The ongoing sage saga of Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins continues to draw the attention of straight and LGBT audiences alike. In 2000, the two women were wed in a civil ceremony and gave birth to their daughter Isabella two years later, with Miller at the biological mother. The couple broke up in 2003, and Miller was given custody, while Jenkins was granted visitation rights. Miller then announced that she wasn’t a lesbian; instead, she believed, she had been coerced into the lifestyle through the mental health treatment system. Furthermore, she didn’t want her former partner to have any contact with Isabella.
Lisa Miller presents us with a complicated case of a woman struggling with her sexuality. In an interview with Christian website LifeSiteNews, she claimed that mental health treatment staff had convinced her she was a lesbian even though she denied sexual attraction to women. “I think, with women, what I was trying to do was trying to recreate a mother/daughter bond that I never had. When I was seven, I knew how to balance a checkbook because that was my responsibility, and I made sure that the mortgage was paid and I made sure that we had food on the table. I went to the grocery store and things like that. I was always a little grown-up from the time my parents divorced, which was when I was seven. I really believe, looking back on it, I was trying to recreate something that I never had with my mom. It was just such a tangled web because you can’t recreate that.”1
After the couple separated, Miller experienced a spiritual awakening: “I started going back to church after years of not being in a church—I attended my brother’s church and I was sitting in the service one night… I was just sitting there one night and I thought, ‘Wow, I am not saved.’”2
Separating from the “homosexual community” included denying Jenkins’s visitation rights, ignoring court orders regarding these rights, and finally fleeing the United States with Isabella rather than allow visitation to occur. Not surprisingly, Miller became a hero to the religious right but also an embarrassment to LGBT parents. Her story affirmed the most vitriolic myths regarding gays and lesbians; she was a gullible, naive, and troubled women ripe for conscription into lesbianism by forces promulgating the spread of homosexuality; she had had her parental rights overturned by a progressive and activist court, which had been coopted by the same forces; she had found that she really could repudiate her homosexuality through the power of religion; and, finally, it was claimed, her lesbian partner was attempting to indoctrinate their daughter into a homosexual lifestyle.
While it would be reassuring to think that Lisa Miller is an isolated case, this is simply not true. Carrie, for example, sardonically told me about being raised by her two mothers; in addition to periods of substance abuse, unemployment and its financial consequences, and domestic violence between the two adult women and occasionally against herself, Carrie, now twenty-four, recalls the pitiful alcohol-fueled binges in which one of her mothers railed against her sexuality: “She would be unapproachable and inconsolable during these periods. She blamed lesbianism for the rupture of her relationship with her parents, her inability to find a permanent job, and her unhappiness at home… Of course, once she cleaned up and got her alcohol use back under control, the veneer of normalcy was again in place.”
Blake recalls his father (who died of HIV complications):
He was the stereotypical gay man. Every little mannerism and voice nuance you expect to find in a gay man, he had it. He was still married to my mother at the time, and the neighborhood kids would tease me mercilessly about him. I was embarrassed by his behaviors. I remember the fights my parents had. She wanted to know if he was gay. She begged him to tell her the truth, but he denied it repeatedly. “I am not gay,” was always his response. He even sat me down when I was fourteen and they were divorcing to clearly tell me he was not gay; this unequivocally was not the reason for their separation. It wasn’t until he became seriously ill with his first HIV complication that he told me the truth. He was gay and had been throughout the whole time of his marriage. I asked him why he waited so long to tell us; there had been so many opportunities. I’ll always remember what he said: “I was too scared.”
