Letters to lgbt kids

[Letters to lgbt kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

If you’re a teenager, you are allowed to have a crush on teenage celebrities - even if you’re both the same gender. 

“Don’t sexualize teenage celebrities” means adults shouldn’t act as if teenagers are sexually avaible to them, just because they happen to be famous. It means it’s not okay to disguise pedophile thoughts as “normal fan behavior”. It means that being a fan does not give anyone the “right” to be creepy, the “right”  to make someone uncomfortable and harrass them. 

It does NOT mean “Gay teenagers are overly sexual and predatory and gross” - and if someone uses it to make you feel that way, they’re twisting it to excuse their homophobia. 

Boys having celebrity crushes on boys is okay. Girls having celebrity crushes on girls is okay. There’s nothing predatory or overly sexual about that. Those romantic feelings for someone who is far away (and doesn’t know you exist) can even be a healthy way to “test the waters”, can help you explore your feelings in a safe way. 

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t do anything that makes them uncomfortable or harrass them in any way, either. Respect boundaries - but that goes for everyone and it’s actually homophobic to imply that gay teenagers are more likely to harass celebrities than straight teenagers are. 

It’s just a modern spin on the old myth that “gay people are all pedophiles!”. There’s no truth to that. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Mom    

[Letters to lgbt kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

I want to share a video with you. 

She talks mostly about woman/man relationships but it’s a topic that can affect people in all kinds of relationships - and it’s a topic often swept under the rug: domestic abuse.

More specifically, she tries to answer a common question: “If your partner abuses you, then why don’t you just leave?”. She explains the patterns and warning signs and why it’s never as easy as that question suggests. 

It’s a difficult and dark topic but her speech is very eye-opening: 

Why domestic violence victims don’t leave | Leslie Morgan Steiner

(Trigger warnings: detailed descriptions of physical violence (in words, no pictures), mentions of gun violence, she briefly shows a gun). 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Mom 

[Letters to lgbt kids]

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

I know most of you don’t speak german but anyway: I  quickly wanted to share a few pictures of my book “Diese Art von Glück” with you!

I am so happy and excited to finally be able to hold it in my hands. 

It’s 623 pages in the printed version, so it’s a pretty big book. I think it turned out beautiful (but I may be slightly biased as I chose the cover!). 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Mom 

[Letters to lgbt kids]

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids,

If you speak one language with your parents and another one outside of home, coming out can be difficult.

You may struggle to find the right words in your native language when all resources you have access to are in your second language.

Labels can be difficult to translate, pronouns may work differently in your language and simply using the english terms is not always that simple (as they may sound confusing or made-up to your family).

If your parents don’t speak the language you speak at school, work, with your friends (at all or not fluently yet), and especially in cases where your parents also practice another religion, are more politically conservative etc. than everyone you meet outside of home, there’s a whole additional list of problems and misunderstandings that may arise.

They might worry that you are influenced by the others and just try to fit in or do it for the attention, they might be scared that you’re no longer part of their world or that you’re giving up on your roots… And you might feel like you’re stuck in-between two worlds, like you don’t really belong in either.

It’s a struggle that can be hard to understand for people who never experienced it and so it’s easy to feel lonely. With this letter, I just want to show you that you’re not alone and your worries are not silly.

With all my love,
Your Tumblr Mom

[Letters to lgbt kids]

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

@throne-bmth asked: Four truths and a lie?

My dear lgbt+ kid,

That’s a fun question, thankyou! (I think it would be difficult to do this lgbt-themed, so I’ll go the classical „random facts about me“ route, I hope that’s what you had in mind?)

- I saved the life of a stranger‘s baby once
- I play piano
- I dyed my hair pink and purple for a while
- I can’t swim
- I used to be terrified of elevators

I’m curious if you can guess the lie!

With all my love,
Your Tumblr Mom

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

@tiny-gay-munchkin said: Piano is a lie I think?

I think I made it a bit too easy, most people guessed it was either “I play piano” or “I can’t swim” - maybe because those two were pretty short/less specific than the others? Or I may just ramble so much on here that you figured I would have mentioned my piano by now if I had one!  

Either way,  you’re right. I don’t play piano (or any other instrument). I wish I would but I fear I have neither the patience nor the fine motor skills. So, yes, that was my lie! The other statements are all true.

