a fun fact about parenting is that if your child is lgbt+, no amount of “i love you"s or “i’m proud of you"s will take away your child’s fear of coming out to you.
i have great parents. they tell me they love me every damn day, and i’ve always had their support. but coming out to them was bar none the most terrifying thing i’ve ever done in my life because they were very, very heteronormative. all the while they were saying they loved me, they never seemed to consider for a second that i could be anything other than straight, and so i had no way of knowing whether or not that love was conditional. do they love me, or do they love the straight daughter who looks like me that only exists in their heads?
my parents love me, my parents are proud of me, but when i told them i’m gay at a restaurant one night, my purse was crammed full of a couple days’ worth of clothes and all the cash i had because i didn’t know if it would be safe for me to go back home.
parents, people who will be parents one day……don’t assume your kids are straight. don’t assume your kids are cis. tell your kids in no uncertain terms that you’ll love and support them if they’re lgbt+, because no matter how well you treat them, i promise you that they need to hear that.