OutCasting; Hopes and expectations, altered (Part 2 of 2)

set it was father's day and we were at a restaurant just he looked at both of us and said you know there's a couple that i'm friends with what's the guy i'm interested he was offered a job in california and he left very shortly after making this announcement they recently at the california to get the scoop and she gave me a piece of paper with a list of questions and at every turn he stonewalled live and finally he gave me my moment this game the questions were in a swimming pool and he said okay now and i got so excited that i dropped the sheet of paper into the pool and most every question this is outcasts in public radio's lgbt q news programme where you don't have to be weird to be here i'm casting is a production of media for the public at the listener supported independent producer based in new york online outcast media dot org

hi a lot of parents assume that the children are heterosexual and sister and many meeting you'd be quite awful if he were from the moon a child is born many parents make all kinds of assumptions about what the child's life will look like many of these assumptions are basic norms expectations and stereotypes the faulty assumption that the child will be heterosexual says gender parents might envision their daughter walking down the aisle and a wedding dress marrying a man from the distant future the tense meeting about how proud to be in that moment and how they'll know they've been successful in raising their child but when a child is gay lesbian bisexual transgender or gender non conforming or otherwise a member of a sack for gender minorities those assumptions may be challenged and a lot of people might feel that if a child doesn't fit those expectations that speaks negatively about their parenting abilities ultimately it's rooted in the idea that being lgbt q or having lgbt q children is a bad thing or at least not as good as having straight says gender children this can be very

damaging memo was an outcast in youth bridges and during their high school years they spoke on an edition of our passing over time about how after coming out their mother went through all the stages of grief except except it's called a psychiatrist told emma it's just a phase and functionally for senate back into the closet shutting down a big part of them as identity and they can get worse than that some germs actually disown their children when they funded the lgbt q the implications of family rejection for lgbt q u for alarm according to the human rights campaign of gdp to use are more than twice as likely to be homeless visitors sexual says stronger youth the trevor project reports that lesbian gay and bisexual youth are almost five times as likely as heterosexual used to have attempted suicide family rejection makes a lesbian gay or bisexual percent more than the times as likely to attempt suicide the suicide rate is even higher for transgender

people with forty percent of transgender adults reporting having attempted suicide the vast majority when they were under twenty five but it doesn't have to be that way how much better world we could have if parents did what all parents should do just love their children whether those children are straight answers gender or lgbt q and this addition about casting podcast alex continues his conversation with mimi and jerry goodman of new york both of them now grown children jesse and sarah her day for them has been wonderful this is the second part of a series both parts are available on our website how trusting media dot org and e j didn't think you so much for joining us all thank you happy to be here so we're going to be hear both of your children now identifies get that sometimes when lgbt children are young even before realizing that they might be gay they become reclusive or exhibit signs of self examination did

other children have that because it's alix there was little quieter all a bit more internal did you see that matter from let's remember the serb who's seven years younger came and four years before jesus she came out between the age of fourteen and fifteen and she had a period where one just moved out she moved into his room in the basement she just sang yes i mean i'm back up to give a little background or we went through a difficult period now alliance we went to a period where a comic we experienced the death of both of her grandparents and also ingesting moved to israel actually for a period of time so she her brother was far from home so she's seen as gerry said very reclusive she's seen

i don't know that we realize at the time but definitely depressed and also the saw it again and i told him a social worker injuries teacher we've dealt with many many children but when dealing with your own child so teenage ang says a very common think teenagers don't always confided their parents usually don't confide in their parents and and for all for a period time i think were saying isis just a typical teenager not talking to the mother or father of a sudden it kind of hit me like i was at work and i think i said to myself well i think that this has crossed the line think it's a line of not typical teenage but actual depression and i remember calling jerry from work and i said you know i think we need to the family meeting and it was at a family meeting that actually steer it came out so i'm not so sure wouldn't say that she would first come out to us but that we

maybe force the issue as to what's going on you really shutting us about and were feeling it and cause we miss you about you didn't actually say she was gay she said she was in love with a person so i think there's a little bit of a difference there that person happened to be a person of the same sex but it was important to know because it was even it was like i'm in love with a person and i don't wanna label i don't want to at minimum fifteen years old and i don't want to label myself at this point and again because you know i've worked with many students and i was the co adviser the gay straight alliance one thing i learned in a humble way was that i had no right to label anybody would ever i've thought about them that it was up to them to label whatever label they want to use for themself and so there was an incredible relief to know his music for record fresh and just lifted