Every sexual minority has been the recipient of societal shaming; it is impossible to escape it. The miasma of homonegativity and occasional overt homo-hatred that seeps into a general culture of heterosexism leaves no sexual minority untouched. And this impact starts at early ages. One of the most penetrating studies to examine growing up as an LGBT adolescent was the Family Acceptance Project (FAP), a research, intervention, education, and policy initiative directed by Dr. Caitlin Ryan and affiliated with San Francisco State University. FAP studies how family acceptance and rejection affect the health, mental health, and well-being of LGBT youth. This research finds that families have a compelling impact on their LGBT children’s health and mental health, and that the more rejecting family members were, the more severe the health and mental health outcomes for the LGBT youth in young adulthood. Dr. Ryan and her research team identified more than fifty specific parental and caregiver behaviors that express rejection of their LGBT children, and more than fifty specific accepting behaviors that are protective against risk, including depression, suicidal behavior, and substance abuse and help promote well-being in young adulthood. FAP researchers linked each of these rejecting and accepting behaviors with specific health and mental health concerns.3
Family-rejecting behaviors include
• Hitting, slapping, or physically hurting children because of their LGBT identity
• Verbal harassment or name-calling because of a child’s LGBT identity
• Excluding LGBT youth from family events and family activities
• Blocking access to LGBT friends, events, and resources
• Blaming children when they are discriminated against because of their LGBT identity
• Pressuring a child to be more (or less) masculine or feminine
• Telling children that God will punish them because they are gay
• Telling children that their parent/caregiver is ashamed of them or that how they look or act will shame the family
• Making children keep their LGBT identity a secret in the family and not letting them talk about their identity with others
Studies find that gay men and lesbians recognize they are somehow different from peers during their youth, even if they have no understanding of homosexuality. Yet they are bombarded with messages that same-sex attraction is disgusting, a mental problem, and/or a sin; above all, it is a forbidden behavior. They receive this message repeatedly from family, friends, schools, religious venues, and politicians. Joe Kort, author of Gay Affirmative Therapy for the Straight Clinician, calls this “covert cultural sexual abuse.”4 In a 1993 article, Joseph Neisen described it as “cultural victimization.”5 In his article “Illusions of Intimacy,” Don Wright named it “sexuality abuse.”6 Irrespective of the name, there is general agreement that this ongoing abuse leads to damaging repercussion as serious as those arising from physical and sexual abuse.
Today’s same-sex parents have been the recipients of sexuality abuse in their families of origin and society in general, and they cannot help but bring it in to their relationships, as both romantic partners and parents. The most prevalent emotion associated with this abuse is shame—a belief that one is flawed and unworthy of love and even acceptance. Self-hatred is also prevalent. Is it any wonder then that there are LGBT individuals such as those described in the beginning of this chapter? Many have worked through this shame and only vestiges remain; for others, though, it is a continual presence haunting the fringes of their lives.
On June 20, 2011, I spoke to Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Family Equality Council, an organization that works at all levels of government to advance full social and legal equality on behalf of sexual minorities raising children. She observed that the research on same-sex parents struggling with their own childhood sexuality abuse and internalized homonegativity is nonexistent. However, she has sufficient anecdotal evidence to know that the effect on their own children is “significant and profound.”7 At the time of our conversation, there were still thirty-eight states that permitted employers to terminate workers on the basis of sexuality, a powerful reason for parents to collude with children to keep their family’s status a secret. This might not be the healthiest agreement, but when one’s very livelihood is at risk, it makes sense. Children can cope with this charade when parents are open about their concerns, explain the reason for the machination, and continually discuss the obstacles this presents in a child’s life.
Others parents, though, conspire to keep their sexuality a taboo even with the children they live with; these parents have created their own Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Glenn, for example, didn’t realize his mother and “aunt” were actually lovers until he was a teenager:
I knew she wasn’t a [biological] aunt, because I knew all my mother’s siblings. I thought she was a close friend, and “aunt” was just a sign of respect. We lived in a small apartment, so it made sense that they shared the same bedroom. And because she wasn’t family, it made perfect sense that “Aunt Ginny” didn’t join us on holidays and birthdays at my mother’s relatives. I even remember my mother telling her sister that Ginny lived with us in order to help pay the rent. I was thirteen before I even questioned [this], and that was simply because a friend thought our living arrangement was odd. When I told my mother, she testily told me that my friend didn’t know what he was talking about. Even then she didn’t come out and simply tell me the truth.
