Dear Mom, I'm Gay.

Dear Mom, I’ve never told you this before but it’s time that you knew. I’m gay.

Well, not gay as in I just like women. I like men and women. I’m bisexual and non binary. I’ve kept this from you for so long because I was always scared of disappointing you. As your eldest child, I always felt an incredible amount of pressure to keep you happy and live up to whatever expectations that set out for me — get a job and get a decent post secondary education. While I was never the best with my grades and schooling, I was always scared of disappointing you. Your constant comments about the LGBT community and how anyone who wasn’t heterosexual was constantly going through a phase were never met with deaf ears. I would hear every snide comment and passing joke that you would make at the expense of a community who is constantly bashed for something that they can’t control hurt a lot more than I would ever admit to. Knowing that you held a disdain for people who are just trying their best to be accepted in the heteronormative society and just try and get by in their day to day lives while facing discrimination purely based on their sexual preferences, what gender they were or the gender of their partner made me all the more afraid. Afraid of disappointing you further.

It was because of your narrow minded views, I have not had the chance to tell you because of that fear, but I also have a partner. I’ve been with someone that I love more than anything in the world for nearly three years but I have never had the courage to tell you because they are transgender. It breaks my heart knowing that because of how you view the community, you’ll never be properly accept the person that I am confident that I want to spend the rest of my life with — the person that accepts me for who I am and the flaws that come with being human.

Despite our differences and constant arguing because we’re both incredibly stubborn, I have always wanted to share this part of my life with you. I know that as a mother , there is something about knowing that your child is going to be happy with someone and taken care of when you’re not around anymore. I know that it’s made you happy whenever you see your nieces and nephews find their partner and be happy with them for the rest of their lives. While you have asked me in both the past and present if I’ll ever get a partner of my own, there’s nothing that hurts me more than to have to lie to your face about not having a partner so that I didn’t open up a conflict about my sexuality.

Being non binary in a relatively religious and conservative family was challenging since you had always been in firm belief that there only two genders and could barely handle the thought of someone you knew changing whatever gender they were born with , just so that they could finally feel comfortable in their own skin. I had always tried to bounce around the subject by buying baggier clothes and trying to make myself look as gender neutral as possible. You had always written it off as it being a phase and that I’ll eventually get over it. I’ve always wanted to please you and make you proud of me but knowing that I can’t be myself around you — my own mother is heartbreaking.

Dear Mom, I’ve never told you this before but it’s time that you knew. I’m bisexual and non binary and I just want you to accept me for who I am and not who you want me to be.