An Open Letter

AN OPEN LETTER



Dear Dad and Mom,

This is your son speaking. Not someone who wants to hurt you; not someone who hates you, or is even indifferent to you or what you feel; but someone who really loves you, even when you don't think I do…

We just can't bear all of this hurting, anger, hate, and distrust. Our relationship can't, and I don't think we can either, ourselves, as individuals. I think we'd better stop now if we want to preserve any resemblance of a caring relationship, either for the good of ourselves, or just for the sake of the family.

I want to tell you some things about me. Things that maybe you won't want to hear, or will resist believing. But they're true. I'm going to make myself very vulnerable to you, and I can only hope that you would never misconstrue or use anything I say to you now against me. Since I can't open myself to you anymore without opening myself to hurt, I'm aware of the risk that I'm taking.

I'm "gay"…, homosexual…, or, as you say it, "queer"…

I need you to know that I never chose this for myself. As far as I know I had nothing at all to do in choosing my sexual orientation. I first "knew" when I was about 13 -- when those first "turned on" feelings begin to haunt and obsess young boys. And what a nightmare discovery that was for me! All the horror, the panic, the shame! --And all the time knowing I could never share this -- NEVER! -- not with anyone.

I was so alone. And I was afraid. And I just couldn't come to you for fear of your revulsion. This was such an intense and private thing about me, and I hated it! I loathed myself! I was not only some awful freak of nature, but also a sex deviant! And I punished myself because surely I must have done something to deserve these feelings. I hurt myself. I hid myself. And I damned myself with all of your fervor because, after all, so much of you and your feelings in ingrained in me.

But mostly I just hoped I'd grow out of it. I disowned my thoughts and prayed that they would leave me, but they didn't, instead becoming more and more intense as my body matured; as I began to desire the kinds of intimacies adults desire.

Can you even begin to imagine the kind of paranoia that I've been living through alone? --Wanting you to find out, but at the same time being terrified you might suspect? Guarding my true feelings, sometimes biting back bitter honesty, and instead showing you only all of the "normal" indicators that I knew you were waiting to see?

Yes, I dated girls, partly because I needed to look normal, and partly because I so desperately wanted to BE normal. --Hoping each time that this one might be the one to ignite all the right "manly" feelings in me. Hoping…, always hoping. But each time left feeling sickened and disappointed.

I even managed the heartiest laugh at your dinner table joke; the one about the blonde, the cowboy, and the queer, remember? I even matched yours with one of my own, equally as unfair and repulsive. Inside I felt so wrenched! I was caught so totally off guard! Yet somehow I managed to keep my body language in check -- never allowing it to betray my inner knowing -- while at the same time silently screaming it out, wanting so bad to tell you, and through it all feeling so alone, and so afraid.

You object to many of my friends, …because you suspect their gay identities? Does it now surprise you that I sometimes desire the company of people "like me?" We have a lot in common. --The same growing-up scars, the same secrets and hardships, and sensitivity wounds, the same terrible isolation and loneliness. I can't tell you the relief I felt the first time I met someone who was the butt of dirty jokes and crude social slurs just “like me.”

During the past couple of years, Mom, you and I, Dad and I, the family and I, have gone through a lot of tension, mostly on account of these things that I've kept secret. I'm not myself at home. I'm just not relaxed. Nobody there really loves me, only what they believe to be me. I cannot feel secure in fraudulent love. Maybe some people can, but I can't…

I’ve lied to you, and I’m sorry. But, somehow, at the time, I felt that lying was so much more merciful than telling you the truth. My stories didn't mesh, and you learned to distrust me. I resented your distrust, even though I deserved it. And, over the years our emotions have snow-balled into this monstrous barrier of hurt and distrust that we're now left to deal with.

This is so very hard for me to talk about. So threatening! How can I ever hope to explain to you something that I don't completely understand myself?

I don't know why I'm gay, but I have never -- I will never! -- blame you, either of you, and I don't want you to blame you or each other. I'm saying this in utter sincerity. Even if what I'm telling you now never helps you to love and understand me -- even if it only drives us further apart -- the last thing I want is for it to destroy you through self-doubts and reminiscent reproach, or your loving and secure feelings for one another.

