“Mom, I have a girlfriend,” Jennifer Partnoff
recalls telling her mom two years ago.
Her mother responded, “You do know what it says in the
Bible, don’t you? You are sinning Jennifer.”
Partnoff’s mother died about a year and a half later,
after having eventually come to terms with her daughter’s
sexual orientation.
Sex and relationships often concern maturing teens, but having
to bear coming out leaves some members of the lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender community feeling more in the dark and
ready to keep their identity on the hanger rather than come out of
the closet.
The night 20-year-old Partnoff, now 22, came out to her mother,
she remembers feeling calm.
“I knew when I was going over there that I was going to
tell her, so I was ready. I wasn’t very nervous,” said
Partnoff, a fifth-year history and women’s studies
student.
But all the preparations Partnoff could have done would not stop
her mother from reacting less than welcoming to the news.
Though “it still hurt a lot,” Partnoff said she
expected the response to be disapproving because she comes from a
very religious family.
She said the mother-daughter relationship they shared changed
immediately after her announcement.
While Partnoff’s mother encouraged her to read the Bible
more often and become more involved with church activities, she
found herself changing her interpretation of religion and the
scriptures altogether.
On one occasion, Partnoff remembers her mother approaching her
with a friend from church. The friend was a lesbian but had become
heterosexual through deeper religious studies.
“She came to talk to me because she was ex-lesbian or
whatever, and maybe to try to convince me. But I could tell from
her voice and tone that she wasn’t happy,” Partnoff
said.
Partnoff is not the only one presented with the option of
seeking religious guidance in order to turn away from
homosexuality.
It is common for those initially told of a loved one’s
homosexuality to recommend more involvement within a religion,
Partnoff said.
“It is because (others) view it as a sin,” Partnoff
said.
And indeed others do.
Exodus, a nonprofit, interdenominational Christian organization,
promotes the “message of freedom from homosexuality through
the power of Jesus Christ,” according to its Web site.
Exodus calls homosexuality an “invalid
orientation.”
And with such existing organizations and beliefs, fear of
rejection can be one of the largest barriers to coming out, said
Ronni Sanlo, director of the UCLA LGBT Resource Center.
“It’s all a personal journey,” Sanlo said.
“It is different for everybody. For some it’s easy and
for others it’s hard.”
“For college students in particular, it is telling their
family that is the hardest part. We have people here in the LGBT
center that (those having a hard time coming out) can talk to about
coming out to their parents and friends,” Sanlo said.
Partnoff said fear of rejection from friends and family had kept
her from coming out earlier.
“I came out to two people I was close to when I was 16
years old, but I didn’t tell anyone else,” Partnoff
said. “That was it and I kept it to myself for three
years.”
Today, Partnoff is involved with the campus LGBT center and is a
student activist for LGBT equality issues. But she still carries
with her the burden of coming out to her father and stepmother.
“My (biological) mother passed away, and even though she
never really approved of my sexual orientation, she still loved
me,” Partnoff said.
Partnoff is still wary of coming out and is selective about who
she comes out to, but slowly the closet doors have crept open for
Partnoff as she leaves the darker years of keeping to herself
behind.