In 1977, Florida’s Dade County passed an ordinance that banned discrimination in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexual orientation. Foes (fronted by Anita Bryant and her Save Our Children organization) massed for a counterassault, which included the release of a television advertisement that is still considered one of the most effective pieces of antigay propaganda ever created. In the words of Fred Fejes, author of Gay Rights and Moral Panic:
It opened with film footage of the nationally televised (and hosted by Bryant) Miami Orange Bowl Parade; “Miami’s gift to the nation—wholesome entertainment,” the announcer intones. “But in San Francisco when they take to the streets, it’s a parade of homosexuals.” Using film footage provided by the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs Association, the picture turned to scenes of from the San Francisco’s Gay Pride parade with half-naked men in leather kissing and drag queens dancing, with the voice-over continuing, “men hugging other men, cavorting with little children, wearing dresses and make-up.” The voice-over concluded, “The same people who turned San Francisco into a hotbed of homosexuality want to do the same in Florida,” and it urged viewers to vote against the ordinance.8
The LGBT community’s concern with public image didn’t begin in the 1970s; the vanguard of gay rights understood public image was a tinderbox. Franklin Kameny, an astronomer who was fired from his position with the federal government for his homosexuality in 1957, organized the first public demonstrations in the United States demanding fair treatment for sexual minorities. These were held in 1965 at both the Liberty Bell site in Philadelphia and the White House. Kameny required that demonstrators adhere to a strict dress code: men in shirts and ties and women in dresses. He recognized the importance of public image, and the battle over this image continues today, influencing same-sex parents and their families. Out families must adhere to a metaphorical dress code: they must be model families.
The LGBT community tends to promote upbeat and positive images of gay and lesbian families. For example, a New York Times story on the growing number of same-sex parent adoptions in the United States focuses on Matt and Ray Lees, who have adopted eight children, including five siblings. As Matt Rees notes: “It was the best way we could think of spending the next 20 years of our lives.”9 Yes, Matt and Ray have occasional odd looks from neighbors but otherwise are a satisfied, out, and successful family.
The story of the two college-educated and successful Leeses is a stark contrast to the saga of Lisa Miller, but the reality is that there are innumerable other Lisa Millers existing in the community of same-sex parents, male and female. Hidden or closeted families may purposefully attempt to minimize outside involvement, since any intrusion may inadvertently divulge the secret of their identity. According to Sue Hyde, longtime LGBT activist and author of Come Out and Win, “While our movement has forcefully and critically refuted the categorical smears of criminality of adult sexuality and mental illness… [they] craft organizing materials and events that feature only the most wholesome (i.e., acceptable to the mainstream) aspects of the LGBT community, censor the more colorful characters in the LGBT communities, and, most recently, heavily promote our own population of gay- and lesbian-headed families.”10
What are the images the LGBT community want the public to see in regards to same-sex parents? Hyde is unassailably correct when she states that there is a focus on “wholesome” families. We don’t see the families who are struggling and who have serious issues; to even acknowledge these families is to fuel stereotypes that LGBT parents are not fit to raise children. For example, it is now understood that family involvement is optimal for the treatment of substance abuse and addiction; a struggling LGBT parent who is in the closet will forgo family intervention or simply lie about his or her family. If a child in these families develops an abuse or addiction disorder, the dilemma is even more complicated. Jessica admitted with shame that she had conspired with her fourteen-year-old daughter Michelle to keep their family a secret from a counselor: “It was mortifying to listen to this counselor telling us about the impact of family dynamics on Michelle’s drug problem, yet the entire time we’re sitting there we’re lying to him—I’m pretending to be a single mom instead of talking about Jody [her girlfriend] and her ongoing alcohol abuse in our home.” Jessica and her family live in a small town in West Virginia (Jessica called it a “hamlet”) and they had to drive more than an hour to even obtain treatment services. Even more intimidating, the facility was Christian-based and not going to look upon her family with respect. Jessica summarized her dilemma with a barely discernible shrug: “What could I do?”
Out families experience another dilemma: they must hide their problems. Like any other family, same-sex-parented families are not perfect. Yet, unlike straight-parented families, they are expected to be—they must certainly live as though they are. In spite of the abundance of research proving that children are both physically and mentally healthy in same-sex families, LGBT parents must still battle demeaning and dangerous myths that abound regarding them and their parenting abilities (e.g., they are child molesters; they will indoctrinate children into homosexuality). It is not surprising that sexual-minority parents have had to go to the opposite extreme to counter these pernicious depictions; they must present as perfect families (or as near as possible to this ideal), no matter the reality of their lives.
