Tell me uplifting stories of hope

[Flylikeabirdinthesky]

My 18 yo DS is gay: he came out to us just before he turned 15 but tbh it wasn't a surprise. He has never had anything than our unwavering love, support and acceptance. It is just part of who he is.

However, we discovered about a year ago that throughout secondary school, he was subjected to the most horrific, premeditated and systematic homophobic bullying at school from Year 7 - Year 11. I'm not going to write down all the details here because it would be really, really upsetting for any parent of an LGBT child to read but be assured, it's testimony to his incredible bravery and strength of character that he got through.

He doesn't have a boyfriend, which is fine because he's about to go off to university anyway. He's highly academic, very aspirational and generally positive about the future. However, he doesn't have a single male friend - partly due to the intensity of the homophobia in his school and partly because, understandably, he is very mistrustful of other boys.

I think the absolute world of him and I'm looking for uplifting stories of hope really... Did anyone's gay DS go on to make a good group of friends at uni? Did they find acceptance with straight male friends / flatmates? Did they find living relationships that enhanced their lives rather than defining them?

OP, I'm so sorry to hear what your poor DS went through at school - what a brave young man, and thank goodness he has got such lovely parents. It is what I fear so deeply for my DS as he goes through the world.

But I'm sure your DS will absolutely love university - it such a massively different culture to schools - and it will be a wonderful chance to make incredible friends and experience a completely different social world. I wish him all the best.

I think I remember @Berks21 writing a really lovely email about his experiences growing up and his life now, which has always stuck with me and which I was grateful to read at the time.

Thank you so much @tangledclematis for your kind words. I'll try to find the post you suggested.
Good luck to your DS too - I wish you all the very best.

Thanks to @tangledclematis for tagging me! I’m so sorry to hear what your son has been through. I hope he’s okay. You sound like a supportive and loving parent which, trust me, will mean so much to him.

I’m hopeful, in fact I’m certain, that his experience will be totally different at university and beyond. It’s a different environment and culture at uni vs school. Behaviours that might have been tolerated or condoned in school very likely won’t be at uni. For a start people do tend to be much more open minded.

My experience of uni was positive, and it was in 2007. I remember just being open with everyone from day one. That was hard as I’m quite introverted and don’t like to stand out but as people always assume I’m straight I thought if I don’t just be upfront with people it’ll be a bigger thing than it actually is. People really didn’t care.

I had one particular group of friends whom I met in my first semester- by dint of living in the same block- who were all straight. They were quite fratty and laddy but totally harmless. I remember thinking to myself how out of place I felt around them all at first but, actually, any insecurity was in my head. They didn’t give a fig about my sexuality. We would have a laugh, go out, and do general student stuff. I also had a few gay friends and straight friends who weren’t laddy at all. All of my housemates in my second and third year were straight (male and female). A lot of my friends at uni would be quite open about the fact that before meeting me they didn’t have any gay friends and their only exposure to gay people was through the media so they had a preconceived idea of what a gay person would be like. I’m sure that’s changed a bit in the past 16 years (gosh, writing that, I feel old) but I think it’s testament to the fact that most people are decent and will see your son for who he is rather than for what he is. That’s the essential foundation for building a friendship.

As I said in the post which @tangledclematis mentioned, when I came out at 17, I lost a few friends at school but I have gained many more. I’m now 34. The friends I lost I probably would have ended up losing contact with in any case as they’ve all stayed home, didn’t leave the area, didn’t go to uni and we’ve ended up on very different paths anyway. Being resilient and positive gets you through the difficult bits. It sounds like your son has these attributes in spades.

The majority of my friends are straight and they’ve always known about my sexuality as I’ve always been open. My sexuality doesn’t define me; it never has and never will. I am really quite boring :D I’m married, have a good job, supportive friends and am currently sitting here on the sofa with our baby boy. If you’d said to me when I was 17 that this would be my life now I’d have thought you were mad. I’m not special, and that’s exactly how I like it if that makes sense. I wish your son the very best. I have a feeling he will be just fine. :)

@Berks21 THANK YOU 💐💐
I cannot thank you enough for this beautifully written post. This is exactly what I needed to hear and makes me feel a lot more optimistic.

It sounds as though university was where you really found that acceptance and it's so lovely to hear about the contentedness you have in family life.

Thank you once again for your kindness and insight.