Coming Out As an LGBT Parent

Open DoorIt’s National Coming Out Day once again, so I hope you’re having a happy day no matter where you are in your coming out journey. Here’s an updated version of a piece that sums up a lot of my thoughts on coming out as an LGBT parent.

It has become something of a truism in LGBT parenting circles to talk about how having kids means being out to everyone—teachers, plumbers, cashiers at the grocery store. Kids, as any parent will tell you, can’t keep closet doors closed. One “Hey, Mommy and Mama!” across the produce aisle, and your cover is blown.

For me, however, the problem is not being outed, it’s assuming everyone knows I’m a lesbian when in fact, I tend to blend in with my mostly straight suburban neighbors. (The fact that many of my clothes come from boys’ departments doesn’t seem to register.)

Even when I try to be open about it, people hear “Alan” when I talk of my spouse “Helen” and miss my use of pronouns. My son once received an invitation to the birthday party of a new school friend, and Helen and I got a doubletake at the door because one of the friend’s parents hadn’t realized we were a two-mom family. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I’d gone to all of the school’s beginning-of-the-year events wearing an “I’m a lesbian” t-shirt. It would save us from those awkward moments.

The other problem is that as a matter of overall identity, I’d rather be known as my son’s mom, not his “lesbian mom.” The commonalities of parenthood far outweigh the differences of sexual orientation. More importantly, I want my son to be known for his own qualities, not for the fact that he’s “the boy with the lesbian moms.” Yes, his lesbian moms will always be part of his identity, but I want us to be a piece of a much richer whole, not a leading indicator. I hope he never wants to hide the fact that he has two moms, but I also realize that as he gets older, he may want to come out about his family in his own time and in his own way.

Visibility, however, has its perks. It may motivate my son’s school to be more inclusive in its materials and curriculum. It may open his classmate’s eyes to the fact that families come in all kinds of shapes and sizes.

Being out as a parent is therefore more complex than just dressing our infants in “I love my mommies” jumpers or being outed by our toddlers at the supermarket. It raises issues we may not even have thought of when we started our families. And for those who come out after having children, the issues are different yet again.

Coming out is often described as an ongoing journey. As parents, it is a journey we take with our children. We need to be sensitive to each others’ need for rest stops and side trips along the way.

For the moment, I will continue with my quiet but firm visibility. Around our son’s school, I do not want to make such a point of being a lesbian that he feels defined by his parents’ orientation, but neither do I want him ever to see me hide who I am, or what our family is. I know our visibility can do much good, not only for him, but also for other LGBT families and non-traditional families of all types.

It is a fine balance, and I may not always get it right. This week of National Coming Out Day, however, is a good chance to remind myself why I have to try.

9 thoughts on “Coming Out As an LGBT Parent”

  1. Coming out as lesbian parents is one of our new back-to-school rituals! Our twins are in first grade and we’ve found it important to email their teachers before the first day of school to avoid any awkwardness or confusion at the drop off. As the only LGBT parents in the entire elementary school (and the first, if I understand correctly), this is probably not strictly necessary since we have lots of visibility but I like to connect with the teachers right away. I imagine this ritual will disappear when elementary school is over.

  2. I know the feeling, Jamie. I’ve also found that there are sometimes opportunities to convey outness without having to do a special communication about it. (I think a special communication can sometimes feel just as awkward for some people–so it’s a matter of choosing which feels right for you.) For instance, this year, our son’s teacher mailed each student a note during the summer, asking the parents to send her either one or both parents’ e-mail addresses. I wrote back saying “Here’s my e-mail address, and here’s the address of his other mom, Helen.” We also try to both show up at the parents’ night the school holds during the first week, and make a point of introducing ourselves as his moms.

  3. Having walked this line, between explicitly outing ourselves and just “being there,” for years, we are starting to see a payoff. We recently heard from our son’s teacher that he (at 4 years old) firmly and unselfconsciously corrected a well-meaning classmate who insisted that “everyone has a dad.” I’m proud and relieved that my son feels secure in his family, even though he now understands that it’s different from every other family in the school. There’s a long road ahead, but I feel we’ve made a decent start.

  4. I praise you and your Partner for choosing not to hide. My former GF, who has four children, and I are no longer together because she refused to be out in the open and I refused to go back in the closet. It saddened me that she would not live her truth, not only for her but for the message it gave her kids.
    Bravo, Mombian!

  5. As a single lesbian mother, I usually feel out of place on two counts!! I did have an issue in preschool where my daughter came home saying gay is a bad word. I immediately contacted 2 other lesbian moms at the school and I went in the next day to have a conversation with her teachers. I outed myself in the conversation since I wanted them to know that teaching my daughter this was NOT acceptable. It turned out that it came from another kid and I found out the teacher’s daughter was gay. AT least the air was cleared and they knew I was paying close attention. I do feel alienated as being a single mother in a coupled world and then being a lesbian mom–in all my parenting groups I have been the only one on both counts!!

  6. Thanks for sharing your story! I agree–I think both inside and outside the LGBT community, we tend to use “same-sex parents” to mean any child with one or more lesbian or gay parents. As you point out, though, we don’t always come in pairs.

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