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I Am The Mother Of A Gay Son

Decent Essays
I am the mother of a gay son. My personal quest has become very personal. I am quite literally on a personal journey to explore my thoughts and feelings and to internally and externally process my evolving experience because of one event which occurred just after the beginning of the semester. During dinner, two days before he was headed back to college, my son came out to his dad and me. Now my focus has narrowed and while I need to explore other aspects of diversity, which I plan on doing through my weekly reflections and class participation, I need to understand more about what it means to be the parent of a gay son and to find out what supports or resources are in place for families. I have questions, I have concerns for my son and I am, at this point wrestling with my own feelings. I believe, however, that this exploration will give me a better understanding of the issues facing the LGBTQ community and will equip me to help other families and my future students.
As evidenced in my Cultural Awareness Survey, where I gave myself a score of 2 on sexual orientation, it is fitting that exploration about the LGBTQ community is going to be the focus of both my personal quest and my presentation topic. Growing up I had very little experience with anyone who was gay or lesbian, and these were the only two words with which I was familiar, I never heard the words bisexual, transgender, intersex or queer. I did, however, hear the word “poofter” used derogatorily to describe gay
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