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Releasing my ‘teenager’ into the world

5/25/2016

Since I published my second novel, Living Right, this month, many people have asked what it’s like to release my ‘baby’ into the world. I’ve decided that is the wrong metaphor. Babies don’t go into the world alone. Teenagers do.

When Living Right was in its infancy, I only trusted a few people with it. I tentatively asked, Should I keep going? Is there anything worthwhile here? They loved it--perhaps only because they love me--and told me to keep coaxing this story into existence.

A few drafts later the book felt like a preschooler: A little more resilient, but not ready to go out into the world without adult supervision. I gave it to a larger circle of trustworthy people for feedback and guidance. It was strong enough to take their criticisms. I listened carefully and made adjustments that felt right. Living Right was taking on a life of its own.

Elementary school was a breeze. Everyone I gave it to loved Living Right. It made them cry. Oh my! Wasn’t it just the best, most important and beautifully written story ever?! Those were the days.

The middle school years were the hardest. That’s when I brought in the professionals. Some professionals turned it down. Their honest assessment was that no one wanted to read this story. Others were brutal in their feedback, but had hope it could be ‘saved.’ They expected so much of Living Right. And that was what I was paying them for. They had no patience for what I meant to convey. No! They insisted that the writing be precise in telling a story with great pacing, believable and interesting characters, and perfect grammar.

By the time I pressed the publish button, Living Right felt more like a high-schooler than a baby. I was pretty confident that I had done my job well, and that this story could go out into the world without me. It could interact with complete strangers and hold its own. I was still nervous, though: perhaps it is “too gay for Christians and too Christian for gays”; perhaps the readers who loved Mattie and Lisbeth will be disappointed in my second work.

Only time will tell how this ‘teen’ is going to do in the big world. I'll be a coach and a cheerleader as it makes its way in the world, but Living Right will be standing on its own merits. If I’ve done my job, it will take me places and teach me things I hadn't expected, like all teenagers do.

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Conversion Lies

5/18/2016

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But I’m a Cheerleader was my introduction to conversion therapy. It’s a ridiculous comedy that satirizes the movement to “cure” people with same sex attractions. I thought it was an extreme exaggeration, and it left me believing conversion therapy is a joke. Now I know that there is nothing funny about it. Conversion therapy destroys lives: emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It’s an industry based on a lie that profits off of people’s deepest held convictions and their deepest held hopes for their children.

Before I learned more about conversion therapy I believed it was something that was done to teens and young adults by their parents. In my mind the teens were the victims of ignorant and bigoted parents. As a Unitarian Universalist, a faith tradition that embraced LGBT equality for decades, I had a smug sense of superiority towards those parents.

I hadn’t considered the emotional and spiritual damage that was being done to parents by their very own churches, the institution they rely on for moral leadership.

Since then I’ve learned:

-Many of the leaders of the conversion therapy movement were and are LGBT people pretending they had been cured because they were so desperate for that to be true.

-In some religions parents are being told by their ministers--trusted authorities in their lives--that it’s their fault their children have same sex attractions.

-Many of the teens go to conversion therapy voluntarily, desperately believing in and praying for a cure.

The faulty premise of conversion therapy can be summarized: The LGBT person has an insecure attachment with their same-gender parents; the LGBT person has been sexually abused; and the LGBT person has a weak spiritual connection to Jesus and God. Prior to my research, I couldn’t understand how a parent could possibly send their child to conversion therapy, but now I see that the faulty premise of conversion therapy preyed on parental insecurities. The parents feel guilty. They are being told it’s their fault. They’re being promised a cure, so they invest in the snake oil being promised by their religion.

And the pay-off? Salvation. Who wouldn’t invest time and money for their child’s eternal well-being?

Smug superiority is not a good look for anyone, but most especially for someone who aspires to plant seeds of love and justice in the world. I’ve learned this lesson many times in my life. When I look deeply at people I disagree with, I most often find a shared human impulse. The parents who desperately want their children to be straight are scared for their kids. That I can relate to.

I remind myself that my liberal parents had a less than stellar reaction to my coming out. They tried. Really they did. But as I look back at the time so long ago I realize they were afraid for me. They didn’t believe I would have a good life if I partnered with a woman. They were sure I’d have to live in secrecy or face rejection by society? No kids? Their fear was reasonable at the time. They couldn’t know that I would get married, have children, and be respected in the world. I’ve lived a life my parents couldn’t envision because it only existed in our imaginations in 1983.

About 10 years ago, I casually mentioned to a group of children, including my own, that I didn’t know anyone who had two Moms or two Dads when I was growing up.

“Not one?!?!” they asked incredulously.
“Not one,” I replied. “Ask the other adults around the table if they did.
Sure enough, person after person answered “No. No LGBT families in my life as a kid.”
LGBT rights have come so far, so quickly. Those of us who live in a world where it’s the norm can sometimes have a hard time remembering how far.

I’ve watched many documentaries about Conversion Therapy. One of the most heartbreaking interviews was with a mother whose child had succeeded in committing suicide. The despair in her eyes as she spoke about the choices she made that had added to her child’s depression haunts me to this day. I’m grateful to her for sharing her painful story. I pray that it, and so many other stories, will help parents to move past fear for and rejection of their LGBT children to a place of acceptance and support, secure in the knowledge that God’s love is that big.

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Coming out about the n-word.

5/11/2016

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I’ve been thinking about coming out recently. Maybe it’s because I’m ready to have my second novel, Living Right, come out into the world. Since that book deals with a Christian boy’s coming out, I’m thinking a lot about the movement for LGBT equality. I’m acutely aware that the LGBT movement has proceeded at a lightning pace compared to the struggle for equality for black people in America. The contrast is startling.

In the early days of Facebook, a group of my friends from high school were having a discussion about the n-word. I’m not sure how we got on that topic, but a white person ventured to state that it wasn’t used as an insult anymore. One of our black friends told the group that he had been called it, more than once, as a threat. One of my white friends responded that she was shocked, saddened, and disgusted to know that her dear friend had faced that particular oppression.

I was surprised at the conversation because most, if not all, black men have been insulted and threatened using that word. How did my 40-year-old friend not know that was the reality faced by every one of her black friends!? I think many black people keep that particular pain private. I don’t blame them for wanting to keep shame-inducing experiences hidden, rather than ‘come out’ about them. But their silence serves to keep white people in a bubble where they can maintain the belief that overt racism isn’t widely practiced.

I know the initial shame of coming out. And I know the enormous freedom that comes with it, too. Letting the right people, at the right time, know what is true about the painful parts of your life is a gift to both the speaker and the listener. May we learn to do both well. And may our comings-out bind us together, that we may be agents of love and justice for one another.

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Laila Ibrahim is a passionate author set out to write stories of love's ability to transcend human-made systems of oppression.

Living Right goes beyond the headlines to reveal the life and death stakes when a devoted mother struggles to reconcile her evangelical Christian beliefs with her son’s sexual orientation.

Set in the antebellum South, Yellow Crocus is a rich, evocative tale of love, loss and redemption between an enslaved black woman, her privileged white charge, and their fight for freedom.

Acclaims for Yellow Crocus

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