Copyright © 2017 Telaina Eriksen.
Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.
Cover Design: Roberto Nunez
Theme and Layout: Ronchon Villaester
Mango is an active supporter of authors’ rights to free speech and artistic expression in their books. The purpose of copyright is to encourage authors to produce exceptional works that enrich our culture and our open society.
Uploading or distributing photos, scans or any content from this book without prior permission is theft of the author’s intellectual property. Please honor the author’s work as you would your own. Thank you in advance for respecting our author’s rights.
For permission requests, please contact the publisher at:
Mango Publishing Group
2850 Douglas Road, 3rd Floor
Coral Gables, FL 33134 USA
For special orders, quantity sales, course adoptions and corporate sales, please email the publisher at [email protected]. For trade and wholesale sales, please contact Ingram Publisher Services at [email protected] or +1.800.509.4887.
Unconditional: A Guide to Loving and Supporting Your LGBTQ Child
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication has been applied for.
ISBN: (paperback) 978-1-63353-515-2
(ebook) 978-1-63353-516-9
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
For my sister Tara and my daughter Casandra
Since I began writing this book, the United States has elected Donald Trump president. Vice President-elect Mike Pence has encouraged a federal constitutional amendment banning same-gender marriage and signed a bill to jail gays in Indiana who sought marriage licenses. He wanted to divert funds from HIV prevention to conversion therapy. He opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and complained about the passage of the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill. The Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked 867cases of hateful intimidation/harassment just in the ten days following the 2016 election, including attacks on LGBTQ people. What had been a challenging but optimistic time for LGBTQ people and their rights has become a potential future of rights and protections being stripped from our loved ones, as well as a deepening concern for our children’s physical safety. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know your LGBTQ child will need your love and support more than ever in these coming years.
If you’re wanting honest-to-goodness practical advice from a parent who had to figure out how to raise and support a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning (LGBTQ) child, then you’ve found it here. This book discusses all the stages of parenting an LGBTQ child from toddlerhood to adulthood, how to understand sexual orientation versus gender identity from what to do before the “coming out” to dating and marriage, and all directly from the experience and perspective of a real-life parent.
For me to fully endorse this book, I first need to explain a little about me. I’ve been a licensed clinical psychologist since 2008 and have worked primarily in university counseling centers and community mental health clinics in Southern California. I’ve provided individual, couples, family, and group therapy while specializing in youth, women’s issues, people of color issues, and LGBTQ issues. And much of my passion comes from my own personal experience as an LGBTQ community advocate. I came out as bisexual in 1999, and went on to co-found three bisexual organizations in Los Angeles (Fluid UCLA, amBi - LA’s bisexual social community,