Brandon Shire

Author of Contemporary Gay Romance

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parenting gay youth

A Note for New Gay Dads

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boyI get a kick out of today’s new gay dads. They’re all full of look what we did, with pictures and blogs and flashing about the awards they received for being Father of the Year. It’s adorable really.

But I sometimes wonder if they understand that gay men have been raising children for a long, long time; long before it became legal, or condone, or even accepted.  But they’re new parents so that’s to be expected. After they change a few hundred diapers the luster wears off. We old-timers know that. Then there’s daycare and schools and shitty teachers, and drug use and sex and heartbreaks and maybe the cops bringing the kid home one night. Been there. Done all that – all of it while Anita Bryant’s words were still echoing in minds across the land about what loathsome perverts us homos were. [Read more…] about A Note for New Gay Dads

Rejecting Your LGBTQ Child by Sue Brown

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This is a special guest post by my friend and fellow author, Sue Brown.  She shares my passion, as you can see below. ~B.

Who am I talking to here? Probably not the people who should be reading this. So let me tell you about me. I grew up just outside of London, England. Nice area, nice parents, nice school. Everything just ‘nice’ and ‘normal’. And that’s it. Aside from my mum dying when I was eighteen there was nothing different about my life.

Scroll forward to today and I live about ten miles away, have two teenagers, and live in a pocket-sized house in a nice area. They go to nice schools and everything is just nice and normal.

What would happen if one day one of my kids told me they were gay or lesbian? What if they were transgender? Would it be nice and normal then? Yes, of course it would be. I don’t give a monkey’s who they are, who they love. It just doesn’t matter. I can’t emphasise that enough. I don’t care, and neither does their dad. [Read more…] about Rejecting Your LGBTQ Child by Sue Brown

Interview with Indie filmmakers Cati and Mike Gonzalez

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Filmmakers Cati and Mike GonzalezToday I’m talking with internationally known Indie filmmakers and photographers Cati and Mike Gonzalez, and you know me, if it’s raw and gritty any media can hook me pretty quick. This team of filmmakers had me hooked in about ten seconds. Not only are they well known in NYC and around the world, but it’s pretty rare that I come across someone that has a project that so closely matches my own concerns with LGBTQ youth.

Let me tell you about their film first. Prince & Ekaj hits on so many levels it’s not even funny. This is not some lame Glee view of what it means to be LGBTQ but a hardcore look at what it is to be growing up Latino, gay, and homeless in the hard city. (You can see the trailer below and a longer clip on their website.) [Read more…] about Interview with Indie filmmakers Cati and Mike Gonzalez

To Mom (A letter from a gay son)

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The following is from Gay Family Values. It was a letter attached to the video you will see below. It was so touching that I thought I would re-share it here with you, because sometimes we forget just how hard it is, even for today’s LGBTQ youth, to come out to their parents. 

To Mom,
Mom I have been trying to talk to you for a while now but I just can’t bring the words to say it. So, I am writing you this letter instead. I just want you to know that it isn’t because I don’t feel like I can’t talk to you it’s just that I can’t bring myself to say the words.

So for a while now I have been struggling with myself internally. I have hated myself for a really long time and as scary as it sounds I thought of suicide as the only escape. I then thought of you, my family, my friends, and all of the other things that I would miss out on. What you have to understand is that this was and still is really hard for me. I’ve tried for the longest time to change but I just can’t . I would give anything to be different but this just is not going to change about me. By this point you can probably tell that what I am going to tell you is that I am gay. And I am sure you always knew. [Read more…] about To Mom (A letter from a gay son)

A Talk For Parents of LGBT Children

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Here’s a video from a close friend specifically for parents of LGBT children coming out.  Probably the most important point to convey before I step off this stage and let David talk to you is the fact that children simply want to be loved, but his video goes beyond that and is well worth watching.

 

Note: I’ve also added a few resource link below for parents seeking more information, and you can also click over to LGBT Youth Orgs for more.

 

GLBT National Help Resource Center (for finding LGBT resources near you)

Ten Things I’ve Learned About Gay People in Ten Years | A Christian Perspective

Gay youth, family rejection, and health problems

The Link Between LGBT Youth, Bullying, and Suicide

18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda