When your child comes out, they’re telling you who they are.

You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to “agree." You just have to understand.

Being a part of the LGBT community means being different.

Anything different from the norm is punished by law, by social isolation, etc. There are a multitude of ways in which social control forms a default setting for human beings.

In this case, the default, or normal setting is penis equals man, vagina equals woman, and men like women, women like men.

However, we have living proof that shows that this is not always the case.

LGBT people growing up in the world have a sense of being abnormal, immoral, and deserving of punishment.

They have the sense that who they are is wrong, that they deserve to be denied their chance at happiness.

They are constantly told that existing the way they are is wrong, and because of this, LGBT people are more at risk for mental illnesses, particularly anxiety and depression.

A part of this risk is because they are told that they aren’t important, that their needs don’t matter, they don’t deserve to exist.

They get a lot of hate for who they are, so they learn to hate themselves too.

They learn to think that the world is only filled with hate, at some point or another.

Fear becomes a motivating factor in their lives. They have to survive, but you can never tell someone’s reaction when you tell them how different you are.

Fear becomes expected and plays a big role in LGBT people’s lives because they have to be afraid in order to stay alive. This should not be the case, but it is.

They have to expect the worst because the worst can always happen.

That is how a lot of this mindset gets started. Mental disorders can be debilitating, and nothing is worse than suffering through it alone. There is a separate support for mental disorders, but this association shows a detriment to the health of those who identify as LGBT.

They also fear someone may find out, may out them, may be a victim of a hate crime. It’s a realistic fear however, as the biggest hate crime in U.S. history was a hate crime against gay people in a gay bar.

Many were outed because they were killed.

This type of violence shows a hatred for these people, who are doing nothing but demanding existence in the world, an existence that is rightfully theirs. This isolation, this coldness, bleeds into the lives of millions of people.

On top of that, LGBT people are more likely to be victims of domestic abuse, as well as having a higher risk for alcohol and drug abuse.

LGBT people need support, and need to be understood by those around them.

A person’s life can be shaped and ended just by existing. There are horrors thrown into the faces of people just trying to understand how they are in the world.

And they are met with rage and hatred.

They are taught to fear.

They need every bit of help they can get because they have to be strong all the time.

Imagine you finally found a label to describe what you experience, but as soon as you tell that label to someone else, they vanish.

You have to be brave in order to acknowledge you’re different, and/or identify in that light.

A lot of people will leave LGBT people as soon as they find out.

They have to be strong, and they deal with so much from the world.

If you’re lucky enough not to deal with this particular type of hatred, then try to understand their hardships.

And honestly, you should support your child because they’re your child. You raised them, and because you’ve spent so long with them, they have become a part of you.

Your child needs a family. They need support. They need to know that they are loved.

There is so much hatred out in the world.

Don’t hate someone, especially someone whom you have loved, because they come out.

Support your children because they’re people, and they’re exactly the type of people that need the most love.