When Your Child Is Gay: What You Need to Know

“An incredibly compelling and helpful read for parents—or anyone out there—who would like to learn more about the dual processes of raising a gay or lesbian child and growing up as gay or lesbian.” —Cason Crane, Founder of The Rainbow Summits Project and LogoTV’s Youth Trailblazer Honoree, 2013

Coming out can be fraught with difficulty for both parents and child—but Wesley C. Davidson, a popular blogger on gay rights issues, and Dr. Jonathan Tobkes, a New York City-based psychiatrist, provide a road map so families can better navigate this rocky emotional terrain. Emphasizing communication and unconditional love, Davidson and Tobkes help parents untangle their own feelings, identify and overcome barriers to acceptance, encourage strong self-esteem in their child, handle negative or hostile reactions to their child’s sexual identity, and more. Filled with case studies and interviews, along with useful action plans and conversation starters, this is a positive, progressive guide to raising healthy, well-adjusted adults.

Winner of the National Association of Book Entrepreneurs Award for best parenting book of 2017!

Wesley Cullen Davidson is an award-winning freelance writer and journalist specializing in parenting as well as gay and lesbian content. She has written health and childcare magazine articles for parents in such publications as Adoptive Families, American Baby, and Good Housekeeping, to name just a few. For the past two years, Wesley has concentrated almost exclusively on the lesbian and gay community, specifically on advising straight parents of gay children on how to be better parents and raise happy, well-adjusted adults. Ms. Davidson writes a popular blog on this topic: straightparentgaykid.blogspot.com, and was a frequent contributor to the websites gaynewspulse.com and gayagenda.com. Her guest blogs and online articles are among the most frequently visited areas on these sites.  She lives in FL.
 
Jonathan L. Tobkes, MD, is a practicing psychiatrist in Manhattan. His patients include many gay/lesbian people as well as the straight parents of lesbians and gays. A cum laude Yale University graduate, Dr. Tobkes teaches and supervises psychiatry residents at the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. He lives in New York City.
 
FOREWORD BY
Cason Crane is an openly gay junior at Princeton University. He received The Trevor Project's Youth Innovator Award, 2013, for his efforts to raise over $135,000 for the Trevor Project, a leading suicide prevention hotline. He raised the money by climbing the Seven Summits, the world's highest mountains, where he placed rainbow prayer flags. He is the founder of The Rainbow Summits Project. Learn more about him at casoncrane.com. He lives in NJ.