What if Your Child "Comes Out?" - Faithfully Responding to LGBTQ Identification

As a Latter-day Saint, what do you do if your child "comes out?"

Since starting my social media channels, with the goal of finding faith-promoting approaches to LGBTQ issues, I’ve heard from a lot of parents. These parents almost always have a child who experiences same-sex attraction, identifies as gay, or is struggling with feelings of gender incongruence. I’ve recognized a pattern in these parents I wanted to explore more deeply today: They’re universally terrified about being shamed for trying to minister to their child in a way that prioritizes faith and discipleship over self-expression. 

So many of these parents have reached out to me, sharing these often intimate details. They see my online content that deals with my experience with SSA and my efforts to live the gospel, and I’m always honored that they trust me enough to share this information. Still, I always feel inadequate, given that our oldest is only 3 years old. I’ve done my best to share what advice and hope I can offer, but I never feel qualified to offer the support they need. And that’s the thing. These parents are starved for support, often floundering to figure out how to love and minister to their child without pushing them away or enabling a transition out of the church.

So, what do we do about it? Here are some ideas.

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Transcript

0:00

Since starting my social media channels a few years ago with the goal of finding faith promoting approaches to LGBTQ issues, I've heard from a lot of parents. These parents almost always have a child who experiences same sex attraction, identifies as gay, or is struggling to reconcile feelings of gender and congruence. and I've recognized a pattern in these parents that I wanted to explore more deeply today. This pattern is that they're almost universally terrified about being shamed for trying to minister to their child in a way that prioritizes faith and discipleship over self-expression. A lot of these parents have reached out to me, sharing what can sometimes be intimate details about their family's situation. They see my online content that deals with my experience with same sex attraction and efforts to live the gospel, and I'm always really honored that they trust me enough to share this information. But I do always feel really inadequate. Our oldest is only three years old and so I don't have a lot of experience parenting. I've done my best to share what advice and hope I can offer, but I never feel qualified, and I know that they need more support than I can offer. this has helped me realize that parents are often starved for support in this situation. They're often floundering to figure out how to love and minister to their child without pushing them away or enabling a transition out of the church. In our current political climate. If your child starts identifying as gay, transgender, non-binary or something similar, sometimes people see it as hateful or wrong to worry about the spiritual safety of your child, or to mourn the potential loss of the life you hoped your child would have. Anything short of affirming and celebrating your child's decision to wander off the covenant path is sometimes seen as unloving or even cruel. I've personally experienced the wrestle of same sex attraction within a faith context, and while my experience isn't universal, I do think that shaming parents for wanting the covenant path for their child is so wrongheaded. Now I'm not saying that we should respond in horror and fear if our child opens up to us in this way. But any loving parent worries after their child, they take seriously the forces intent on destroying their child. And unfortunately, while there can be a lot of growth and beauty in the experience of same sex attraction in a faith context, there is also a lot of muck to wade through to get there. When I opened up about my same sex attraction to a few close family members and friends, I made it clear to them that leaving the church wasn't on my radar. Still, I know that they all, especially my mom and dad, worried after me in the way that any good latter day Saint parent should. They weren't driven by fear, and they didn't berate me with their concerns, but their instincts to keep me rooted in righteousness and truth were very apparent, especially in their examples. So if you're a latter day Saint parent, and your child or loved one is struggling to understand their identity or is wandering on to strange paths, it's okay to grieve that it's okay to worry about the effect a same sex relationship would have on your child. Or even the temptation to have one. It's okay to hurt if your child doesn't accept their biological sex and wants to experiment with other options. In fact, I think it's actually a moral good to worry about your child in this way and to do everything in your power to help them stay the course. So why do I say that? It's okay to grieve this. Well, let's uncover what it is that you're actually grieving when your child is wrestling with these feelings. But first, let's look at maybe what the world would say. We're grieving. There's a common media trope in movies and television that goes something like this. A religious couple has a wayward child. This wayward child announces to his parents one day that he's gay, transgender, or something in that world. One of the parents, usually the overbearing dad, lashes out in anger and kicks the child out of the house. I'm sure that we've all seen some variation of this trope played out in a show that we were watching And the problem with this trope isn't that this sort of thing never happens to some extent in real life situations. the problem I have with this trope, is the lack of nuance that they usually have, and how callously the parents are usually portrayed. Typically, the only redeeming moment for the parents comes if and when they eventually come around and forsake their beliefs in order to mend the relationship with their child. I want you to have a girlfriend. And I'll cook you both dinner and breakfast. Anything you two want. Until that moment comes, the parents are the irredeemable villains, fueled by fear and maybe even hatred toward their child. Now again, this isn't to say that there aren't any cruel religious parents who kick their child out of the house for no good reason. I think this trope is a reflection of real life scenarios, but I think more often it's an exaggerated caricature. It's also a good case study for how poorly those immersed in mainstream culture tend to interpret traditional Christian beliefs, let alone a latter day Saint doctrine. Say you're a typical American and you come across a scenario on social media where a pair of latter day Saint parents are struggling to reconcile their child's wrestle with same sex attraction. Now witnessing this scenario from more of a bird's eye view, you might be quick to interpret the situation in the same light as that media trope. You might assume the parents are actually starting to despise their child. You, might remove all the nuance of human relationships, and start to view the parents in this sort of exaggerated, villainous version of who they really are, just based on a similar dynamic you've seen play out in your favorite TV show. I think many in mainstream culture, including many of those