[Letters to lgbt kids]

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

Are trans rights a “complex topic with two sides” as some people love to say -  and if yes, do both sides deserve to be heard? 

There’s no use denying that some questions are complex and don’t have only one correct answer. Good examples for that are the language discussions within the community - let’s say I feel empowered by and emotionally connected to a word that I grew up with but you feel it’s outdated and there are better, modern words to choose from today, who gets to decide who of us is wrong and who is right?

But the important thing about those discussions is that they are inner-community discussions. People outside of our community who look at us and say “Well, it’s a complex topic!” usually don’t mean “Trans people are individuals with their own unique viewpoints and we don’t get to dictate which words they should use to describe their experiences and feelings”.  

Instead, these two sides they talk about are often “Trans people deserve to be alive, safe and healthy” vs. “Trans people do not deserve to be alive, safe and healthy”. 

It’s easy to see that those two sides are not equal! The two sides rhetoric is often used to hide transphobia or it’s a lazy excuse to distance themselves from trans people, so they don’t need to speak up when they see us in danger. 

Yes, maybe there are two sides. But one of them can literally kill us. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Mom

[Letters to lgbt kids]

@throne-bmth asked: Four truths and a lie?

My dear lgbt+ kid,

That’s a fun question, thankyou! (I think it would be difficult to do this lgbt-themed, so I’ll go the classical „random facts about me“ route, I hope that’s what you had in mind?)

- I saved the life of a stranger‘s baby once
- I play piano
- I dyed my hair pink and purple for a while
- I can’t swim
- I used to be terrified of elevators

I’m curious if you can guess the lie!

With all my love,
Your Tumblr Mom

[Letters to lgbt kids]

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear daughters who love girls, 

I want to send a big hug to all of you who have had bad experiences with men. 

I send a big hug to those of you who have been abused by men. 

I send a big hug to those of you who are terrified of or grossed-out by men. 

I’m sick of hearing jokes about “men-hating lesbians”. I’m sick of hearing “They’re just scared of men”. I’m sick of hearing the (indirect) message “If you’ve had a traumatic experience with a man, your feelings for girls are fake/unimportant” - That’s just not true. 

Trauma never invalidates sexual orientation. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Mom 

PS: A extra hug to those of you who had/have an abusive dad. Society’s idea that the abusive behavior of a father is somehow a failure of the daughter is disgusting - and it can make coming out (or even just accepting your own feelings) so much harder. In our community, we are sometimes so quick to point out that being lgbt+ is not necessarily caused by bad parenting that we exclude those of us who had terrible parents.  

[Letters to lgbt kids]

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear questioning girls, 

This one goes out to the ones who have caught themselves dreaming about kissing girls lately. 

Maybe you wonder now if you’re a lesbian or bi, or if it’s just curiosity. 

I can’t answer that for you but I want to assure you: It’s okay. You are okay. 

Girls kissing girls is not sick or dirty or strange, and neither is thinking about that. 

Don’t feel bad about it! 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Mom 

[Letters to lgbt kids]

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

Some kids can’t come out or talk about their feelings with their parents - not necessarily because the parents are homophobic but because they seem too busy with their own problems. 

Maybe your parents are in the midst of a messy divorce or they’re having financial woes or they’re struggling with addiction or need to care for your sick sibling… There are a lot of possible reasons and they all have in common that somehow, it feels like your parents just don’t have the time and energy to listen to you. 

That can be a really confusing situation. It’s often assumed that people choose to stay silent for safety reasons only. But in your case, it might be safe to come out, at least safe enough that you know it wouldn’t put you in danger. It just feels like you would put a burden on your parents, like it would be selfish when they already have so much to worry about or like it just isn’t important enough compared to their own struggles. 

It’s not easy to be stuck in that role in a family. The silent one, the invisible one. The one who doesn’t really matter. Constantly putting your feelings in the backseat to not burden someone, that’s a heavy burden to carry in itself. 

You’re so much more than that role. You matter. Your feelings matter. 

You deserve to be listened to. Your parents may currently not be able and/or willing to fulfill that but that doesn’t say anything about you. You deserve attention. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Mom