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LGBT Forum's Fellows share their experiences of family 

In collaboration with the German Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum has collected video testimonies of authentic stories from our Fellows about their experiences with their families. These stories include their families of birth, the alternative families they have chosen for themselves and the families they are now raising.

Families We’re Born Into

The families we’re born into represent our “biological families”  and ancestral heritage. While LGBT people are an integral part of their biological families, they often struggle with their families’ acceptance due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. For some, identifying as LGBT threatens the innate feeling of safety within their families of birth and the communities in which they were raised, while others may gradually find support and understanding from loved ones.

Michael Kirby,  Australia

“I told my siblings first… My mother, I never voiced it until a week before she died. I didn’t feel comfortable about not telling her in her lifetime. So I said: ‘Mum, there is something I feel I ought to tell you,’ and when I did so, she looked at me and she said: ‘Michael, you’ve been bringing Johan (my partner) here for the last 30 years, every Sunday. Do you think I came down in the last shower?’ [An Australian expression for ‘Do you think I’m naïve?’] …That is the great strength of LGBTIQ people: We all have that family, most of who are heterosexual, and that is our outreach into the rest of society. It’s hard to hate people you love.”

Manisha Dhakal, Nepal

“I hid myself within my family… They knew that I was a feminine guy from childhood; my voice is soft, and I used to find it easier to grow up with my sisters and my mother. They know. In childhood that is OK. But when I grew up because of the prejudice issue [they became] very scared for me. They didn’t allow me to go to the office for three days and for those three days I took that opportunity. I told them all the things that I faced as who I am, and that changed me a lot. [It made me realize] how important it is to convince the family, and how to get the support from the family. If we get support from the family then we can progress a lot in our personality, in our activism. If there is no support from the family, it’s very difficult to work in activism.”

Saskia Wieringa,The Netherlands

“My family of birth instilled in me two values; the sense of justice, because they were fighters against the Nazi occupation of Holland, and that is a positive feeling within me. Secondly, a feeling that is very negative in me: the narrow-minded religious fanaticism, with its heteronormative morality, which led to my being silent for weeks on end when I was an adolescent. What I wanted to say I couldn’t say, it wasn’t appreciated. And what they wanted me to say I could not say, I refused to say.”

Bao Chau Nguyen, Vietnam

“After my coming out [my mother] told me I can be anyone that I want, she just wanted me to be happy. I was like, ‘Oh, my mom accepted me.’ But after that she and my father tried to change me a lot. She bought me a lot of girly clothes; this pink sweater that I never wore. But now, the last time she talked in public at my graduation, she said she knows that she is the mom of a transgender [man] and she is proud of me.”

Families We Choose

Family, by its very definition, aims to provide a sense of belonging, unconditional love and support. But when our families of birth fail to provide us with those securities, to whom do we turn? Overwhelmingly, our Fellows agree their families of choice play a vital role in their lives, their self-acceptance and their feeling of safety and security.

Danish Sheikh, India

“I think family for me means something that’s not connected to the biological sphere. So I strongly believe that the families that are really important are the families that we make as we go along, and the families that exist outside the prescribed bounds of kinship, reproduction, biology and the State sponsorship. I believe, as a gay man, I have the possibility of building little communities of love; it doesn’t have to be the one that I was born into.”

Passang Dorji, Bhutan

“To me family is a structure or institute formed with the bedrocks of love. Where there is care and support together, at all times, and when there is care and support of each other, then this can be a family, whether it be biological or family of choice. I am more comfortable with families of choice.”

Nader Turkmani, Syria / Norway

“I have a new family. Kind of. I lost some members of my biological family, or the family I used to have [during the war in Syria]. But right now I have my chosen family, my
husband, my partner. I have my friends, my network. My LGBT community there [in Turkey where he was a refugee for two years]. We are starting a new network in Bergen, in Norway. So I believe this is my family.” 

Saskia Wieringa, The Netherlands

“I started building the family that I really wanted to have; my own family, composed of my friends, my family’s friends, my lesbian friends, my lovers, my ex-lovers, my daughter. That’s my life now as it is: I’m an activist, I’m a mother, I’m a grandmother, I’m a partner and I’m proud of the families I have established.”

Angeline Jackson, Jamaica

“Family is about love and safety. So for me it’s about my birth family, who are able to love me in the best way that they can possibly do as I identify as a lesbian. But also for me it is the family of choice: the friends that I make, the secondary mothers and secondary fathers and my partner. That for me is what a family is right now.”

Families We Raise

Much progress has been made to embed LGBT equality as a fundamental part of the global human rights agenda, including the right to create one’s family, be it through same-sex partnership laws or adoption rights for LGBT couples. Though many still struggle for these legal rights and visibility, many LGBT individuals continue to redefine their meaning of family by raising families of their own.

Wanja Kilber, Germany

“[My son] is the lucky one. He has two loving moms – the best moms in the world; he has me, trying to be a good father; he has my partner. The politicians just have to deal with it. It’s not that seldom – a lot of people have two mothers and two fathers, if their parents get divorced and married again. It’s not a new situation, politicians just have to accept it and make it the new reality. [He is now] seven weeks and four days young, and getting happier every day. I was dreaming about it, since I can remember, and I always knew, sooner or later, I was going to be a father.”

Kelsey, Cha Roque’s daughter

“A few months ago, I came out to my friends. But wait, it wasn’t me who really came out. I told them my mommy is a lesbian and thought, ‘So that is how it feels to come out.’ Even if you’re not the person herself, you’re going to get anxious thinking they’ll despise you. If you have a family a loved one who is an LGBT [person], show the world that you’re proud of them. Then maybe, little by little, the world will start to accept and love them… I got judged and laughed at for having a lesbian mom… I was bullied for not having a dad. But I told them ‘It’s okay, I have two mommies!’”

Cha Roque, The Philippines

“We are very open in communicating with each other, but we don’t really talk about it like, ‘Mom I accept you for being a lesbian.’ It’s not an everyday thing. When you hear this being delivered by your daughter, in front of other people, it’s really heartwarming… She is very outspoken on her social media accounts. If there is an issue about LGBT or human rights issues in particular, she will always say something about it.”

Tamara Adrián, Venezuela

“I had my initial family as a heterosexual man. It was a perfect nuclear family. But things changed when I opened up about being a trans person. I could not see my children for years because their other mother didn’t let me. My children and I restarted our relationship eight years ago. They are independent individuals with no rush to get married. Now I am a bit afraid that I will not be a grandmother soon!”