My name is Stephanie. My story is kind of two-fold.

I had the privilege of growing up with a lesbian sister, so I heard all the jokes and snide remarks from kids as we grew up. However, I also witnessed my family’s acceptance of her and her girlfriends without ever saying anything.

Fast forward to me being the single mother of my only child. I remember as a very little boy he had crushes on male cartoon characters. In fact, we both had a crush on Li Shang from the Disney movie Mulan. He also loved Tinky-Winky, the purple Teletubby who carried a bag (actually a purse).

I suspected at the time that he might be gay and my suspicions were validated when he became a preteen and discovered porn. Because of what I had witnessed with my family and my sister I never wanted him to feel like he was different or that there was anything wrong with him so when I had to crack down on the porn, I never mentioned anything about him being gay. Instead, I focused on making him aware that what he was feeling and was curious about was normal.

Even though I could see on his face that he didn’t feel normal, I doubled down and told him it was, that everyone, both boys and girls were curious about both boys and girls. I made it clear that my only concern was that what he was looking at was not “age appropriate.”

Fast forward again to my son at age 15. By now he and I had become a formidable team! He was growing up and had become super responsible. Being a single working mom I had no choice but to give him a lot of responsibility and in return, he was given as much freedom as this “helicopter mom” could give.

We talked about absolutely everything and I felt I could truly trust him to be ultra responsible in all things. Then it happened.

Keep in mind that by this time, in my own head, I thought I was the “poster mom” for all gay boys. One night I woke up to the sound of the exhaust fan in my son’s bathroom. I simply acknowledged that he was in the bathroom and went back to sleep. About an hour or so later I woke up again and still heard that fan so I got up and went to his bathroom door, knocked, and called his name…no reply.

I knocked again and yelled his name and there was still no answer so I opened the door, fully expecting to see him laid out on the floor but the bathroom was empty.

I immediately ran to my room for my cell phone and called him. It rang but he didn’t answer. I didn’t leave a message, but hung up and dialed his number again. This time he answered and told me where he was. I told him to stay put, I was coming to get him. I cannot describe the relief I felt when I saw him and he got into my car. I was so upset I couldn’t talk to him that night.

I told him we would talk the next day when I got home from work. That conversation makes me laugh now and if you ever see me at a PFLAG meeting I always share it. He snuck out of the house to meet a boy. For the life of me I could not understand why he couldn’t just tell me he wanted to see this boy.

That night I learned that he had no idea how I would feel about it. Me, the perfect gay-son-mom, how could this be? This is why he was hesitant to tell me. Over the years I had made a couple of jokes (my sister and I joked about everything), said some derogatory things about my lesbian sister, and here’s the big one – I never, ever said that I knew that he was gay and that I was OK with it.

From that moment on I affirmed his gayness almost every minute of every day. A dear friend of mine told me that my office looked like a unicorn threw up in it! And that was just “my” coming out story.

My ally story came a few years later. A friend invited me to see a movie at a local church about a young Mormon family who was struggling in the church because they were fully supportive of their gay son.

“Families are Forever” is an amazing movie. It’s a part of the Family Acceptance Project headed by Dr. Caitlin Ryan. I was blown away by the movie. I truly had no idea there were still people in the world who had all these crazy, derogatory ideas about gay, lesbian, and transgender people!

I was shocked, saddened, and angry! It was then that I decided that I needed to educate people! I was Googling everything LGBTQ+ related and it was then that I realized I had seen that movie at a PFLAG meeting. I went back 3 times before I realized that they had support meetings after their guest speaker/presentation part of the meeting.

At that point I was “all in!” PFLAG has a saying, “When you no longer need PFLAG, that’s when PFLAG needs you.”

Stephanie is president of the PFLAG Bakersfield chapter, one of several PFLAG chapters we help support through our annual giving program. CLICK HERE (opens a new window) to learn how you can help us help others. 

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