Last year, my son went to Pride in the CLE with his friend and brought home a gift for his older sibling, who, as many of you know, is nonbinary. It was a rainbow-themed squid hat. It wasn’t just any rainbow-themed squid hat; it was something so large and bright that it would upstage a bishop’s miter!
They are silly hats, but I can hardly describe the joy we had in our household that day as we celebrated both our son’s generosity and our children’s ability to rest in the safety and playfulness of wearing funny hats that celebrated a greater spectrum of God’s creation. In short, they were safe, and they could simply be goofball teenagers.
To be the parent of a queer child is to take a more expansive view of a lot of things. It is, first and foremost, a master class in learning to parent past one’s own projections. When our oldest came out as nonbinary, we had to think more intentionally about gender and cultural expectations that we’d taken for granted. This stretched us as parents, but the great gift was that, from early on, we learned to see the world through our child’s eyes. Their experiences were very different from our own, and we were given a gift of that wider perspective from them.
That doesn’t mean we stopped being parents! Our responsibility is the same as that of any parents: to provide for our children, to keep them safe, and to raise them up as healthy people who are aware of their own needs and those of others.
This Sunday, we celebrate Pride Sunday, a celebration of the spectrum of God’s creation and the diverse gifts of human sexuality and gender expression. It’s pastoral care, as we support and love one another. It’s witness, as we proclaim that God’s vision for the world is one of inclusion and joy. And it’s also commitment, as we promise to build a world that is safe and nurturing for all God’s children, especially those who are members of the queer community.
It is a gift to be the parent of an LGBTQ+ child. It is also a gift to be a pastor and a dean of a cathedral that celebrates and values the diversity of God’s creation. For that, I give great thanks, and I look forward to celebrating with you on Sunday!
Faithfully,
