You Chose Your Child
When loving your LGBTQIA+ kid means losing the script that used to hold your world together
To the Parents of LGBTQIA+ Children:
I’m writing to you today, not to your children.
I’ve written to them. I wanted them to know they aren’t alone, and that the cruelty aimed at them isn’t God’s opinion of them.
But I’ve been thinking about you, too, their parents.
Because your pain is different from theirs. You love a child who’s catching strays from some of the most powerful people on earth, and you’re the one who has to look your child in the eye over the breakfast table every morning after they’ve been wounded. Which is, of course, its own special kind of pain.
This week, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, posted on social media that Democrats had nominated “their first transgender Senate candidate” in Texas. He was referring to James Talarico, a cisgender, heterosexual man and Austin Seminary student who has spoken openly about his Christian faith. Talarico’s apparent crime was being an outspoken advocate for LGBTQIA+ people.
Miller’s post wasn’t an accident. It sent a message. It treated “transgender” as though it were self-evidently shameful, as though you can end any argument just by saying it out loud.
So, here’s the thing that’s relevant for us: I’m pretty sure your kid saw what Stephen Miller said. Or will. And if not that, we both know it’ll be something else. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am.
But one of the most glaring problems with that stupid schoolyard taunt by Miller is that it wasn’t just one powerful (albeit creepy) dude being an ass on the internet. Unfortunately, it’s merely the latest installment in a twisted public service campaign that’s everywhere, all the time, aimed at your kid.
The message about what we’re supposed to think of LGBTQIA+ people comes from legislation and from school board meetings. It comes from pulpits and, apparently, the public comments of our politicians on social media. Which is to say, the message that queer kids have received the unenviable distinction of being the target of our cultural contempt comes from the highest offices in the country.
We talk about bullying as though it’s just something kids deal with at school.
But the kid in the lunch room calling your child names didn’t invent that cruelty. Somebody handed them the baseball bat to swing. Politicians have repeatedly called your child a threat. Preachers have spent generations referring to human beings God created and loves as a “disorder.” Officials with national platforms have shamelessly used queer identity as a punchline. So, the kids at the mean table at lunch are just the last link in a very long chain, one that’s wrapped around the hearts and bodies of our queer children.
But that’s not the worst of it. The numbers tell us what that constant message is actually doing to those kids.
In 2025, 59% of LGBTQIA+ young people ages 13 to 17 reported being bullied within the past year. More than a third seriously considered suicide. One in ten attempted it. The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQIA+ young people seriously consider suicide each year in this country, and that at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds. A longitudinal study tracking these young people over time found suicidal ideation climbing from 41% to 47% over that period.
The research suggests that discrimination, threats, and lack of support weren’t merely coincidental; they preceded later declines in mental health.
A peer-reviewed study published in Nature Human Behaviour found an up to 72% increase in suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth following the passage of state anti-trans legislation.
Because all those bathroom bills and anti-trans laws sent a message, and the kids heard it. Loud and clear. Kids didn’t all of a sudden become mysteriously more fragile, exhibiting increased suicidal ideation by accident. They konw what’s being done to them.
And this is the world you’re trying to raise your child in.
Now, I realize some of you came from faith communities that handed you a well-rehearsed script. The script said that your child’s queerness was a problem to be solved. For a while, maybe a good long while, you held that script tight because it came from people you trusted, and because the alternative felt like free-falling.
I know what it cost some of you to put that script down and walk away from it.
I know it cost you friendships, maybe your small group, or the church you’d loved for twenty years—the one where you got married, where your kids were baptized, and where you thought you’d eventually be buried.
But that wasn’t all, was it? It also cost you relationships with your parents and siblings, who still send you obnoxious articles that boil your stomach acid, along with pointed Bible verses that feel like they’ve been mined especially for you. And they do it because they haven’t stopped hoping you’ll come to your senses.
I know it cost you a kind of faith that once felt like solid ground, but now often feels largely absent.
But, with all that, you put that script down anyway because your kid was sitting right there in front of you. And you chose them over all the other shattering noise that can be produced with as well-modulated a megaphone as your critics wield.
This part’s harder: I also know that some of you haven’t put the script down yet. I mean, look, I get it. You love your child fiercely, but you’re also terrified of the world you know falling on your head. The problem is that you’re trying to hold two things together that your tradition told you can’t both be true.
Please understand that I’m writing this because I think you’re not receiving very good pastoral care right now. I don’t have any interest in shaming you.
If you were receiving good pastoral care, I hope somebody already reassured you that other people’s confusion isn’t the same thing as their rejection. But even if nobody’s confused and they still reject you, so what? Your child needs to know you’re in their corner. Not eventually. Now. Because the world isn’t waiting for you to get comfortable before it takes another swing at your kid’s tender heart.
This is me doing the pastoral theology thing for a second.
If your kid’s being swallowed alive, I hope you know that the faith tradition you love, at its truest, has never been about protecting the community from people who’re different. It’s always been about a God who keeps crossing the lines that humans draw, insisting that there’s way more room than we ever imagined.
The Jesus at the center of that tradition consistently and unapologetically moved toward the people the religious establishment reliably kept outside the rope line. He did it because he seemed to actually believe that the other side of the rope line is where God does God’s best work.
To put a sharper point on it, your child isn’t outside the circle. Your child is the reason the circle keeps needing to get bigger.