Same-sex parents and their families receive higher scrutiny than traditional families, are held to a higher standard, and must continually be on their best behavior in the public eye. In Families Like Mine, Abigail Garner refers to “straight family privilege.” She pleads that “LGBT families should be allowed to be just as wacky, troubled, or complex as any other American family.”11 Unfortunately the privilege of showing the less positive aspects of same-sex family life is not granted to all families. Certainly the majority of families, gay or straight, don’t want to air their “dirty laundry” and would rather keep such information within the walls of the home; yet straight families coping with domestic violence, drug abuse, sexual abuse, and mental illness receive societal support. Neighbors, families, teachers, medical professions, and even politicians don’t blame these problems on the parents’ sexuality. But if a same-sex parent experiences the same problems, these same people will often look at sexuality as the pivotal factor in causing all these behaviors.
Thus the recommendation of Timothy Biblarz and Evren Savci of the Department of Sociology of the University of Southern California was refreshing. In their exhaustive 2010 review of the research literature on LGBT families, they reported that researchers were disinclined to address controversial topics relevant to gay families, such as abuse, break up rates, and inequalities between partners so as not to give anti-LGBT forces additional fodder. They recommended engaging in this research, since it “could serve the community” and, in the end, “outweigh worrying too much about what antigay advocates might latch onto from the literature.”12
A cardinal rule in LGBT-parented families: The less respectful and safe the outside world, the safer the sanctuary of the family must be.
Adrienne recalls her childhood with a sense of bemusement and detachment:
One of the most vivid memories I have of my fathers [one was her maternal uncle Bill, who had assumed custody of her after her mother died] was our trip back from [a world-famous theme park]. I was probably six or seven at the time. I was in the backseat and I could tell they were furious at each other, but not a word was said. There was just silence; they wouldn’t even turn on the radio. We pulled into a rest stop off the interstate, and Adam went into the use the bathroom. Uncle Bill pulled off; he just drove us back onto the highway and left Adam there—stranded. We were hundreds of miles from home. This was how they fought. It wasn’t until years later that I learned Adam had a compulsive sexual problem in addition to his drinking, which was already well known to me. I can only conjecture to what he did on that trip that so infuriated Uncle Bill. They fought and fought all the time, and this meant physically fighting. Both had a temper, but Uncle Bill’s was the worse. Looking back, a lot of times I felt safer in school then I did at home.
Connie, whom I met briefly at a Pride Festival, shared some memories of her childhood:
I thought my mothers were the height of hypocrisy. They let everybody know that they were same-sex parents; the entire neighborhood knew, including my school. They refused to back down to anyone, and for that I’m glad; this taught me a lot. My friends would always tell me my moms were “so cool.” But I never brought them home. No way. If Phyllis was drinking, which was most days of the week, I could never tell what to expect. The slightest provocation would send her off into a rage. She hit me, but Shirley got it far worse than I did. Did I live in a house with domestic violence? Yes I did. Instead of presenting as the perfect out and proud family who would go head-to-head with any source of discrimination, I really wish my moms had extended a little more energy on making the inside of our house safe. I didn’t grow up feeling safe because of what happened inside of my home rather that what happened outside of it.
Future generations of LGBT-parented families will have several past generations of examples to emulate (in addition to learning from their mistakes). This is not true for the current generation of same-sex parents, most of who are learning as they go along to work through the challenges of being both a parent and a sexual minority. Families facing an ambivalent or hostile social environment often create a dynamic in which the connections between family members are overly close and thus limit individual growth and independence. Problems become particularly obvious when developing children begin to try to assert some measure of autonomy in seeking a life beyond the family. As described by psychologist Joanna Bunker Rohrbaugh, “Community rejection leads partners to cling to each other in an attempt to shut out the rejecting, homophobic world; this coping strategy seeks to develop and protect the sense of stability and permanence that our culture enhances in heterosexual relationships but… The social isolation caused by secrecy can contribute to difficulties with boundaries and differentiation.”13
Problems within the family can occur between two parents, between a parent (or parents) and a child, and between children. The most common issues leading to family fracture are substance abuse, financial stress, sexual concerns, mental illness, domestic violence, and communication problems.
