Dear Mama, by Armistead Maupin (1977)

Armistead Maupin spent half his life writing his coming-out letter to his mother which he finally - rather than sending it to her - sent to the San Francisco Chronicle. Readers cut out the column, put their names on the bottom and sent it to their own parents. Maupin's father - an avid Republican living in North Carolina - replied weeks later with the note: "Dear Teddy, As you know your mother is very ill, so any additional stress can only exacerbate the situation. Love, Daddy." (via).



Dear Mama,
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write. Every time I try to write you and Papa I realize I'm not saying the things that are in my heart. That would be OK, if I loved you any less than I do, but you are still my parents and I am still your child.
I have friends who think I'm foolish to write this letter. I hope they're wrong. I hope their doubts are based on parents who love and trust them less than mine do. I hope especially that you'll see this as an act of love on my part, a sign of my continuing need to share my life with you. I wouldn't have written, I guess, if you hadn't told me about your involvement in the Save Our Children campaign. That, more than anything, made it clear that my responsibility was to tell you the truth, that your own child is homosexual, and that I never needed saving from anything except the cruel and ignorant piety of people like Anita Bryant.
I'm sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment. I know what that feeling is, for I felt it for most of my life. Revulsion, shame, disbelief — rejection through fear of something I knew, even as a child, was as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes (...). (via)



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