mariani you have slick recruiter so angered and just in terms of that it was a little more global change she was holding on to this this thing and she wasn't sure obviously hello we would react and i was like a burden that was just lifted from her she didn't say very much so we called this family meeting and at this family meeting we said she was sitting there sort of hunched over and we said well serra okay are you doing drugs there was also a checkout no no sarah are you pregnant when they had a deal with no i say it was serial killer because will stay and by you know and i think jerry said because we knew she had been hanging out with this girl quite a lot and it felt a little bit different i mean girls have their girlfriends but it felt different there was something different about it and jerry said are you gay

and then that's when she said she was in love with this girl and i started to cry and i mean i'm not a big crier seen so many years said to me well why did you cry and i said to her because it was just a new world you know it felt strange end and she was even able to say later on well obviously if she were any of those things except maybe the serial killer that was a road map they would be a roadmap and remember how many years were going back she said but i understand the what there's no road map as to how you handle the us and in a way she was right because remember that there was no support from other people because people weren't coming out so you didn't say oh let me pick up the phone and angle my best friend and she is a gay child to we can talk he didn't do that then so she was right that they felt like no roadmap but i also think that one of my predominant feelings was fear and safety and

worrying about is nobody out it's hard to relate to that feeling now but there was nobody in high school at the time i was saying i am an openly gay student so there was a feeling i think the crying came from a you know a host of many many different feelings i mean we're living in a very heavy earth centric world anytime you had to see or hear anything about the gay person it was basically the biggest fringe type of a group at that time because that's what's sold in terms of tv ad in any of the media know and had not calling it in terms of her show and were talking back to a time when not so for them back from that jurors consider mental illness to be a member of the lgbt community so a couple years later your son

jesse also came out what was his coming out experience it was father's day and we were at a restaurant and show jesse looked at both of us and said you know there's a couple that i'm friends with what's the guy i'm interested or so that was is an issue coming and of course there was not an ability to really flesh an outer wall at the restaurant and then a number of leave that to mimic well this is a funny part of the story he was offered a job in california he left very shortly after making this announcement before we had any chance to houses sit jesse definitely is somebody who fits the heterosexual world saving image so and i don't think there was any thought on my part that jesse might be gay he

had been engaged to somebody from israel for a while so at this point to see the gulf of california mini send me out to california to find out the real deal to get the school to get the scoop and she gave me a piece of paper with a list of questions and in my mind i was the film image i must make this happen investigative journalist and at every turn he stonewalled make it was impossible and finally he gave me my moment that this came from the questions were in a swimming pool and he said okay now and i got so excited that i dropped the sheet of paper into the pool and i lost every question he came back from california and then the two of us went to the theater to see the rocky horror show

and was sitting in the lobby and i said ok jesse please tell me i'd we just wanna know what do you consider yourself bisexual member we're going to lose a finger to buy now your research and say i've been out for four years i said a bisexual are you straight are you gay <unk> that the master is a master at not totally answering things but when it came to gay he nodded his head he didn't speak much i did all the talking but he nodded his head and so that point i said i'm jessie we love you no matter what you are that night to see women dancing at a spanish dance club he met maximilian know who is our son in law and i think that it is no accident that he met max that night i think what it speaks to in the story is when you can be who you are when you can be your authentic self when you can feel that your parents love and accept you you're freed also i think maybe to be a free person an except love it to life and i don't think it's any accident that and he went out that night i met him i

think it just it's always been very moving to us that it happened that way and speaks incredibly for what the love and acceptance of parents mean once it's a powerful thing but as a great story and one other thing that we were sitting in the living room and jesse said you know i could i could pass and you know i understood what he meant because remember i said he's somebody that the straight world would accept as straight that story to pick maybe not flamboyant he said you know i could pass and he said you know i don't want to and then he said but i'm really sorry if i'm a disappointment to you that went into me like a pain in your heart and i said to him you could never be a disappointment to me when he said that i said that's just it i'm a love and accept whatever whoever he's with whatever he does because to me the idea that your child could say to you i'm sorry

