It has been an exhausting, draining couple of weeks.
Last week I met T for the first time, a young man who
at 16 knows very clearly he is gay. He lives on a farm
in a very tiny community about 135 km north east of
Toronto. In mid-January, he found me on the net and
asked for my help. After a terrifying experience at
the hands of the local school and health system,
during which he was outed to his mom and urged to
commit suicide so that the world would have one less
gay man, he ended up in my care for a weekend,
delivered to me by a frantic mom. There was some
major concern about the reaction of his dad when he
got the news.
T has been out of school now for about 12 days as
all this has played out. There is virtually no support
for gay youth anywhere near his community and even the
nearest city of about 100,000 has support for gay
men but not teenagers. I have been working with him
and his mom to see about facilities in Toronto. There
is a gay high school program here but surprisingly
little else for gay teenagers beyond a youth shelter --
which is pretty scary and not terribly gay positive.
Anyway, T returned this weekend and we hung out and
chatted a lot more about life and stuff. We cooked a
few meals together and he went to a gay youth drop in
at the local community centre (I live in the heart of
Toronto's thriving gay community). We also rented
Billy Eliot, a film about an 11 year old living under
oppressive circumstances who manages to find his
voice and the courage to be who he is. The message was
not lost on T.
The more I got to know him, the clearer it seemed that
his fear, while real about what his dad might do -- up
to severe physical violence and at a minimum kicking
him out of the house -- didn't jive with his dad's
actions. It appears his dad is pretty attentive and
involved with T although not physically affectionate.
And he has a terrible anti-gay patter including some
pretty dark ongoing comments about how sick gays are
and what they deserve. His dad, btw, is my age, 47.
It is not a religious household.
After the movie on Saturday evening, after his mom
told his dad his son was gay, T cried again on my
sofa terribly conflicted. He had frequently said he
hated his dad ... now I heard him wail how much he
loved him. As I comforted him, it was obvious he
really wanted to be accepted and was so deeply hurt
by all those comments his dad had made over the years
while T was harbouring his secret of being gay. Each
one of those comments wounded him as he took on the
hatred personally that his dad voiced about gays.
And T grew more and more afraid of being who T was.
His zone of parental safety evaporated and soon he
was isolated, angry, ashamed, afraid and desperately
lonely. He felt unloved and rejected.
Last night, Monday, T went home with his mom and met
his dad in the kitchen around 10 pm. It must have
been quite a scene. They actually talked, and then
cried, and both men said to the other they loved
each other ... and T said "I forgive you, dad". His
dad had had a pretty rough weekend too when his wife
told him and he went for a long walk on Saturday
night. His dad realised how destructive his "innocent"
comments had been and felt with horror the pain he had
put the son he loves so much through. Homophobia runs
so deeply in our culture and causes so much pain and
heartache. For what? For the way someone is born. It
is not a crime to love another. Even of the same sex.
It is a crime against nature that this hatred tears
families apart.
I have a couple of grateful parents out on a farm
north east of here. T even showed them the 10% Production
card I gave him when he arrived on Friday night and
inscribed with a few words of encouragement and support.
And his mom looked through a number of issues of XY Magazine
while at my apartment and is going to get him a
subscription.
(There is an *excellent* book they publish "The XY
Survival Guide: Everything you need to know about being
young and gay" by Benjie Nycum (US$9.95 direct from
1 877 996 0930). The section on preventing suicide is
wise and compassionate; I have read it myself with tears
in my eyes. This book ought to be in every single junior
high and high school in North America.)
So while today is T's first day as an openly gay teen,
and he has a long road ahead, especially living in a
small community, he does have and knows he has the
full love and support of his parents ... even as they
struggle to understand what it means to love someone
who happens to be gay and is their only son.
T is a beautiful, spiritually strong, creative, bright
young man who came close to the edge time and again. I
feel so blessed to have been part of his coming out
process and believe he is going to be a survivor. Watch
out for this kid in the future ... he's going places.
Alexander Inglis (February 11, 2002)
In Toronto
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