Daughter of Two Moms Reflects on Pride Parades Past and Present

Ruth Krebs Buck, who grew up going to Pride parades with her two moms, wonders what happens now that she is grown up and straight. What is her place in the LGBTQ community?

Buck, who just graduated from high school and will be starting college in the fall, writes at Slate about the complexities of her position as she prepares to head out on her own. “I guess I would identify as heterosexual, but saying I’m straight feels like erasing my gender-androgynous, heteronormative-nonconforming upbringing,” she writes. “As I separate myself from my parents, I separate myself from the place in the LGBTQ community that I held as a small child.” Seeing straight friends without LGBTQ parents happily attend a Pride parade, she observes, “They were able to insert themselves into the role of allies without the sense of loss and complexity that role holds for me.”

It’s a great piece and well worth a read both by older kids of LGBTQ parents and by us parents. I remember when I first heard the concept of “culturally queer, erotically straight,” a phrase coined by advocate Stephen Lynch, but which I encountered in Abigail Garner’s excellent Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is. It made perfect sense; it just wasn’t something I’d thought about in the chaos of starting a family and being a new parent. My son, who as far as I can tell is straight and cisgender, is at the same time bicultural, and I should keep that in mind as he grows up and attempts to find his own place in the world. (I should add that of course some LGBTQ parents have LGBTQ kids, but no more or less than the general population.)

That’s one more reason I think ABC Family’s The Fosters, which features older kids with same-sex parents, is such an important show. It provides role models not only for us moms raising older kids, but for the kids themselves, as they navigate the various cultures of which they are part. Thanks to Buck for adding her own notes to the map.