It is very difficult to describe emotional sufferings of one and a half decades in several dozens of lines. I will try. To be oneself is to feel wholeness within one’s being. It is not to be afraid of sidelong glances or gossips. It is to feel comfortable answering questions about my family and my female partner.
To be out is not so terrible, as it seems in the beginning. After my first attempts to come out my body rebelled, I got huge adrenalin rushes, it took my breath away. One can endlessly tell about different stages of the coming out, read the stories of other people, but only as soon as you experience it yourself, you will understand what means to live free and to be yourself.
Unfortunately, the stories with parents accepting own children regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity are so rare for the moment that it is safe to say almost each LGBT person has a negative experience when it comes out of the closet.
My personal experience is almost two years of embittered relations between my mother and me. The special about my experience is that I had to tell about myself to my loved ones two times, to my mother and to my daughter. The daughter was 11-12 years old at that time. My daughter answered, “I do not mind with whom you are. The main thing is you are happy”.
It was not that easy with my mother. Two years long I had felt like a “living dead”. Every time I visited her, my mother started to lament, blaming herself that she had not noticed, had not cared enough, and had not educated enough. I just had to make it through.
When my relations with parents improved more or less, and the personal qualities of my loved one became more important than the fact it was a woman, my female partner was outed (disclosure of one’s orientation without his or her consent). She absolutely was not ready for this turn of events. And her parents still consider me the one who “spoiled” their daughter. And the arguments that it is very difficult to „spoil” a grown-up (our relations began when both of us were over thirty) did not work when the question was about their daughter.
I cannot still say that my relations with the parents of my female partner are warm. Let us say, the temperature increased from absolute zero to zero on the Celsius scale. But today I understand that every person has its own “speed” in accepting other people. I just patiently wait not forgetting to move step by step towards them.
I don’t think anymore that answering the questions about my family is the coming out of the closet. When my friend or an acquaintance, or a colleague answers the question about his family status telling that he is married, why I should invent a non-existent partner? I respond that I live together as a couple with a woman I love, and plan to legalize this relationship as soon as possible.
I genuinely believe that the more our society sees that LGBT persons are just people, there are neighbours, colleagues, friends and celebrities among them; that homosexuality is not about uncontrolled sexual behaviour and a propaganda, but about emotional attachment, love, care, about kefir in the fridge, children diseases, their first steps and progresses, the faster it accepts us as full-fledged members [of society].
Kateryna, the daughter of Galyna
The life with same-sex parents is not too bad as the most people think. You do not need to care, whether I have two moms or one, or maybe I have three parents. You should care who I am, and how valuable I am as a person.
Difficulties a child from a same-sex family can face first of all depend on how open and courageous the parents are. My mother always treated me like a grown-up when we talked. She tried to be open with me. That’s why her orientation did not remain a secret long time.
Shortly afterwards, my mother told everything to my grandmother. After that, I saw her several times mentioning her orientation in the talks to other people. The main thing is that the people took it easy. They rather did not react at all.
I saw my second mother directly saying to people in Georgia (!), who we saw for the first time (!) that she was lesbian. The parents are an example for us, do not they? I think, that is why I have never been ashamed to talk about my family.
Of course, I will not jump out in front of you with a banner “I live in the family of lesbians”. But if I like you, I feel as “I start to trust you”, then I likely tell you. Of course, if the occasion serves.
Actually, I cannot say that I was brought up, or I am being brought up in a same-sex family. Because when I got this very family, it was too late to do something about my upbringing. But there is something positive about it. My biological parents are divorced (not official, but…), my father has a new family, and finally, I have a nice small sister. My mother lives with her wife in another city. And as a consequence is a huge autonomy! In any case, there is no difference, what family you have. The main thing is what this family can give you.
Автор: Gay Alliance Ukraine
