A Latina mom: We must open the doors for our gay children

By Queta Rodriguez Bauer, Latina Voices

When my daughter came out, some 15 years ago (she is 32 now), I didn’t know what to do, what to say or how to react. At that time I had been working on behalf of human rights for about 15 years. I even went to South Africa, representing a human rights organization, where there was a controversial resolution to work on the human rights of victims of repression due to their sexual orientation. I fought for it. Yet, when I found out about my daughter, I was in denial. I thought she was confused.

One day, when she was 17, I was driving her home from school.  “So, do you have any idea who you are going to prom with?” I asked her.

“I’m going with Sarah,” (not her real name), she said.

“With her?”  I asked.

“Yes, I like girls,” she told me.

It was time for me to stop at a red light, but I didn’t know what to do. I was so confused. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“I like girls. I don’t like boys,” she told me.

I muttered. “But how can you go to the prom with a girl? How can you go with Sarah?”

She answered. “I can go with whoever I want, and she likes girls too.”

I insisted. “Well, you might like that particular girl, but it doesn’t mean you dislike boys! Sometimes one may have a very good relationship with a girlfriend and take it the wrong way…”

“No, I’m sure. I don’t like boys,” she told me.

I immediately called a friend whom I had just learned had a gay son and told her about my “problem.” Luckily, she was a lot wiser that I was at the time. She told me, “It’s OK. Don’t worry. You didn’t do anything to cause it and you can’t change it.”

I discussed the issue with my husband, and after a few days of idea digestion, we decided the inevitable: there was nothing we could do and we better continue loving her just as much if not more, because she had a hard road in front of her.

My daughter had been my baby, my beautiful little girl who liked only pink, my very insightful pre-teen who was in love with horses, and my very hard working teen who used to find all sorts of odd jobs.

And now, as an adult, she is also a friend on whose wisdom I rely to make important decisions in my life. And she has used her wisdom to choose her life partner, a wife, a wonderful, smart woman whom we love and have welcomed into our family with open arms. All of us in our family think that we have never seen my daughter so happy.

This week the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act. But we need to do more so that my daughter and her partner can have marriage equality in Illinois. They have a “civil union.”

The elimination of some aspects of DOMA is great for those who live in a state where same-sex marriage is allowed under the law.  Because my daughter and her wife/partner live in Illinois, they will not be treated as equals vis a vis heterosexual marriages here.

You and I have advantages they don’t have because they have a same-sex union.

My dream for my daughter to find a loving spouse has been fulfilled.  I can appreciate how they see the future in each other’s eyes; may they grow old together, and may they always be fond of each other. But they need equality under the law.

My daughter has done her job. She has been courageous and now it’s my turn. I have to tell the world how wonderful it is to have a daughter who is free to be herself in front of an ever more accepting world but which still imposes unfair laws on her because of her sexual orientation.

I have to proclaim all over, including and especially to my Latino friends and family, that my daughter is with a wonderful woman.

On occasion, people have come to me to confess that they also have a gay son, or daughter, or cousin. They see it is possible to be happy with an unconventional family. I tell them, “It’s OK. Don’t worry. You didn’t do anything to cause it and you can’t change it.”

We must open the doors for our gay children. We must tell the world they are not different from anybody else, so they can be accepted and given the same rights and responsibilities as anybody else—including the right to raise their own children. That’s the way to love our gay children.

I can be completely understanding of my kids’ sexual orientation, but I can’t keep it to myself. Unless we parents of gay children speak up about it, the discrimination, the misunderstandings are not going to stop. We parents need to be out, same as our children.  The world needs to know that when our kids came out the world didn’t end. We are still a family and we are still there for each other. Now, we all have to come out of the closet.

This article was first published in Latina Voices.

Queta Rodriguez Bauer is the founder and president of Cultural Communications LLC in Chicago.