i'm a disappointment time acceptable to me and i just could never make him feel that he was a disappointment i would never want him to feel that for a moment it was a very powerful moment between us and it was a really i don't see a turning point but something really in me said wow that's it i know that there are so few are very aware of her children's feelings were there any moments which now looking back you would consider had a normative will we have are us centric yes i could look back and take heather a normative yes because maybe wanting a little girl to dress a certain way is heather a normative else remember another conversation where i definitely when i was very tone deaf and one painted picture that we were the perfect parents we certainly weren't and if you're interviewing them who knows what they would say but we were in the kitchen and

sarah said to me you know i'm i may not be like you know what you mean and she said you know i may not want a white picket fence even though we didn't have the wider defense budget and they don't want the white picket fence and you know be married and have children and i remember being really tone deaf to that comment and saying oh i mean don't be silly or iraq and hey look back a simple of course was in what book which she was trying to tell me she's trying to tell me in any way i'm not you man and she was also trying to tell me about sexual orientation kind of look back and say well it was really tone deaf to that comment this is outcasts public radio's lgbt youth program produced by media for the public good and your online how casting media dot org and on this edition outcast in youth participation alex is talking with many and jerry goodman of new york both of many and jerry's grown children are gay do you think that having to be children have made you better people absolutely because number

one it gave us access to a world that we talked about out that going back twenty years ago i don't think it would've been access to that world and having access to that world we met just some of the most incredible beautiful young people that we just loved so much because when we found them to be the most heroic and courageous people that life is hard enough a teenager's life is hard enough for young people and their own state banks at that age rightfully so it's a really hard time in the world is a hard place and then you make people who are courageous enough to come out to be true to themselves i think are just like there are no words that almost describe really how lucky we felt and how fortunate we felt access to this world and it was and is a world of beautiful people i think when you're part of any marginalized group you're so very thankful and grateful i think for a kind group of people

and some of the friends that sarah met and friends that we know mr jesse were always a soul responsive and warm and loving too accepting in time and i don't know that that's unusual and you know with other teenagers i want to add one other thing i think that it's very strong point in the gay world i think they're much less age barriers in the gay world and maybe even cultural and ethnic there isn't a way because you're ready a small subset and what we found was that surround friends of all ages and i don't think that's so common because we have such a major society and is often such a barrier between young people and older people and not really experiencing each other as a person just think he was a prison in should not matter because i'm from european hustle by the way and as i said it was less of an issue because i don't know what things are like now in europe but really it wasn't such a just society and i think and saw children i grew up that way in our children grew up that way and they always loved grandmother's beyond belief that i have a very

special info or grandmother's yeah bud i found in the gay world we met people of all ages and that there was so much less of a barrier that and i find that a very special a very special trade legislation its employees having to get children has made me a better human being and say this from the bottom of my heart when the search came and i was just turning fifteen and tyne wear some people begin to have a midlife crisis where my going now we're maturing i've reached sort of the top amount going downhill it was like in the beginning of a new life and when i say became a better person i have to say that i became a more soulful where sensitive human being i remember when maxine just his husband is a very loving person and we'd be sitting on the couch watching

tv and mixing owner ric as he was toward his head was on my shoulder and my hand is stroking his hair and i couldn't imagine and have just you were married to low moment that i would be doing the same thing you know that is one piece of that and the other and the other the other piece as mini surge is having expanded our world so much that we have friends over the world around you much of our lives is centered around deal ebt community and i consider most of the people that i met in some way his heroes for courage to be their authentic selves even when there is still danger out there so when i was anti harvey milk high school for example our dear i became close with the school social worker a young woman who

you're engaged that was not working for her just in the way you know with jesse i had said to me because he's a very good looking man who have that many girlfriends here's jesse was a very dynamic human being i've never seen him with a woman wearing a few years in the end for years i noticed that and so the importance of being authentic is just the most important thing in our i mean we talked about the psychiatric field calling it a mental illness until they realized that it was not a mental illness it was the making of a mental illness is due to the fact that people will actually a bit crazy if they can't be their authentic selves so this has been

