'National Parents Coming Out Day' Aims to Educate Families of LGBTQ Youth
"National Parents Coming Out Day" is a day for parents to learn how to support their LGBTQ youth, which is a strong factor in mental and physical health.
by John Paul Brammer / Oct.12.2017 / 10:21 AM ET
Janet Duke's daughter was crying. It was a night a little over 17 years ago. To give an idea of the time, Duke said she was still using a dialup line to connect to the Internet back then. She said she woke up because she thought her 12-year-old daughter was sick. But when her daughter stopped crying long enough to speak, Duke said she asked, "Will you always love me?"
That was the night Duke's daughter came out. From then on, Duke made it her mission to help other parents learn how to support their LGBTQ children.
"Research shows that parent rejection is the number one determinant of health for LGBTQ youth," Duke told NBC News. "If they are rejected, their risk of suicide, depression, homelessness, everything goes up. But everything goes back to normal when parents are supportive."
Today, Duke is the founder of Strong Family Alliance (SFA), an organization that works to provide parents of LGBTQ youth with accurate information, insights into family dynamics and ways to keep their child safe and healthy. For the first time, SFA is celebrating National Parents Coming Out Day on October 12, the day after National Coming Out Day.
"You want to be careful how you do it, because you want it to be a show of support and not an inadvertent outing of the child," Duke said of National Parents Coming Out Day. "We have over 50 suggestions for things parents can do to support their child, and it's categorized by how open the child is."
Duke is not the only parent working to educate other parents on how to support LGBTQ youth. Susan Cottrell is the the cofounder of FreedHearts , an organization that helps parents with a religious background accept and affirm their LGBTQ children.
For Cottrell, like Duke, her journey began when her daughter came out as gay. She said she immediately accepted her daughter, but her daughter remained anxious.
"She asked me months later, 'Are you sure you and dad won't reject me later?' She asked about four times," Cottrell said. "I said, 'Yes, I'm sure, but why are you asking?' She said she'd seen so many people thrown out of their houses and beaten. I had no idea that was a thing. That was the moment FreedHearts was born."
Years later, Cottrell now works with her husband to personally speak with Christian parents about how to be there for their children after they come out, and she talks them through issues that the kids might not be able to deal with. FreedHearts also provides video courses to assist parents.
"The first thing is to pause and know this is the same child you had before they came out," Cottrell told NBC News. "Embrace them fully and let the answers come when the answers come. Err on the side of love."
For LGBTQ parents, days like National Parents Coming Out Day provide an opportunity to discuss the joys and challenges of parenthood. Michael Anderson, for example, never thought he'd be a parent. He came out to his mom in 1995. Without knowing it, she'd spent the day with Anderson's boyfriend, who Anderson had introduced as a friend.
But today, Anderson is a proud gay parent raising his daughter, Annika, with his husband, Jeff Binder in Naples, Fla. The family moved from upstate New York to Florida two years ago. Anderson said he was nervous to move into a conservative area as a married gay man with a multiracial daughter. But he said his local community has been nothing but supportive.
"As Annika's gotten older, I’ve always talked about, 'You have two dads, some kids have two moms, and all kinds of families,'" Anderson told NBC News. "It’s important she knows there are other families like hers. She has a girl in her class that has two moms. The amazing thing is, these kids are growing up with peers that have parents that are gay or chose to have kids as single parents, and for them, it's how things are."
Growing up in and around LGBTQ families is an experience many LGBTQ youth still don't get to have. According to a 2012 study conducted by the Williams Institute at UCLA Law, while LGBTQ youth made up just 7 percent of the population, they accounted for 40 percent of young people experiencing homelessness.
The study also found that 46 percent of homeless LGBTQ youths ran away because of family rejection, 43 percent were forced out by parents and 32 percent faced physical, emotional or sexual abuse at home.
This is something Cottrell talks to parents about frequently. "I tell them, 'If you embrace your child, and then change your mind in five years, sure, you could do that,'" she said. "'But if you reject them now, and in five years you want the relationship, it may be too late. Because they may be unwilling, or you may not have a child.'"
NBC News asked Duke what her biggest ambition is for National Parents Coming Out day.
"My dream is that in 20 years, we won't even need it," she responded.
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Wow, information and education -- the conservatives' worst nightmare.
LGBTQ???
Why are you so EXCLUSIVE??? Why not LGBTQIAPK???
Comment removed for CoC violation [ph] It's that you CLAIM that you want to be treated EQUALLY and no different from others. And yet, every chance you get, you demand you be treated differently.
Differentiation is discrimination.Comment removed for CoC violation [ph]
Why is it not enough to be just another American???
I don't run around saying... I'm white!!! I'm heterosexual???
The only thing I proclaim is "I'm American!!!"
Comment removed for CoC violation [ph]
Coming out as LGBT will be a public act of acceptance as long as everyone is assumed to be heterosexual.
Why do you have a problem with people being public about being lesbian, gay bisexual, transgendered or intersexed?
If you have to tell people that meet you that you are white then that is your own problem.
Have you been fired from a job when they found out you're a heterosexual? Have you been denied a marriage license because you're white? Have you had a bakery tell you they won't bake a cake for your party because you're white or heterosexual? Have you been told you're going to burn in the fiery pits of h e l l because you're heterosexual? Have you ever had people associate you with pedophiles just because you're heterosexual? If not then you likely never had a reason to hide those facts about yourself. Those in the LGTBQ community deal with discrimination on a daily basis and so do have to make a choice to be honest with the general public about who they are for fear they will be treated differently. So the whole complain about the LGTBQ wanting "special rights" is nonsense. They simply wish to be treated like anyone else, without discrimination and hatred for just being born who they are.
This from someone who wrongfully discriminates against quality firearms manufacturers. /s
I would LOVE to be treated like 'just another American'. In my over 60 years, is hasn't happened yet.
Perhaps that is because that is self evident.
See above. Though I have been mistaken for one most of my life.
I was born here, I live here, never felt the need to proclaim it.
You all don't really get what Bobby N has been saying. Pitiful!
I get that he's a member of a party which explicitly opposes his civil rights and wants to treat him as a 2nd-class citizen.
Mags, we DO understand Bobby N, we just don't agree with him. I in fact asked him for a link to his Caucus but as you see he hasn't seen fit to furnish one. I actually did a search for such a Caucus and came up with bupkus.
I've known many a Bobby N in my day. They are more than happy to enjoy the rights and protections that the 'liberals' have fought for over the last decades, but seem to need to ridicule those same 'liberals' as 'whiners'. It's hypocritical.
I don't think so. I grew up in N.O. and was a TV personality for long time. We interacted with everyone. There was no he is gay, he is trans, he is straight. We all where people .. individuals with our own purpose. Bobby is an individual and living his life as such.
He doesn't require accolades for being who he is.
What protections does Bobby need? He has been living his life for years without your protection. My gay friends don't need your protection either.
You want to protect something? Protect the children who are abused everyday,