When parents are gay, kids' reactions vary
Kate Fortmueller used to dread the end of the day when parents picked up their kids from middle school. She never knew which of her moms would come, and if it were a different one from the day before, she told classmates it was her mom's friend or an aunt.
She never invited anyone to her house and had no school friends.
Each day brought more lies, more hiding and a deeper depression.
Fortmueller says she wasn't ashamed of her parents or their sexual orientation. She considers both her mothers and loves them equally.
But how do you tell your peers your parents are gay when the school halls hum with gay-bashing?
It's a dilemma more children might be facing.
About 10,500 homosexual couples live in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties, according to the 2000 census. While state census data on the number of gay couples raising kids won't be released until next year, gay and lesbian advocacy groups as well as some researchers say the number is on the rise.
At least one million children in the nation have a gay or lesbian parent, according to Timothy Biblarz, one of two University of Southern California sociologists who authored a recent study on how children might be affected by having a gay parent. The figure is based, in part, on respondents in a National Health and Social Life Survey who identified themselves as gay or lesbian.
Another indicator of the growth in gays and lesbians raising children is seen at Family Week, an annual camp hosted by two national nonprofit groups, Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE) and Family Pride Coalition. The camp, which is for gay and lesbian parents and their kids, started six years ago with just 20 families. This week, more than 400 families are attending the Provincetown, Mass., camp. Of the 560 children there, more than half are under age 5.
Kim Murillo, executive director at Stonewall Recovery Services, says the counseling service on Seattle's Capitol Hill has also seen a jump in gay parents raising children in recent years.
"There is more access to (artificial) insemination and adoption today, and we're seeing more gay fathers and lesbian mothers in our parenting classes," she said.
About 20 percent of lesbian couples and 5 percent of gay male couples living together nationwide were raising kids 10 years ago, according to an analysis of the 1990 census by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C.
Every child with a gay dad or a lesbian mom handles it differently, depending on the circumstances. For those growing up with gay parents, it's often different from kids whose parents reveal they are gay later in life. For Fortmueller, accepting her moms was easy; she knew nothing else. From birth, she grew up with the two of them, partners for 25 years. Her biological mother, Beth Fortmueller, was artificially inseminated.
For some other teens, however, learning a parent is gay can be devastating.
Social stigma
Jason, a 16-year-old Kirkland boy, said that when his mother told him she was a lesbian shortly after divorcing his father, he was shocked, but not angry. Within a few months he was able to tell close friends.
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"My sister says nasty things to Nancy (their mother's partner), and when she gets mad, she takes it out on her," Jason said. "That part is hard on all of us, my sister not accepting her."
Jason's mom, Tara, said if she had anticipated her daughter's anguished reaction, she would have sought counseling to learn how to tell her. Soon after, she bought a videotape and books to help her children understand and found each a counselor from Youth Eastside Services in Bellevue.
"It's challenging to see her struggle with it so much," said Tara, a school-bus driver. "I try to acknowledge that she has these feelings, but I also say this is the way it's going to be and her staying mad isn't going change anything."
Jason said he accepts his mom's sexuality because he always has been close to her, and because homosexuality is "everywhere, in the media, in movies; it's not a big deal anymore." He's also grown close to Nancy, who, like him, is a sports nut.
The social stigma sometimes attached to having a gay parent doesn't always fade with age. Amanda, a 23-year-old Bothell social worker, said she still tells only close friends that her father is gay. He told her and her brother, now 18, about eight years ago. They grew up with their mother but saw their dad often.
"I had a suspicion that he was gay, but I didn't want it to be true," she said. "But when he sat us down and told us, it was a relief that we could be honest again."
A sophomore in high school at the time, Amanda said she was most worried about her friends finding out. She told no one until her first year of college.
She said the only strange thing now about her father being gay is that "we're both attracted to men and sometimes I'll say someone is cute and he'll agree. That was weird at first but now it's become a joke."
Her father, Tim, said he wished he had told his kids 10 years earlier, but he feared rejection. He told them after reading a book on how to "come out" to kids.
"I was surprised they took it so well, but I think I prepared them subconsciously since they were young — we always talked about how boring life would be if everyone drove a blue Chevy and lived in a white house," he said. "They always knew it's OK to be different."
Tim, a software product manager, said telling his kids eventually made their relationship "much better, more open and warm. The mask was finally gone."
In some earlier studies of gay parenting, researchers have reported no differences between children raised by gay parents and those raised in heterosexual households. But in a recent paper re-examining data from 21 studies dating back to 1980, two University of Southern California sociologists say the studies downplayed the differences, probably because gay parenting is such a volatile issue.
While the emotional health of both sets of children seems to be the same, the paper, published in April in the America Sociological Review, said the biggest differences relate to gender roles. Children of gay parents tend to depart from traditional gender roles and are more open to same-sex relationships, the paper said.
Peggy Drexler, a psychologist in San Francisco, found that the sons of lesbian couples were more "willing to consider a wider range of sexual orientation for themselves at younger ages, and think in more creative and inventive ways of structuring a family."
While the teens quoted in the article said they all consider themselves heterosexual, most also said they thought about their own sexual orientation at an earlier age than most of their friends. Some even said they worried initially that homosexuality could be hereditary.
Drexler said the fact that kids of gay parents are often teased contributes to strong character because they "develop strategies to deal with it. At a very young age these kids have to figure out who they are and who they are not," she said.
Kim Kendall, a clinical psychologist on Capitol Hill, said it's harder for kids to learn their parent is gay during midadolescence because "the child is trying to figure out their own identity, usually between the ages of 12 and 16."
When 18-year-old Tyler Cummings-Bond was 9 and his sister, Brynn, was 6, their mother told them she was in love with another woman. For him, all it meant was that his father was moving out, which saddened and angered him.
That his mother was a lesbian didn't occur to him until he was playing tag in fifth grade and another boy shouted, "What, are you gay like your mom?"
"That was the closest I ever came to hitting anyone," Tyler said. "I was so afraid of being rejected by my peers because of this thing called homophobia that goes through our culture."
Until his sophomore year in high school, Tyler told no one. Then, "mostly because my sister was always cool with it, I just stopped caring if people knew."
Tyler, who lives in Gig Harbor with both sets of parents, said his mother's life as a lesbian and a leader in the gay community has exposed him to things that "I wouldn't have otherwise learned about.
"I've met amazing people who are living out their orientation despite homophobia, I've learned about being involved in the community, I've sat with a man dying of AIDS. Yes, I have definitely been affected by my mother being gay."
For Kate Fortmueller, her depression began to erode after her sophomore year when her moms, Beth Fortmueller and Jeanne Holden, proposed sending her back to Lakeside, a small private school in Seattle that she had attended in fifth and sixth grades.
She was elated because she would be in a small school again with old friends and, more important, she no longer had to hide her family.
"I knew the environment and the kids, and it's a liberal school," the Issaquah 18-year-old said. "One of the first days there I started talking about my moms and I stopped myself and realized I don't have to lie anymore. Nobody here cares."
Colleen Pohlig can be reached at 206-515-5655 or cpohlig@seattletimes.com.