When my little brother told me he was gay nearly three years ago, at the end of his sophomore year of high school, it didn’t come as a surprise.
“That’s cool,” I responded nonchalantly, and it really was.
With a seven-year age difference, we didn’t occupy the same realms of each other’s childhoods. He was still in elementary school when I graduated from high school and had just finished his freshman year of high school when I graduated from college. “Close” wouldn’t be the first word that I would use to describe our relationship at that time. We talked, sure, but sharing deep personal feelings or making sweeping declarations wasn’t our style. Beyond the typical secret sibling requests (“Promise me you won’t tell Mom that I took another cookie”), when he came out to me it was the first time he had ever really confided in me.
And it had to be a secret, at least initially. In an Italian-Catholic family, there are certain cultural norms, and being gay didn’t fit any of them.
Related: The May 2016 edition of Valley Parents focuses on gender and identity.
After that initial conversation, I sought advice from friends, my knitting group and, naturally, Google. The information was overwhelming, the scenarios too many to count: Mom and Dad wouldn’t disown him, right? Would the bullying that had already defined his school career get worse?
But from the time when I was in high school to the time that he was, the dynamic had shifted: Most of his peers and teachers, it turned out, didn’t care that he was gay, filing the information in their minds similar to the way they would his preference for Vitamin Water.
My brother and I started to talk more frequently. We began to discuss the inevitable: when to tell Mom and Dad, and how.
The disclosure, it turns out, was anti-climactic. My mother, who found out two years after I did, and my father, another year after that, requested time to process the information. They did not disown my brother, nor did they try to change his mind. While they were not necessarily comfortable, they made an effort to engage my brother in conversation and continued to support him.
In this edition of Valley Parents, we have turned our focus to gender and identity. Conversations that once occurred behind closed doors happen openly more often on social media, cable TV and, most importantly, school systems and communities.
Kael Alberghini, a transgender man, and his parents, Jim Alberghini, of Hanover, and Arianna Knapp, of Norwich, shared their story of Kael’s transition. The trio’s candor in discussing their family with correspondent Jaimie Seaton and myself was remarkable: Yes, Kael’s transition was life-changing for all involved, but the component that never changed? The love the family so clearly shares.
“When I talk about Kael and his transition, I have nothing but positive, supportive, glowing things to say,” Knapp said. “But I cannot say that it was easy or will be easy for other parents.”
Seaton also sat down with Dr. John Turco, director of the new Transgender Clinic at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, to learn about gender, identity and what parents can do to best support their children.
And what about children who want assistance, separate from their parents? Staff writer Jeralyn Darling spoke with two Geisel School of Medicine students who started an LGBT support group for teens in the area. Ana Rodriguez-Villa and Brendin Beaulieu-Jones saw a need in the community and worked with the nonprofit organization Listen to fill that void.
“The students pretty quickly find that they’re going through similar things and they get an idea that their classmates, their friends, are experiencing things and have similar thoughts,” Beaulieu-Jones told Darling.
Columnist Steve Nelson discusses the evolution of discussions about gender in schools and his observations as an educator. “Schools and parents have a great responsibility to allow children to settle into who they are, not who we wish them to be,” Nelson writes.
When my brother started his identity journey, we didn’t know what resources were available. Navigating this territory, when we so rarely discussed things beyond the superficial, was difficult. The what-if pressure of our parents finding out weighed heavily, and once they found out, the conversations did not get any easier.
But in the last few years I have watched my brother and parents grow in ways I didn’t expect, and personal topics we had worked hard to avoid were not as stressful to bring up. My brother, who just concluded his freshman year of college, no longer carries the fear of being rejected by the people who love him the most.
These conversations need to be had, and with this edition of Valley Parents, we hope to start one.
