I'm gay. And I want my kid to be gay, too.

On a trip in New Mexico during October 2014, (from left to right) Sarah Hansen, Willa Hansen-Kohn, and Sally Kohn. (Courtesy of Sally Kohn/Courtesy of Sally Kohn)

Via Washington Post

By Sally Kohn
  
Sally Kohn is an essayist and a CNN political commentator.

I live in the liberal bubble of Park Slope, Brooklyn, where no yuppie would ever admit to wanting their kid to be anything in particular, other than happy. But more often than not, we define happiness as some variation on our own lives, or at least the lives of our expectations. If we went to college, we want our kids to go to college. If we like sports, we want our kids to like sports. If we vote Democrat, of course we want our kids to vote Democrat.

I’m gay. And I want my kid to be gay, too.

Many of my straight friends, even the most liberal, see this logic as warped. It’s one thing for them to admit that they would prefer their kids to be straight, something they’ll only begrudgingly confess. But wanting my daughter to be a lesbian? I might as well say I want her to grow up to be lactose intolerant.

“Don’t you want her to be happy?” one friend asked. Perhaps he just meant that it’s easier to be straight in a homophobic culture. But this attitude complies with, even reinforces, that culture in the first place. A less-charitable interpretation is that he thinks being straight is superior. When I was a teenager, my father cautioned me against marrying a black person. “I’m just trying to protect you,” he said. But it was impossible to know whether he meant to insulate me from the world’s bias or implicitly rationalize his own.

The idea that no one would choose to be gay is widely held — even in the gay rights movement. In the early ’90s, partly as a response to the destructive notion that gay people could be changed, activists pressed the idea of sexuality as a fixed, innate state. Scientists even tried to prove that there’s a “gay gene.” These concepts about sexual orientation helped justify the case for legal protections. The idea that folks are “born gay” became not only the theme of a Lady Gaga song, but the implicit rationale for gay rights.

“I wouldn’t even choose for myself to be gay,” a friend once told me. It was a sad admission, because she was.

Once upon a time, of course, “gay” meant “happy.” But eventually, the synonyms grew apart. Gay became an unfortunate, even pitiable status. When the gay liberation activist Franklin Kameny launched a simple effort in 1968 to proclaim that “gay is good,” it was because, at the time, it very much wasn’t. Until 1973, the American Psychological Association considered homosexuality a form of mental illness. And while gay-positive culture has flourished since, our aspirations haven’t kept pace. It’s more widely acceptable to be gay in America today, but that’s not the same as being desirable. In my house, though, it is.

Here you might expect me to say something about how, if my daughter were gay, she would undoubtedly face challenges and hurdles she wouldn’t encounter if she were straight. Maybe. And maybe if I weren’t an upper-middle-class white lesbian living in a liberal city, I’d have such worries. But no matter what, I’d want my child to be herself. If I lived in, say, North Carolina, with an adopted son from Morocco, I’d like to think I would encourage him to be Muslim, if that’s what he chose. I’d do this even though his life would probably be easier if he didn’t. It’s also easier to succeed as a dentist than an artist. But if my daughter wants to be an artist, I’ll encourage her all the way — and work to destroy any barriers along her path, not put them up myself. Full story here!