just amazing in so many ways even for our marriage just an extra layer of the binding and respect that we've had for each other in terms of our focus and our direction and our desire to make this a better world for everybody so i like to finish by asking what if your hypothetical scenario because you've been through the process of having a child come out not once but twice what would you tell a parent who may not be accepting of their child's sexuality or gender and that is a very tough question because i think that every child wants love and acceptance from the parent they're allowed their is with parents not to samir sex orientation but again as a social worker i've heard every story and there are people who don't accept their child because they don't want to go into the family profession they don't want to be a doctor and their

family and doctors they don't wanna be a lawyer and this is an expectation or a family of lawyers they maybe decide i don't wanna be a religious person and their families religious arrived there are a lot of areas where parents can say they are not accepting of the person turns out to be again usually this happens later on as a more of a personality emerges people spend a lifetime sometimes seeking the approval of a parent and intimate adult people to their incredible detriment but did the feeling that they don't feel like the field personally don't feel like a really happy person and so i would say to any parent to go to a group like pea flaherty a look around going to a group like pee fled the support group tells you there's nothing that you did that caused your child to be gay you didn't do anything these people didn't do anything as an advance very strong enough to see other people going through it i would say educate yourself read about things really find out

that this is part of the normal spectrum of sexuality you know for people say this is at the normal you know find out that it's been around since time immemorial quote normal even if it isn't in the majority and also recognize that the lack of acceptance and love is going to have incredible impact on your child know wanting and one other thing because what happens to the child they don't have accepting parents i'm here i've just said it's such a powerful thing although we want to love and acceptance of a parent's if i had anyone come to me who said that i'd say there a lot of people out there who love you and a lot of people in cambodia and sometimes you create another family and so it isn't always a biological family you create another family knew create a world of love and acceptance and you make a good life yourself still by creating that alternate family and all of that advice to said applies to anyone in the lgbt q community so for trans or questioning the general yes i think it's true for anybody in that

community i think i went to a very moving speech after matthew shepard was murdered and was actually by his mother judy shepard it was amazing i thought that she could speak it wasn't that long after he was murdered and it was at a college and a lot of young people lined up and with very very bad stories saying i'm not accepted by my family and i remember very strongly also what she said at that time and this does go across the board and lesbian gay bisexual transgender one of the things she said was as if your parents are if you're a dependent on them financially and it's not the right time to come out you could come at yourself you could come out to places that are safe and maybe it isn't the right time to come out in a non accepting family because it dependent on them financially but the other thing i strongly remember his saying which is the way i feel and they think that i expressed she said fine people that love you find a world that loves you make those people

use are good family and you'll be ok because not everybody has that warm loving family and they knew from what we call it with my friends and i resent you find the family of the heart i think it goes across the board i don't think would be different if your date by lesbian transgender i think it's the whole community i could not really add much to them is wonderful answer but i would like to just add one shared the one plane during nine eleven that didn't reaches target from pennsylvania where a group of people got up and forth the terrorists one of the men who was part of that group was a gay man and they all perished obviously and the mother of this game man in an interview sent when i found that that my son was gay rights and realized that it was wonderful to be there emma jerry given thank you so much for joining us starts with thank you we've

really enjoyed being able to tell women and to meet you and talk with you has been reporter thank you so much this is been part two of a two part series the entire interview is available on our website podcast media dot org that's it for this edition about casting public radio's lgbt q u program where you don't have to be cleared to be here on this program has been produced by the atrocity including the participants alex and drew dante truth from weakening lucas our executive producer is mark's of this podcast is a production of media for the public to listener supported independent producer based in new york more information about podcasting is available on podcast media dot org you'll find information about the show and the ceilings for all out casting episodes on the podcast mike castle is also on social media connect with us on facebook twitter instagram tumblr at how class if you're having trouble whether its at home or at school or just with yourself

called the trevor project hotline at eight six six forty seven three eight six visit them online of the trevor project <unk> the trevor project is an organization dedicated to lgbt youth suicide prevention call them with your problems seriously don't even have an online chat being different isn't a reason to hate worker so again the numbers the six six forty eight seven three eight six you can also find a link on our site focusing medium dot org under al kasim lgbt q resources i'm lucas thanks for listening