Parents may go to great lengths to present as heterosexual for their children, or at least downplay their homosexuality. Some even embrace asexual lifestyles. Secrets take root, topics become unapproachable, and children grow up in an atmosphere of confusion. Not only does this damage to the parent/child relationship, but these children may well have problems in their own relationships as they mature.
Families struggling with parental substance abuse are exemplars of the pernicious effects of keeping family secrets. All members of a family are well aware that mom or dad has a drug or alcohol problem and attempt to live their lives around the issue; the phrase pretend normal is often used to describe this dynamic. According to the National Association for Children of Alcoholics:
Families have a remarkable ability to maintain what family therapists call homeostasis. When alcohol or drugs are introduced into a family system, the family’s ability to self-regulate is challenged… Such families often become characterized by a kind of emotional and psychological constriction, where no one feels safe to express their authentic selves for fear of triggering a disaster; their genuine feelings are often hidden under strategies for keeping safe, like pleasing or withdrawing. The family becomes organized around trying to manage the unmanageable disease of addiction.14
The same dynamic can be applied to families struggling with issues of sexuality. Shame about sexuality will inevitably percolate down to children. Parents who refuse to discuss their sexuality or go to the extent of hiding it are giving a clear message that homosexuality is indeed shameful. Samuel, a nineteen-year-old man I work with in a clinical setting, has still not broached his father’s sexuality. Samuel has been indoctrinated with societal depictions of gay men as an out-of-control, sexually voracious group passing diseases from one person to another. He had seen movies such as The Dilemma, in which the typical insult was to call someone or something “gay,” and The Hangover, in which for comedic effect one actor calls out, “Paging Dr. Faggot!” Samuel was aware of the controversy over comedian Tracy Morgan’s statement that he would stab his son if he acted gay (and this was supposed to get laughs). Still, his father—who under the guise of being a single man, engaged in furtive sex with men while occasionally dating women to throw his parents and family off track—refused to discuss his sexuality with his only son. Sam’s father was ashamed of his own sexuality. Should we then expect Sam to celebrate his father’s sexuality?
I recall a dismaying conversation I had with an eighteen-year-old staff member of Mountain Meadow camp, the first camp in the United States for children of same-sex parents. He admitted envying several campers who had arrived days earlier. They were regaling the entire camp community of their experiences at Family Week in Provincetown, Massachusetts, an event that had ended just prior to the first day of camp. Carl told me that he and his sister knew their mothers were lesbian, but that it was a verboten topic. Even though it had never been suggested, he instinctively knew never to bring friends over to the house or discuss his family in depth. He summed up his childhood as one filled with secrecy. And most regretfully, he stills feels a sense of shame regarding his own status as the child of same-sex parents.
In contrast, Kerry did tell her children she was sexually attracted to other women (she did not use the word lesbian). I asked her how her teenage girls had responded. “Very well,” she replied. “They haven’t asked any questions about it, so it’s not a topic we discuss very much.” There is no doubt that a parent’s revelation of his or her sexuality status has an impact on teenagers; even if they say very little, their silence does not connote acceptance. This book has already made it clear that coming out is not a one-time event, and this applies to disclosure to one’s children. As a comparison, no responsible parents would inform their children that they are divorcing and then neglect to address the issue at any further point. Children need time to process an important revelation; some will respond immediately with a barrage of questions, while others will lapse into silence in order to contemplate the news and its impact. A “hit and run” disclosure to children is more likely to be due to parental fears and internalized homophobia rather than consideration for the best interests of the children.
Some same-sex parents I have spoken to told me they are indeed out to their children when in fact they haven’t actually done the hard work of processing the meaning of this for each child and the family as a whole. Coming out to one’s children requires much more than saying, “I’m gay” or “I’m lesbian.” In the parenting resource “Talking to Children About Our Families,” we are reminded, “Assuming that children who don’t ask questions don’t have questions may lead to children thinking that there is a need for or expectation of silence about their families.”15 And as the COLAGE organization reminds us, “It’s never too early to come out to your child/ren. Kids understand love. What they don’t understand is deception or hiding. And it’s never too late to come out to your child. COLAGE has met folks in their forties whose parents are just now coming out to them. A lot of mysteries are being solved, and missing puzzle pieces falling into place for these families. Often knowing the truth will be a relief for kids of all ages.”16
Family homeostasis that develops due to family secrets works in the short-term, but the long-term consequences are regrettable. When parents hide their sexuality from children, it only damages the parents themselves, children, and the family in general as the years pass.