And you, the parent who’s trying to figure out how to love them well in a world that’s using their identity as a punchline, you’re doing something the faith tradition calls sacred. You’re practicing the theology of the table, the one where everybody gets a seat, because that’s what the host decided in advance.
So, here’s what I can say I think is true.
The grief you’re experiencing is real. The loss of all those people and groups you used to think you couldn’t live without is heartbreaking. So grief is honest, and honest is good.
Another truth: Being furious about what’s happening to your kid makes you a hero. Fury at injustice is one of faith’s oldest, most well-articulated languages.
Also, not having it all figured out on the front end is just how this goes. You already know that. Your biggest responsibility is to love your child. But it’s important to remember that love isn’t the same as having all the answers.
And maybe the most important truth, something you’re already doing: You love your kid. You tell them that you see them, that you’re for them, and that no amount of bad-mouthing from overzealous family members, no amount of political theater from stupid people who’ve never met them will. EVER. CHANGE. THAT.
The research is unambiguous about what that love you give does. LGBTQIA+ young people who receive high family support have 62% lower odds of suicidal ideation. And that’s the most important finding in the data. You’re their parent. You’re not a bystander to what’s happening to your child. You’re the most powerful counterweight to it. Regardless of whether you fight on different battlefields from your kids, you’re called to be the protector for them that you needed when you were their age.
More powerful than any legislation. More powerful than any school board. More powerful than whatever one of the worst human beings on the planet posts next week.
You.
Your child is growing up in a world where the people with power treat their identity as a useful insult and their dignity as an afterthought. Your kid needs to know that when they come home, they’re walking through a door into a different world. One where they’re not a punchline or a political prop or a problem to be managed.
They’re yours. And you’re theirs.
That’s enough. That’s everything.
Be gentle and brave,
Derek
Sources
“Stephen Miller made an anti-trans post about James Talarico. The DNC response hit its mark.” The Advocate https://www.advocate.com/politics/national/dnc-calls-stephen-miller-ugly
“Nearly half of LGBTQ+ young people ages 13 to 17 report being bullied in the past year.” Trevor Project 2024 National Survey https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2024/
“More than a third seriously considered suicide. One in ten attempted it.” Trevor Project 2025 National Survey (most recent) https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/mental-health/lgbt-suicide-rates/
For the primary source, the 2025 survey itself is here: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2025/
“More than 1.8 million LGBTQ+ young people seriously consider suicide each year... at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds.” Trevor Project Facts Page (drawn from the 2024 survey data) https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/article/facts-about-lgbtq-youth-suicide/
“Suicidal ideation climbing from 41% to 47% over 18 months... discrimination and hostility came first.” Trevor Project longitudinal study, reported by CBS News https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mental-health-distress-lgbtq-youth-study/
Trevor Project’s own release of the same study: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/blog/new-study-shows-lgbtq-youth-mental-health-crisis-is-worsening-in-the-u-s/
“A peer-reviewed study in Nature Human Behaviour found a 72% increase in suicide attempts following anti-trans legislation.” The study itself (primary source): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01979-5
Trevor Project press release on the study: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/state-level-anti-transgender-laws-increase-past-year-suicide-attempts-among-transgender-and-non-binary-young-people-in-the-usa/
CNN coverage (for a more accessible link if needed): https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/26/health/trans-young-people-suicide-attempts
“High family support lowers a child’s odds of suicidal ideation by 62%.” Trevor Project longitudinal study, CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mental-health-distress-lgbtq-youth-study/
My love for my children changed my life. It was worth it to go through every doubt, every question, every search of scripture translation to get to the place I am now. I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me for having trans kids and a lesbian kid. I've blocked friends (and some family) access to information about my life, who could have endangered the kids. If there was grief, it was my children's grief that concerned me more than the initial grief and shock as they each came out. Becoming an Ally was a fierce protective momma bear mechanism. And it led me to new knowledge about the Jesus I KNEW could not have singled out these precious ones. I hope any parent struggling with new information about their queer kids will go searching as hard as I did and not stop, just because they are afraid of losing friends and family. Don't sit in self-pity and confusion.. get out there and fight for your kid(s)! It's worth it! Deep down, you must believe that Jesus love is greater and that you were taught wrong. Become an investigator. Read everything you can about Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic translations of scripture. Also study the history of Christian Nationalist influence on how the church made some devastatingly WRONG conclusions to interpret God's holy words. A suggested start would be "God and the Gay Christian" by Matthew Vines. And then I would keep going deeper, by opening your mind to searching as if you are hearing Jesus for the first time. Look at studies about ancient texts and culture. Watch the documentary "Bad Faith" and see if it resonates with you. Don't wallow in your grief, be an investigator! Eventually, you may come out the other side seeing you have a stronger faith and gratitude to have queer children! It is so worth the journey!!!
Derek. Exceptional piece. Parental love can conquer all. The LGBTQ+ choice is based on love and following one’s heart not an act of defiance. Stephen Miller is a disgraceful, hate mongering individual. Is Trump’s ass kissing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent a Miller hated transgender? Is he the husband or wife in his gay marriage according to Miller’s hate criteria. Of note, as a parent I want my children to be happy irrespective of their life choices. Thanks for having the courage to address these real issues with guidance not added guilt.