The LIKEME® Organization

I am former Navy, have many LGBT family members and even more LGBT friends. It pains me that young people of any sexual identity kill themselves, but particularly if they have been bullied into doing so. Chely Wright said it best when she said such suicides are really a "Hate Crime" - because they are. As the CEO of a non-profit arts organization, I feel it is not only my human responsibility but my honor to try to build a program that helps these marginalized kids in my community have a safe place in which to tell their own stories in their own voices without fear of retribution from those who do not yet understand that being LGBT is not a threat, but a state of being, just like being STR8. The LIKE ME Organization is a beacon of light not only for the LGBT community, but for those of us in the margins doing what we can to help end prejudice against LGBT people. Thank you for being here.

I am a mother of two teenagers who has the pleasure of having their friends come to our home all the time. They all know they are welcome and have shared many stories with us. A lot are struggling with their sexuality, some with problems at home/parents/peers who tease. My daughter is a member of the GSA at her school, which makes me very proud. There is no judging here and I wish there were more parents who would open their doors to help these children. I just love them all. They call me “Da Mama”, and all give me hugs when arriving and leaving. It is amazing for me and fills my heart. Good luck with your journey and this website. Thank you for this opportunity to reach out.

I am a professor at a small, private, Catholic college where many students identify as lesbian, but the silence here on homosexuality is startling. These students aren't bullied, but the ways in which they are treated as invisible is nevertheless deeply troubling. Both my research on lesbian writers and the GLSEN Safe Space sticker on my office door have prompted worried talk behind my back by administrators, and I wonder about the security of my job, which I love. I hate, though, the use of religion to validate bigotry and will not support it.

I heard Chely's story on Oprah and I could no longer sit and watch the wrong going on around me. My heart didn't just break, it fractured. I'm not a gay man, I love women, but how can it be wrong to find love in another person, no matter what their gender. Life is too short. Finding that special person & happiness is more important than some stupid ideal. If a woman finds happiness with another woman, who am I to stand between them! Finding love is the important thing. God is a loving God. God is a God of compassion. I find it hard to believe that He would find at fault in a person finding love in same sex!

The reason I give my opinion is that I'm a person who has not yet found that special person of either sex. Many years have gone by and I still haven't found a love. So, for those that have trouble finding people like yourself, hang in there! Your opinion of you is the opinion that matters. There are people like you out there. It may only take a few days to find that special person; or, a few years. The part that matters is staying true to you.

I knew I was a lesbian at an early age (around 7 y.o.) I knew at that age because my mother was a pentecostal preacher, so the churches we attended not only explained what being a lesbian was, all homosexuals were condemned to eternal hell-fire. Needless to say I spent years (about 9) begging God to change me, and that prayer was never answered. I spent many a tortured night, as a child, tossing and turning over the fear of burning in hell for eternity. At the age of 16 I gave up on God because I thought He had given up on me by not changing me. I was a lost and lonely soul. At 17 or 18 I came out to my mother, but she already knew and had been asking me for a while if I was gay, which I heartily denied. As I was trying to choke out the words she said it before I did. So, basically I confirmed her suspicions. Which began years of condemnation, concluding 11 1/2 years ago, when her final words to me before lapsing into a coma that night and dying the following evening, were "If you don't change your lifestyle you will burn in hell." However by that time I was 27 and alot had changed. At the age of 19 I found Open Door MCC in Boyd's Maryland. A LGBT church That showed me God's love, mercy and grace. They saved my life. So, while those last words from my mother still ring in my ears occasionally, they do not invoke feelings of fear for my soul, but feelings of sadness for her misinformed beliefs and in spite of everything a little hurt that those were my mother's final words to me. But I know God made me as I am and no one can separate me from the love of God!

I am an out gay women who has been active in my community for over 45 years. I came out when I was 18 years old in my first year in college, when I fell in love with my freshman English professor. When I told members of my family, each one reacted in a different way. My dad was fine with it. He was a liberal and totally understood me. My sister who had always been indifferent and distant remained in that place. Today we are closer but I would not call us friends. My mother was a totally different story. My mother never accepted me, my politics or my partners. Even as a child, I felt isolated from her. I remember when I was in high school when friends thought my parents were cool, I would tell them, “You don’t know my mom!” My mom was always so wrapped up in the business of my older sister, I use to joke with my peers that my sister was an only child. I would become estranged from my mother sometime during the middle of high school. We remained estranged for over 25 years. At best, we were cordial and only spoke at family holidays gatherings where my attendance was obligatory. On occasion, when my mother had been drinking, she would call to berate me for being such a horrible and disappointing daughter. In my mother's later years she became increasingly vicious and mean not only towards me but people who she felt had wronged her. Yes, she felt I had wronged her by "choosing" to be gay. It was after all my way of hurting her. My way of showing her what a failure she had been as a mother. She never tried to understand anything about me. When my mother became physically unable to care for herself. No one in the family, not her other daughter, her sister, her two grandchildren, whom she had spent all of her money on over the years, were willing to take on the responsibility of her care. She was by then so mean spirited few people even wanted to visit, especially if she was intoxicated, which had become an almost daily occurrence. I was called. My partner had recently died, I was alone so the family decided I was the perfect choice to care for my ailing mother. Imagine being asked to live with a person who has rejected and hated you for the past 25 years! Since it has never been in my nature to say no to something wounded and in pain, I would/could not say no to my mother. I spent the next 15 years of my life caring for someone who in truth probably did not like me or anything about me, from my sexual identity to my political views. Over the years I believe my mother came to accept me on some levels. She had to. I was the only one who would put up with her. I rather look on those years as a mellowing journey for my mom. In those years, there were times my mother would become nostalgic and emotional. She would tearfully tell me how much she loved me. She often thanked me for caring for and helping her. I came to believe that was probably all my mother was capable of giving. In the end, she let me know how much she did or did not care about me. When she died, she left every single penny she had and all of her worldly belongings to my sister and her two grand children. Had I not owned the home we lived in by that time, she would have signed it over to one of the grandchildren. In the end, I would have been homeless if she had her way. I was left with only memories of my mother. I don't resent her, I pity her. She failed to know a warm, wonderful sensitive and giving women who over the years was professionally engaged in helping families and children become healthier and happier people. I couldn't make my family functional, but I helped so many others along the way. I am at peace with myself and the memory of my mother. I forgave her years ago. Perhaps that is the reason I am so in tuned to the pain and suffering of others - able to help them navigate to a safe place within themselves. For that, I can thank my mother.