I hope that you do not feel hurt, or disappointed, or cheated that I've chosen to say these things in writing rather than confronting you face to face. My thoughts needed to be carefully organized; my words precise, deliberate, honest. I needed an opportunity to communicate without interruption, or outburst, or undue nervous strain. No name-calling this time; no yelling, or crying, or guilt manipulations. I cannot withstand the torrents of your wrath. Neither your shame…, disgust…, pity…, your tearful disappointment…, your words, feeble with grief. I can't face any more mud-slinging. Not from you. Especially not now that you know.

And besides, right now you don't need all of those useless justifications or lengthy explanations that I might defensively feel provoked to give. You need time… If ever you accept me at all, you acceptance will come, not from any more of my words, but rather from the strength -- and the character -- of your love.

Please: If I were crippled, would you kick me because I couldn't walk? Or if I were mentally retarded, would you hate me, and what I was, and leave me? So, I'm gay… I know how hard this is going to be for you to learn to even tolerate, because I know how hard it's been and how long it's taken for me to learn to tolerate myself. I'm not asking you to cope with all my life's complications. But will you still love me? --Still claim me as your son? --Remembering, please, that I never chose this for myself.

I won't ask you for what you can't give. I would never put you through the stress of expecting you to be what you truly can't be. I love you just the way you are, even if you can't continue to love me…

I wish I could spare you this kind of son. I really do love you. I am so sorry…. I know how much this must be hurting you.

Please…, Please wait for your painful, your anguished
emotions to subside before you reply. Give it time… I did.

With All My Heart,
Your Loving Son


* * *


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I feel compelled to share with readers my motives for writing this article. I am not gay, but someone that I love is, and was involved in a withdrawn and hurting kind of family relationship just like the one I've described. These feelings that I've related are those that he confided to me. All that I've done is to define them, describe them, organize them, and put them down on paper.

I wrote the first draft of this letter back in the 1970's. The world looked different back then. I was younger, in my early 20‘s, and my parents, like so many parents, closely resembled “All In The Family's” Edith and Archie Bunker. Try to remember: This was way before the debut of “Will and Grace“, and before “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy“. Society was different. Nobody talked then about gays, or if they did, it always seemed to resemble the telling of a dirty little joke -- the hushed voices, the furtive, sideways glances, the shared snickers. I think the common wisdom back then was that if nobody brought up the topic, it just wouldn't be something you’d ever have to deal with.

But one thing the years have taught me is that at one point in time I didn't know anyone who was gay. Then I knew one person, and through him, now I know many. ...And so do you, whether or not you realize it.

Many believe -- largely because of the popularity of shows like “Will & Grace,” that for a kid to "come out" to their family today, it just has to be easier. I don't know... I’m not convinced. Maybe in the big cities... But I've lived my whole life in small-town-America, where gay people still mostly live in closets and are very much outside the norm. Where the topic of "gay" is just not a part of polite conversation, and where it just doesn't happen here, ...and yet it does...

Psychologists say, in fact, that as many as one in every ten people is gay. Nobody really knows what causes gay. --Whether it's a genetic overtone, something evolved early in childhood, or a cause-and-effect kind of thing: It’s all just theory…

The only thing that most mental health professionals now seem to be agreeing upon is that "being gay" is not, in-and-of-itself, sinful, bad, immoral, deviant, dirty, but rather is "natural" (to a homosexual person, homosexuality is a normal, natural appetite), and that judgmental words such as bad, sinful, immoral, deviant, and dirty -- if they need to be used at all -- should be reserved for the irresponsible abuse of such sexual expression.

Please: I am not endorsing the gay movement. I am just not ready to encourage societies acceptance of alternative lifestyles.

But I do think our society deals a terrible hand to gay people. In schools, in the workplace, everywhere, we tell our lewd jokes, we mock and imitate effeminate men and less feminine women, and we hurt -- we deeply hurt! -- people who may be secretly struggling with this difficult identity discovery within themselves.

And what about their families? Do our crass jokes, prejudices, and harsh judgments help families understand and love a gay member, or do they only drive them farther apart, separated by a further fortified wall of hate and disgust?

I do not want to go on record defending gay relationships; only gay people.

I want to help gay sons and daughters understand their feelings and empathize the struggle they may find themselves caught up in in trying to be honest with their families.

I want to help parents begin to familiarize themselves with the kinds of thoughts and feelings their sons or daughters may be struggling with.

And I want -- I desperately want! -- to further the understanding and empathy of an emotionally crippled world that thinks it terrific fun to abuse people -- gay people.