Letters to lgbt kids

My dear lgbt+ child,

School is hard for everybody, in one way or the other. But as a lgbt+ child, you may face some additional struggles on top of that. In this letter, i just want to let you know that i see those struggles. I know how upsetting and painful it can be. I promise you, you’re not alone. So, here’s a big mommy bear hug for you.

A hug for all of you who can’t safely come out to their classmates.

A hug for all of you who get bullied for being lgbt+.

A hug for all of you who don’t feel safe using the bathroom at school.

A hug for all of you who get misgendered at school.

A hug for all of you who have homophobic teachers.

A hug for all of you who can’t talk about their dating experiences as openly as their straight classmates can.

A hug for all of you who feel uncomfortable during Sex ED.

A hug for all of you who are out to friends outside of school and feel like they have to live two different lives.

A hug for all of you who fake having crushes, so classmates don’t get suspicious.

A hug for all of you.

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Mom

lgbt lgbt+ nonbinary trans gay lesbian Bisexual asexual aromantic letter

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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

My dear trans and nonbinary kids,

It’s okay if there’s no big, touching story behind your name.

It doesn’t need to have a deep meaning or be the name of someone who means a lot to you or have some kind of family history attached to it - unless that’s important to you.

If it’s not important to you, then you don’t need to worry about it.“This name feels comfortable” is reason enough to choose it. It’s all that matters!

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Mom

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My dear lgbt+ kids,

A thought I struggled a lot with is “If I didn’t feel this way, I wouldn’t have all those problems.”.

It’s difficult to argue against that. If we look at it coldly, it’s definitely true: there are problems that only we face. Or problems that we face more often than straight/cis people do. Our lives would be different if we weren’t lgbt+, that’s for sure.

But, you know, my life would also be different if I happened to be a horse. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have deal with my human problems then.

That’s just as true… and just as unhelpful as any identity-themed “But if I wasn’t like this” scenario. Just as ridiculous.

“But if I was a horse” sounds silly, ridiculous, doesn’t it? So why does “If I was straight/cis” sound like a legitimate reason to beat yourself up? Maybe it’s because many people still (silently) believe that our identities are a choice, and a very bad choice at that.

But I am the way I am and you are the way you are. Our lives would be different if we weren’t that way - but then they wouldn’t be our lives!

There’s no use in getting yourself all tangled up in What-if scenarios. You might be different in them but you don’t live there.

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Mom

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My dear lesbian girls,

Having a girlfriend is not what makes you a lesbian.

“Lesbian” is often treated as a relationship-centric label: A girl who dates another girl is a lesbian. Dating a girl makes you lesbian.

But it’s more than that. You’re a lesbian because you are. It’s how you feel, it’s who you are. It’s about YOU.

Even if you currently don’t have a girlfriend, you’re a real lesbian and your identity matters.

Even if you never had a girlfriend, you’re a real lesbian and your identity matters.

You don’t need anyone to “make” you a lesbian - you already are one.

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Mom

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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

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@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

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@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.

this was fun thankyou for playing this game with me! <3

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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

Anonymous asked: Huh. I didn’t know schizophrenia had anything ro do with low mood?

My dear lgbt+ kid,

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder, so this is going to be a simplified explanation - but in general we can say there are three groups of symptoms:

Positive symptoms: These are the ones most people think about when they hear “schizophrenia”: halluzinations, delusions, disordered thoughts etc.

In simple words, these symptoms mean someone feels or experiences “more” than other people do.

Negative symptoms: Social withdrawal, low mood, apathy etc. Many people do not know about this group of symptoms but they can actually be the main symptoms in some people!

In simple words,these symptoms mean someone feels or experiences “less” than other people do.

Cognitive symptoms: Another “side” of schizophrenia that is not the first thing that comes to people’s mind: memory problems, a short attention span, problems with sematic processing (”encoding” the meaning of words after we hear them)…

Schizophrenia is, sadly, often portrayed in a wrong or incomplete way. Many focus on the positive symptoms only - maybe because they’re the ones that make for the most “dramatic” story? So, it’s not your fault you didn’t know but it’s amazing that you ask and want to learn more!

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Mom

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

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