Isabell's unconditional love for her children and support of their imaginations made it easy for her to accept her son's sexuality.
Isabell's Story
"I thought my son may be gay before he ever told me."
Joshua as a very young boy was put in football, but he did not want to play sports. He would not want to hit people or hurt people, and while I didn't think that was necessarily gay, I knew he wasn't a macho guy. He would dress up every single day of his life -- I am not exaggerating. It wasn't that he was dressed in my clothes, he was just artistic. He would be Robin Hood one day, and he would be a deer the next day. He painted himself one time so beautifully. He had this camouflage all over him, and he was totally nude hiding in a big oak tree.
"As he got older, we had to have sex talks that were sensitive to his sexuality."
We would talk about girlfriends and boyfriends and things like that when he was in high school. I had a talk with him one day, and I said, "You know what Joshua, we have had sex talks and we are very open about how we discuss sex , but it is okay for someone to be attracted to someone of the same sex. That is all I want to tell you." Then he started inquiring about sex in great detail, and we both decided that day that sex is about nerve endings. When two people fall in love with each other be it, male/male, male/female, female/female, it is okay if it is real.
"I didn't want him to be something that he was not."
Joshua would not come out. He would just look at me when I would say, "Josh are you gay? It is okay, I want you to feel comfortable." Every time I would bring it up, he would say "Mom, what is gay? What does that mean?"
One day he came up to me and said, "Mom I had a date tonight," and then in passing he said, "Oh, and by the way, it was with a guy." I was so happy for him. I was so happy he'd told me. I found out he was teased about being gay in high school and I didn't have any idea. He didn't tell me about it.
"I was a little bit sad because I think everyone in the world needs to have a child."
The thought that Joshua will never have children, to be honest, bothered me. It is such a beautiful situation to have a child, everyone in the world needs to have a child. When I knew he wouldn't it was okay, but it was a little bit of sadness.
"When the world stops judging it will be a happier place."
It is important to treat humans as humans. When parents tell me that they don't know how to deal with if their child is gay, I really have trouble because I think that they have trouble with basically who they are. If you are very comfortable with yourself and happy, you don't judge other people. You are at a level intellectually or psychologically that you would not do that. When people feel like they had to send their child away because of their religious affiliation, it upsets me very much. I don't understand that. God made my child who he is, and nobody can tell me any different. To lose a part of your family over something like being gay, to not be close to your family, is a pretty sad situation. I love my son too much to let that happen.
