By Chris Tompins, LGBTQ Nation, Image: screenshot from site, December 1, 2024
The following is an excerpt from “Raising LGBTQ Allies: A Parent’s Guide to Changing the Messages from the Playground” by Chris Tompkins
We cannot fully address the increase in anti-LGBTQ legislation, queerphobia, bullying, shame, and their effects without exploring trauma. When we think of trauma, most of us think of a rape, murder, death, catastrophic event, or natural disaster. And while these are unequivocally traumas, a trauma is also experienced as a daily microaggression, such as queerphobia, bullying, and time spent in the closet. Any child who has experienced the closet has known shame — and shame itself is trauma.
For years, while working at a gay bar and being a part of a culture where drugs and alcohol were intrinsically connected, I looked at high rates of drug and alcohol misuse in the LGBTQ community through the lens of shame. Having ten years of sobriety myself, I used to attribute my close and personal relationship with drugs and alcohol to shame. It wasn’t until a presentation I saw given by Jeremy Treat, LMFT, director of research and evaluation, and his team at Penny Lane, one of Los Angeles’ largest child welfare agencies, that I discovered how minority stress, daily microaggressions, and the implications for LGBTQ youth living in a heteronormative world are traumatic.
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