Being Gay: What the Filipino Parents Should Understand About the LGBT About 3 days ago, I have read an article in the Philippine Star advising parents on what to do when they have a gay child. It was written by a local journalist, Tintin Bersola-Babao according to her interview with a “noted psychologist. The article details how parents should stop all the effeminate ways of their children and how to tell them that they are what “God” made them and they must live a family with only the opposite sex in the future. Phrasing my last sentence that way is an understatement on how the article abhors the LGBT and limits a child’s choice on his own sexual identity, but at least, you have a hint of where I’m coming from.
This essay is entitled “Being Gay,” the same title as that of the said article I have read to parallelize the contentions of what should the parents do to their gay child according to the perspective of a “noted psychologist” who speaks of the word of her god (I still don’t know which god she has been referring to all those times, though) rather than the word of her profession and someone from the LGBT and is happy that his parents never did what the article advised them to do. On the choice of “Being” Gay
First of all, the title of the article has expressed a belief that the author, under her mind, has the idea of gayness as a state of being rather than a stigma. You, parents should be able to understand that homosexuality is not an imposed consciousness that your children have to live with, because nothing should be imposed on them, to begin with. They live their own lives according to what they inherently have, not that someone has inflicted them with characteristics and told them what they should be just because the bible says so.
You should let your children explore the horizons of their sexuality than impose an identity that you want your children to have. Your child’s identity is a product of the choices they made, the challenges they faced, and the trials they conquered. In order to positively maximize your child’s personality, s/he should not be limited to the out dated social norms and concepts of morality. These things stop them from being who they really are like a box that imprisons them in the shadow of others. Without giving them the freedom to discover their own ‘self,’ children further evelops confusion on their own sexuality. They will question themselves because they deviate from what you told them to be, worse, on what they can see and get from the society. Even you prohibit your gay child to be effeminate, his inner “gay” self will still manifest, one day or another. That is because once again, gayness is a state of being. You can’t strip that aspect of your child off them. That is who they are. The least you can do is to accept them, nurture them, and support them. Besides, whatever they will become, they are your children. On the guarantee to heterosexuality
The first thing to comprehend on the issue of homosexuality and effeminacy is that a child’s preference on clothes or toys doesn’t suggest their sexuality. There is no guarantee to heterosexuality of a boy who loves sports and toy guns or a girl who acts genuinely lady-like. As children, their choice on toys depends on what you give them or what they see in the media. There is no such thing as an instinctive preference on things like these; it’s the society that is telling us that girls should play with Barbie dolls and boys should play with toy guns.
In the same line of thought, a boy who’s playing with Barbie dolls doesn’t suggest his homosexuality. He might be playing with dolls because he admires their beauty or he wants to be a doll maker or fashion designer in the future. A girl playing with toy guns might want to be in the military someday or an action film actress. The point here is that children are way beyond what we see on them. You should be able to accept your child beyond what is seen by the naked eye. Regardless of their sexuality, they are still human beings. On God and Morality
Considering the concept of individualism as a playing card in the issue of sexuality, morality should not be a basis of your judgment to your children. Morality is something that you can’t quantify. What is immoral to you may be moral to others. The concept of right and wrong doesn’t really matter in the issue of homosexuality, though; because there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and homosexual acts in the first place. What is wrong is on how people look and label the LGBT as a disease created by demons. The religion backbone of the argument against the LGBT is not even valid.
Those were close minded opinions formulated by people who at first believed that women are inferior to men. The thing is, the bible may be the word of God, but what we know about the bible is just an interpretation of a group of people according to their own context. The age of close-mindedness has been gone for a very long time; however, we still suffer its aftershocks. God created everyone equally, the bible says, and God created the world. Even the gays and the lesbians are created by God in his own image. They too are children of God. They were gays because God wants them to be gay.
It’s just sad that other people believe otherwise. Again, there is nothing wrong with being gay, what is wrong is to punish your child because he is one. Raising a better person The first misconception of most parents when they have a gay child is that their child will be a lesser person – they will have a hard time finding a good job, they are shames on the family, so on and so forth. The second is that having a gay child is caused by their failure to raise the child to become a better person. Parents, I tell you, none of those were right.
They were just mistaken beliefs. The truth is that being a straight individual is not a prerequisite to become a better person, in the same way that being gay is not an obstacle for someone to land on a good job. In our society nowadays, gays are well accepted in the corporate arena. Companies value qualifications and skills more than one’s sexuality. As a matter of fact, majority of the LGBT graduates were hired in the first job they applied to because of their confidence and inherent dynamism, studies shows. Nothing’s to be worried about.
BUT if you chastise your child for being gay because of the reason that he will not get a good job for being one, you’re the one who are discriminating your child, not his future boss. Being a better person means being able to contribute to the greater good. And with its definition, none is said about one’s sexual identity. For as long as you raise your gay child to be someone who respects other people, someone who loves of God, someone who doesn’t violate the law, and someone who is productive enough to help himself, his family, and his country, you should be proud of yourselves.
You have raised a better person, even though he’s gay. On love and future family “Love is human experience, not a political statement. ” Anne Hathaway said. Love should know no limit, love should know no discrimination. You should love a person, not a gender. This is what most of Filipino parents failed to understand. Telling your effeminate son that he is a boy and that he should be marrying a woman (girl) is a good way of raising him but telling him that he should love a person regardless of who and what he is, is better. You, of all the people, are the ones who should have the reason to understand your children’s feelings.
Don’t force them to love someone that they don’t. They can’t choose who to love, nor can they choose to love who they don’t. The key is to just support them emotionally for them to know if what they feel is real love. No one else can help them do that. Only you. The problem with most people is that they think that love only exists between a man and a woman, and that a homosexual relationship is just an offspring of lust and sexual desires. But, for a fact, the most solid love is the love that exists in a gay relationship because the couple has overcome the challenge of a mandatory social conformity.
Gay couples were able to embody what love really is –loving someone’s heart, not someone’s penis or vagina. Parents please don’t deny your children to love and be loved. You’ve once experienced it; let your child have the same. An appeal to Filipino parents To the Filipino parents who were blinded by the close-minded culture of social conformity and religious righteousness, please remove your blindfolds. The world is more than what you see inside the box of ignorance. You are parents, and as parents, you should understand your children; not make them suffer because you think they deviate from the social norms.
Accept them for who they are, not make them someone they are not. Let them see the world the way you saw the world, let them experience life, the way you did. In the end, regardless of their sexuality, they are your children. We are your children, and we need you to guide us to be better people, not a better dick or a better vagina. You, of all the people, should be the first ones to recognize our identity, to empower our senses, and to be proud of us. The arguments that were laid are of pure logic and human reason. There are no concrete scientific evidence to prove the arguments, but at least, they are something to ponder upon.