As described above, coming out and developing a positive identity is a process that takes time, longer for some than for others. One stage that many sexual minorities pass through is called the immersion stage, so named because during this stage LGBTs immerse themselves in the sexual-minority subculture, surrounding themselves with everything gay and eschew and even denigrate straight culture. Though almost all sexual minorities pass through this stage, it can nevertheless lead to difficulties, including impacting their children. Keitha, for example, is worried about her teenage son’s response to her sexual identity: “I am proud that my son is so supportive of me, but I’m beginning to worry that he’s not as—I want to use the right word here—he’s not well-rounded. He knows more about gay and lesbian history than I do even now. His only friends are the kids of other same-sex marriages. He works at a gay-owned business and is hip to what’s going on in the sexual-minority culture. But he’s not gay, and he seems to have a grudge against the straight world.”
According to researchers Dana Finnegan and Emily McNally, many gays and lesbians in this stage “are likely to dehumanize heterosexuals (for example, call them ‘breeders’) and view the straight world as inferior (e.g., insensitive, power-hungry, cruel). These actions are part of a complete or partial withdrawing from mainstream; a splitting of the world into us and them.” People in this stage “tend to experience two major feeling states—pride bordering on arrogance and great anger.”17 Sandra Anderson, researcher of behavioral issues for sexual minorities, observes that during this stage, “There is immersion in the lesbian/gay culture and association primarily with gay/lesbian people. There is growing anger with the dominant, oppressive, heterosexual culture.”18 Renowned clinician Joe Kort agrees, noting that in this stage sexual minorities “do not distinguish between straight people who are heterosexist or homophobic and those who are not. All of their previous repression in now explosively directed outward… They devour gay books, magazines, and weeklies, absorbing all the culture’s earmarks and trademarks. Disdain for the straight world surfaces; they tend to think it’s ‘them against us.’”19
Keitha also recognized her son was receiving messages of intolerance in his workplace. Both his boss and coworkers (all gay men) belittled heterosexuals as “breeders” and expressed ambivalence and, sometimes, disgust toward the majority population. It didn’t matter that much of this wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, particularly since her son was known to be straight. Yet intolerance in any form is not acceptable to Keitha: “As a lesbian in the South, I struggled; let there be no doubt of that. I was married with a child before I even knew what lesbianism was. My father disowned me for more than a decade. So I did have animosity with the straight world. But now I work in a hospital with zero tolerance for discrimination. I have a boss who is straight man who simply adores me. I have straight and gay friends. There are both good and bad aspects to the gay and lesbian world just as much as the straight world. But a meaningful life requires living in both worlds and fighting for positive change in both worlds.”
Keitha had a private conversation with her son’s boss, asking him to tone down the intolerance in the workplace, no matter how facile it was meant to be. She is also openly critical in front of her son of questionable decisions in both straight and gay politics. She has straight men and women over as part of a monthly game night. But the one area of her life in which she feels she is most actively a role model is in her relationship with her family: “I make concessions to my father and sister so that we can have a relationship. My son thinks I should force my sexuality in their faces, but the result is that we will again have no relationship. In their presence I make concessions.”
Sexual minorities have every reason to feel resentment and anger for the way they have been treated in the past and for the stigmatization that are still subjected to today. But many LGBT folks ultimately emerge from their oversimplified, either/or view of the world and integrate into the wider community. They become less militant and recognize that while there are heterosexist and homophobic straights, allies also exist. Children should be angry if they and their parents are treated as pariahs and second-class citizens, but the development of an us-versus-them mentality only fosters an unnecessary hatred. There are innumerable straight allies out there, and choosing to ignore, avoid, or devalue them is a risk.