who write the content we watch, don't really seem to understand what religious parents are actually grieving when their child comes out as gay or believes they're transgender. The assumption is that they are grieving the loss of who they thought their child was, and that they're doing so in a way that let some kind of hatred replace their love. The word homophobia is often used to describe that phenomenon. Barring the extreme cases, what latter day Saint parents are actually grieving is the loss of spiritual safety they assumed their child was in. They're grieving the difficult road ahead of their child. That includes reconciling same sex attraction or identity concerns with their faith in God, or a life outside the safety of the covenant path. Now, whether these media tropes have caused this lack of understanding, or whether they are just evidence of it, Some view latter day Saint parents as a villainous caricature of who they actually are. I think the prevalence of this caricature is one of the reasons latter day Saint parents in this situation feel so overwhelmed and powerless to help their child. unfortunately the culture of activism around these issues often shames or even blackmails parents into submission. Parents may start to worry about how others will perceive them if they encourage their child to keep their covenants. They may start to wonder if it's actually wrong to urge them to stay the course. modern voices relentlessly push this message, that the only way gay or gender dysphoria teens can be happy is if they pursue the life course. Typically associated with same sex attraction or gender confusion. After being inundated with that message so often and from all directions, it's understandable to wonder if they are actually right. But are they right? In the scriptures we learn that Christ is called on earth to save his people from their sins. Presumably this was one of the big reasons he spent a lot of time with sinners. He had no hatred in his heart for people, but he seemed to have a lot of disdain toward sin. He fought against the influence of sin because of its capacity to destroy us and make us miserable. the negative effect that certain sins have on us is pretty widely agreed upon and understood, such as the more extreme examples like murder and adultery. Aside from being evil because they harm others, they're also evil because they harm the soul of the one who sins. But other sins that also do have the capacity to damage our souls aren't universally accepted as sin. In fact, it's growing less and less politically correct to call some sins sins I think the most obvious example of this is same sex unions. Now, I'm not comparing the severity of different sins here, I'm just pointing out that even within the church, it's becoming more taboo to call same sex unions sinful. And one can understand maybe why that might be. Sins like adultery have an immediate, obvious, and easily identified harm. That being the heartbreak of the one who was cheated on and the damaging to the soul of the one who cheated. Because this obvious harm is so easy to pinpoint. It's more universally accepted as a sin in religious circles, and a moral wrong in more secular circles. same sex. Relationships, on the other hand, don't tend to have this sort of immediate, obvious, and easily identified harm. In fact, more often than not, they seem to have a net positive effect on everyone involved, at least in the short term. We all yearn for romantic connection. We all want to love and be loved. So when someone we love enters a same sex relationship and they seem to be thriving in it, It's understandable if our reaction is to affirm or a support or a cheer on that relationship. But why might that reaction be wrong? Sin in all forms and levels of severity is damaging to our souls. It's damaging because it disrupts our eternal progression. When we rebel against God's commandments, we end up going on detours off the path that is designed to give us all that the father hath. God will love us through all of these detours. He also has the ability to transform our detours into meaningful lessons for growth. But there is a difference between learning from mistakes and carving out a comfortable place for our mistakes to stick around. the fact that we can learn from our mistakes, doesn't mean that we should have made them in the first place. We may not recognize the negative effects the same sex relationship would have on someone's soul, but that doesn't mean that they aren't there. I think if we had the eternal hindsight that we'll eventually get, we would find ourselves eagerly running away from anything that inevitably drives a wedge between us and God. We also learn in Scripture that Christ came to heal the brokenhearted. Squaring same sex attraction with one's faith in God is a really difficult experience, and like any trial in life, there is a lot of potential for heartache in the experience of same sex attraction within a religious context. If someone that we love is wrestling with this balancing act, I think we should do our best to understand what they're experiencing by asking questions. We should also be there for them, loving them, whether or not they decide to make the choice to stay on the covenant path. Loving someone shouldn't require us to agree with the choices that they make, and conversely, someone shouldn't feel pressured to make the choice that we would want for them in order to feel our love. When someone has a broken heart, that is when they need the most love and the most mercy and the most understanding. And so often that includes those that are in this wrestle. Christ came to heal the broken hearted, and we're supposed to emulate him. So if there is a broken hearted person in our family or friend circles, we have the responsibility to do all that we can to help them in that healing process. So while modern culture would say it should be nothing but beautiful and exciting. If your child opens up to you about their experience of same sex attraction, there might be more to it than that. I think it is beautiful that your child trusts you enough to confide in you, and the experience of same sex attraction within a faith context can be a beautiful part of who they are. But it is also natural for you to worry about their spiritual safety. That worry doesn't mean that you're a bad person. That worry doesn't have to create shame in you or in your child. That worry is actually a very normal and natural response to recognizing the difficult road ahead of your child. I think good parents worry after their child, not in a way that lets fear replace hope and charity, but in a way that takes seriously the forces intent on destroying your child. If your child or loved one opens up to you in this way, I think it's okay to worry. I think it's okay to grieve the loss of spiritual safety. You may have assumed that they were in, That is, as long as you use this worry for good, Instead of succumbing to fear and hopelessness. We can use that worry how it's meant to be used as a warning of potential danger. And then we can sanctify it into resolve to help our child succeed in life through a covenant relationship with God. if you resonated with any of this, or know someone who might, please consider sharing this video with them. And if you want to support this series, consider subscribing to this channel. I hope to see you in the next one.