“My parents said I can't come home unless I change”
Some parents answer a child's coming out with a condition: change, or stay away. It may come as a shouted order to leave, a calm ultimatum, or a demand to see a counselor or religious leader first. In the Family Acceptance Project's 2009 study of 224 lesbian, gay and bisexual young adults, those who reported high family rejection as teenagers were 8.4 times as likely to report a suicide attempt as those who reported little or none. A 2017 national survey by Chapin Hall found LGBT young people had a 120 percent higher risk of homelessness than their heterosexual, cisgender peers. What matters most first is whether the person has somewhere safe to stay, and who else knows.
What to check first
Before anything else, it helps to check where the person will sleep tonight and this week, and whether anyone at home has been violent or threatened it. A relative, a friend's family or a teacher may be able to help in the short term. LGBTQ+ youth services can talk through options, including with someone under 18.
What could be going on
Family rejection and acceptance (Ryan, Family Acceptance Project): Fits if the condition comes on top of other rejections: insults, being kept from LGBTQ+ friends, being told you shame the family.
Conversion therapy (sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts): Check whether 'change' comes with a program, counselor or religious leader meant to make you straight or cisgender.
Conflict between faith and sexual orientation or gender identity: Could be your parents' faith driving the demand, with their beliefs and their love pulling against each other.
Minority stress (Meyer): Check how much of the weight now comes from what's around you: where you sleep, money, school, who knows.
Telling them apart
Family rejection and acceptance (Ryan, Family Acceptance Project): The condition may sit alongside other rejecting acts: name-calling, blocking LGBTQ+ friends, saying the family has been shamed. Ryan's research measured specific behaviors like these and linked them to worse health later. Some families mix in accepting acts too, and those were measured as well.
Conversion therapy (sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts): 'Change' may mean a specific plan: a counselor, a camp, prayer sessions or a pastor meant to make the person straight or cisgender. The American Psychological Association's 2009 review found insufficient evidence that such efforts change sexual orientation. Going may be the price named for coming home.
Conflict between faith and sexual orientation or gender identity: The parents may speak of sin, prayer or what their community will think, and seem torn as they say it. In the Family Acceptance Project's research, high religious involvement in a family went with lower acceptance of an LGBT child. Their faith and their love for the child may be pulling against each other.
Minority stress (Meyer): Much of the strain may come from practical things now: a bed, money, school, a phone plan in a parent's name. Meyer's minority stress model describes how outside rejection and the worry it leaves add up over time. The stress may show in sleep, eating and focus as much as in feelings.
Questions to carry
- When they said it, what were the words they used, and who else was in the room with me?
- What do I need to be safe this week, whatever they decide?
Also said as
- parents kicked me out for being gay
- my parents said i'm not welcome unless i stop being trans
- kicked out after coming out
- my dad told me to leave because i'm gay
- parents will only let me back if i go straight
- family disowned me for being lgbt
If you have nowhere safe to stay tonight, or home doesn't feel safe, you don't have to sort it out alone. In the US, the Trevor Project talks with LGBTQ+ young people any time on 1-866-488-7386, or text START to 678-678, and the National Runaway Safeline is on 1-800-786-2929. Trans Lifeline, for trans people, is on 877-565-8860. In the UK, akt supports LGBTQ+ people aged 16 to 25 facing homelessness or a hostile home at akt.org.uk, and Switchboard LGBT+ is on 0800 0119 100. If you're in danger now, call 911 or 999. Elsewhere, findahelpline.com lists free, confidential helplines by country.