Starting High School is hard enough. I always knew I was different but I didn’t know how exactly. My last year in middle school I started to watch all of my friends develop crushes for boys, i never did. I thought that I had not found the right guy yet. I found out that it wasn't a guy but more like a girl. As a freshman, I met someone who changed my life. I knew then that I was a lesbian. I didn't really understand it. All I knew is that i liked a girl and she liked me back. I thought there was nothing wrong with that. Then my parents found out. When my dad first found out he called me unnatural and said that being a lesbian was not acceptable. My mom then told me that I was closing doors and that the sex was not the same and I would never be happy. I was shocked and felt alone. I knew that God loved me but why would he make me into something my own parents did not accept. Now as a senior in high school, my parents have come to realize that I am a lesbian and they can't change that. I gave my mother "Love, Ellen" By Betty DeGeneres to read to help her realize that I still love her and more than anything I need her to love me too. 4 years later and I know I'm no longer alone but it wasn't always like that.

I am the mother of fraternal twins (now 33 years old) - one twin is lesbian and the other twin is female-to-male (FTM) transgender.

It was a shock and I was not prepared to be confronted with children who identified as lesbian or transgender because sexual and gender identity development was not taught at school and religion taught that being LGBT was immoral or abnormal.

I had also heard that having an LGBT identity was the result of bad parenting. So as a mother, I was not happy to learn that my children might be immoral or abnormal and/or I had been a bad mother. But I also just could not believe that my children were either immoral or abnormal and I was not willing to accept that I was a bad mother. But I was also a mother who believed that I would be a failure as a mother if I rejected my children and I could not tolerate that in myself. So I struggled to accept them.

During this same time, I was accepted into an educational leadership doctoral program and was also diagnosed with late stage colon cancer. The experience of facing my mortality and considering the meaning of my life provided me with the motivation and the courage to have conversations with my children about who they were as human beings that I likely would not have been willing to have.

My doctoral program provided me with the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding about my children's identities through the review of research. It also provided a format in which to examine the meaning of my own acceptance process from a larger philosophical perspective and what the experience had to teach me.

All of these experiences have made me a stronger and more compassionate mother and grandmother. They have also made me a conscious mother and grandmother - and person - and I bring that consciousness to every aspect of my life.

It makes me angry to now understand how much different things could have been for me and my children had I been exposed to information about sexual and gender identity development. I have come to realize that our schools don't provide education about some of the most significant elements of human life. According to Nel Noddings, companionship is the number one predictor of happiness, yet we don't teach our children how to identify and cultivate good companions. Noddings also noted that despite the fact that the biggest predictor of school success is parenting, schools don't educate about good parenting.

I think there is something wrong with this and, as a mother and grandmother, I want to see a change in the school curriculum that includes education about sexual and gender identity development as well as critical thinking and personal development. To me, education and accurate information is the way out of some of our most challenging issues.

I, myself, am not gay. I have a friend who is, and I want to share my story of friendship with him, with you. I will nickname my friend Z for sake of the story where I’d say his name. I have been friends with Z for 10 years now. 4 years ago, he called me up and said, "I have something to tell you. I'm gay." I simply said, "OK.". Then he asked, "You don’t seem shocked by my news. How come?" I replied, "That’s because I think I knew before you did." which made him laugh. Any friend he has told has not changed their opinion of him, and still continues their friendships with him. Z is afraid to tell his family though. I’ve told Z that I think they have an idea that they think he is and have pointed out to him that since we think they know, and haven’t been upset with him or anything, that it’s likely OK to go ahead and share his true self with them. Fear of losing his family holds him back, and that makes me sad. It makes him even sadder.

I just want to share this with you all, because you need to know you're not alone. There are people out there who will welcome you and support you. Find someone you trust and are comfortable with and let them in.

Sending you all my love and support!

I am a straight, Christian conservative who was raised to believe that being gay was wrong, and I believed it for most of my 34 years, but the more I've learned about homosexuality and the more people I meet, the more I realize that I was wrong. I can't imagine what it must be like to have to keep such a big part of yourself a secret, but I'm here to assure people going through this that people's minds can change. My daughter will be brought up differently than I was.

My niece was nearly 40 years old before she told me she was gay. She was worried about what I would think of her. But I only thought of what a huge burden it must have been for her to carry that secret so long. I feel blessed that she loves me enough to share her life with me now. Let me show her only kindness and understanding.