Jun 1st, 2006
What it’s like to be a queerspawn.
Welcome new visitors who found their way here via “Blogging for LGBT Families Day.” This entire blog is about LGBT families, so take a look around.
I am a grown queerspawn, meaning I am among the countless adults walking among us who have one or more LGBT parent(s). (My parents are as repulsed by the word “queerspawn” as much as you are.) My father came out to me when I was five years old.
Really?? What was that like?
Walk with me. Here’s what it’s like.
It’s being at an endless audition. Countless times I have received an unsolicited judgement, without realizing my entire conversation had been something of an interview/assessment to deem me “normal enough.” Comments I wish I had a nickel every time I heard: Well look at you — you turned out just fine! and You are proof gay parents can raise children! and In spite of your upbringing, you turned out to be so…so…normal! (What is the appropriate response? “Um…thank…you…??”)
It’s being on trial. In third grade, peers started asking aggressive and inappropriate questions about whether or not I was gay too. Implicit in the questions was the idea that my father did not deserve to be a parent if he couldn’t raise kids that were heterosexual. The questions didn’t let up until…oh wait…I’m still asked aggressive and inappropriate questions about my sexual orientation.
It’s being hunted. Haters say we’re “attacking” them, but I say it’s the other way around. LGBT families are just trying to live our lives with dignity, not going out of way to strip other people of their basic human rights. In first grade I developed an irrational fear of white men dressed in suits, worried they would take me away from my father to “save” me from the evils of homosexuality. This fear was based in a truth that still exists today: anti-gay politicians will do anything to try to prevent gay people from being able to adopt children. Some politicians go so far as to advocate laws that would remove children from gay foster parents with whom they are already bonded. Our families live with the low-grade stress of always bracing ourselves for the next attack.
It’s being invisible. Ultra-conservatives who oppose the mere existence gay families wring their hands asking what about the children? It is unfair to subject children to this lifestyle. At the same time, they conveniently refuse to acknowledge that these families already exist. The laws they try to pass to invalidate gay families erode children’s sense of dignity and security.
It’s connecting with your long lost brothers and sisters. Being out as queerspawn, especially as adults, matters because it’s the only way we can find one another. When we do get together, it’s a lot of fun — a connection you never let yourself notice you were missing.
Would you like to find out more? Read my book, Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is. If you don’t want to read it, just don’t assume you know what’s in it and then try to fake it. I hate that.
I also encourage you to take a look at “Answers from Abigail,” my advice column for LGBT families.
How to connect with other adult children of LGBT parents:
- Consider coming to Dallas in October for the LGBT Family Conference. There are going to be activities specific for adult queerspawn — and by “activities” I don’t mean providing day care for the younguns. It’s going to be great.
- Check out COLAGE. Among the resources you’ll find on the website, there is an international listserve for people 23 years and older.
- If you blog, consider adding your voice to Oversampled.
[...] Damn Straight [...]
A most interesting blog and the first time I have read about being the child of gay parents.
I will be back to read more because my daughter is expecting twins and they will be raised by two Mommies.
Happy Families Day!
Great post — one of the arguments that “the other side” makes about why same-sex parents are detrimental to children is that children are exposed to ridicule and discrimination because of it, and you have to stop and say, Yeah, because you ridicule and discriminate! Children in LGBT families wouldn’t have these issues if opponents didn’t create the problems.
ya, i hear you with the kids in school - I never told anyone about my mom until gr. 5 and then when I told my two closest friends they told everyone and then said they couldn’t play with me anymore. The funny thing was, everyone else was fine with it. But, I didn’t really tell anyone again for a long time. I always thought it was interesting that because i’m a girl and my mom’s a lesbian - people felt okay assuming that’s why I was gay, or asking questions like “did she touch you innappropriately?” WTF? My male friend with a lesbian mom never got that stuff. But boys with gay dads probably did.
I’m glad you found my blog and that I know about yours now.
As a lesbian who made the decision long ago not to have children (one of the reasons for which included the kind of bigotry my kids would have to face), maybe I have no business commenting on this, but…
“Queerspawn”?
I would have thought a word like that had been concocted by frothing-at-the-mouth homophobes, not by children of LGBT people.
It makes a COG sound like an accidental discharge when the condom broke, instead of a human being.
Flame away if you must, but the word makes me downright queasy. Perhaps you wear the title with pride, I don’t know — but to this outsider’s ear, it sounds not only dehumanizing, but… well, frankly, self-loathing.
You know, the more I hear from adult children of LGBTs, the more convinced I am I made the right decision not to have children myself. I’m very sorry for all the anger and hurt you’ve had to carry all your lives — but I’m very glad that I didn’t contribute my own genes to your particular world of pain.
Peace.
After reading that last comment - um, wow.
Well, maybe all us gays should just go kill ourselves so that we don’t have to experience pain in the world, huh? WTF? I mean, clearly it would be better if we all didn’t exist.
Whatever.
Anyway, Abigail, great post, as usual.
I’m a lesbian who doesn’t plan on having any kids, but for me it’s just that I’d rather concentrate on my nephews and on other kids who need adults in their lives. I’m just not cut out for parenting. I wish others would be able to examine themselves honestly (and not deflect it all by blaming the culture!) before deciding whether they are up to the parenting task.
And for those who parent, gay or straight, your child will probably experience pain in the world–it’s the parents who help kids learn how to deal with it and how to become strong, resiliant and compassionate adults.
Hmmm, now that I think of it, I’m kinda glad this person above didn’t reproduce.
Well i think the term ‘queerspawn’ is OK as long as kids arent taught to use it as a homophobic slur (in school or at home)
I’m a gay man myself and I think its OK to use the word because its lighthearted and quite er… sweet!
i think its sweet gays adopting kids as long as the kids socialise with the neighbours and everyone is happy and moving along nicely dont see the problem.
bill, uk.
[...] several years, Abigail Garner has been at the forefront of the Queerspawn movement. Queerspawn means that you are an adult child of one or more LGBT parent(s). Abigail is the author of Families [...]
[...] am also Queerspawn. This means that my mom is a lesbian and I grew up with her and her partner, my other mom, [...]