PFLAG Santa Cruz County is proud to announce the Tuesday, August 13th meeting “Does It Get Better for Parents: Parental Reactions to Children Coming Out as LGBTQ”
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
7:00 – 9:00 pm
First Congregational Church of Santa Cruz
900 High Street, Santa Cruz, 95060
Please join families from around Santa Cruz County as they come together to hear Taylor Field’s (Oberlin ’15) presentation of her national research entitled “Does It Get Better for Parents”, for which she received an Oberlin College Jerome Davis Research Award, a study grant for field work in the social sciences. Discussion to follow. All welcome!
The first hour of the PFLAG Santa Cruz County (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians & Gays) meeting is dedicated to discussion groups followed by a brief break. The second hour is dedicated to our August program.
About “Does It Get Better for Parents: Parental Reactions to Children Coming Out as LGBTQ”
Although the LGBT community is somewhat familiar with each other’s individual parental “coming out” stories, Taylor interviewed 60 parents from around the country about their experiences on first learning that they’d been blessed with a queer son or daughter.
In addition to sharing the serious, heartwarming and often humorous stories of parents dealing with the blooming of their Queer offspring, Taylor has, in her interviews, asked parents about not just their initial actions and reactions, but also about how their feelings and views have changed over time. Her study focused on how parents felt they should react & the reality of their reactions. Taylor has put a particular emphasis on transgender children, adult children coming out, and fathers’ reactions.
- How does one progress from surprise and fear to acceptance and understanding?
- What is the coming out journey/transition of a parent?
- How are parent’s stories the same and how are they different, especially in recent years?
- How do parents look at themselves and judge their own reactions?
About Taylor Field
Taylor is a college junior, originally from Winchester, MA, majoring in Sociology at Oberlin College. She also plans to minor in Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies and Creative Writing. She enjoys all sorts of writing and plays volleyball in her spare time. She also was recently promoted to Managing Editor at the newspaper on campus, The Oberlin Review, for her fifth semester at the paper. She’s also worked at the Office of Environmental Sustainability at Oberlin, helping to spread the word about the importance of sustainability on campus. This spring she plans to study abroad at a social sciences program in Amsterdam.
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students in an integrated, co-educational environment.
Taylor can be contacted at: tfield@oberlin.edu
PFLAG SCC is honored to host Taylor for the Santa Cruz stop of her national summer “Does It Get Better” PFLAG chapter tour.
Donate $5 to PFLAG. Text HERO to 81550, and Johnson & Johnson will match your donation.
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) of Santa Cruz County meets the second Tuesday of every month from 7-9 pm at First Congregational Church of Santa Cruz at 900 High Street in Santa Cruz.
Contact us at pflagscc@gmail.com, www.pflagscc.org, or call (831) 427-4016