apprehensive about telling their parents. "In ideal world, that conversation should been more difficult than learning you've got a kid who's left-handed," Griffith says. "Ideally, a child says 'I'm gay.' Sure, the parents have to make some adjustments but not the big deal it is today."

That might be a long way off, but Ryan's research is helping move that ideal to reality. PFLAG is moving from a place of "when your kid comes out, this is how you should handle it," to "this is what you should do if your child should turn out be gay." It means much more outreach to all parents, would-be parents, and parents-to-be.

The very touchy subject of religion is far from off limits to Ryan. In fact, she welcomes it, because these families are among the most troubled for LGBT youth. It's one thing to deal with a liberal Jewish family on Manhattan's Upper West Side, say, or mainstream Protestants in suburban Connecticut. But the real challenge is reaching Southern Baptists in the rural South or Mormons in Utah.

The key is not to push these latter families to the same place as the former. Rather, to nudge them by inches toward the middle ground. "Support is not the same as acceptance," Ryan emphasizes. "We believe that most families do not want to harm their children."

Ryan has done extensive work with African-American families, Chinese-Amerians, Native Americans and others. In each case, she's found interest in her research and a willingness to listen--as long as the emphasis is on the best interest of the child.

"Many parents think their child is just 'acting out,'" she notes. "Children are expressing who they are. When we can show them our research, that they're putting children at high risk for suicide, drug use, etc., they're shocked when they find out. They didn't read it in Reader's Digest or hear it from their pediatrician."

Valerie Larabee is the director of the Utah Pride Center in Salt Lake City. As such, in her words, she's working in the Rome of the Mormon Church's Italy. But even the deeply religious Mormons--and, as we all know from the Proposition 8 fracas, the church is hardly a friend to the gays--can overcome prejudice by their deep and abiding love for their children.

Preventing homelessness among LGBT youth brought Larabee to Ryan. The two have worked together on the local Mormon community. Larabee cites Ryan's research as "the beginning of a very important conversation here in Utah. We had a public meeting at our public library where she discussed her findings." She also conducted a session for people working in the mental health professions as caregivers.

"So we did have some really conversations with people who are close to the church about Caitlin's findings," Larabee says. "They really appreciated the way that Caitlin is able to deliver this message, because it allows them to have conversations without making doctrine the focus. Families can make modest changes in behavior to youth and make a dramatic impact in the level of risk behaviors."

Griffith sums up Ryan's work thusly: "It's going to make a huge difference, as we reach out to parents more broadly and recruit parents to be allies of our children. Most parents love and want to help their kids. Even a small amount of change helps tremendously. They don't have march in a Pride parade, but just be less rejecting. If change is continuous, it's important to engage in conversations with kids, to be more accepting. Those findings Caitlin has documented across many demographics."