Sarah Carabott spoke to an accepting young woman and her gay father, who wants to encourage others going through the process of coming out.

The coming out of her father when she was aged 15 was for Emily Galea a “milestone” in their relationship.

“I remember it clearly and vividly. A part of my dad had been restrained for so long that as a result he ended up building a wall of emotion,” the 18-year-old told The Sunday Times of Malta.

“When he came out, you could suddenly see a change in his body language, his emotions – he was more open and more sensitive. He really changed for the better,” Ms Galea said, adding that together with her sister Hannah, 21, she was now closer to her father, Paul.

Flanked by Mr Galea, Ms Galea spoke to this newspaper ahead of this week’s launch of the #OurChildrenAreAlright video by President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, an initiative of the President’s Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society, with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The video features LGBTIQ families recounting the struggles and joys they face as they attempt to have a semblance of normality in their lives.

The participants have taken the difficult decision to show their faces as they brace themselves for the abuse or praise that will follow once the video is released.

The aim behind it is to start sensitising the public towards gradually changing their mentality and accepting that LGBTIQ families are no different from their own – they face the same struggles as parents and children – but as a consequence of society’s prejudices, their struggles become much harder.

Mr Galea, who says the birth of his “bundles of joy” changed his life overnight, came out when they were 15 and 18. But although he feels a “much freer person” now and has a better relationship with his children, his former wife and himself, “coming out of the tunnel” was a scary experience, he recalls.

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“It’s pretty scary, because you don’t know who’s going to accept you… There is a fallout, you do lose friends. In my case, there were some who saw me as someone who had lied.

“But help comes from quite funny places, and you do get through. Once you do, there are quite rosy fields on the other side.

“You’re more relaxed inside, which I think is very important.”

Mr Galea explained that in the years before his coming out, he was not ready to accept himself as being “one of the others”.

Whether you like the situation or not, you finally admit it to yourself and say, ‘I am gay’

From the moment you are born, society puts pressure on you to conform – as a boy, the only dolls you are supposed to play with are action figures, and you have to play football whether you like it or not.

With society always dictating what he should be, year after year he denied his sexual orientation.

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When the “big questions” started popping up in his teens, he suppressed his feelings, believing they were “not normal”. This continued through his marriage, until the time came when he had to admit it. “Whether you like the situation or not, you finally admit it to yourself and say, ‘I am gay’.”

He described that period as a very difficult one: “You feel that your goalposts have been thrown everywhere and you have to get up, go look for them and start making new ones.”

Mr Galea insisted it was not his place to encourage people in a similar situation to come out, but he just wanted to give encouragement to those who were already going through the process.

His daughter Emily has in the meantime reset her priorities.

While she had been aware that people knew of her father’s coming out and were talking about it, she had not been particularly bothered.

“It wasn’t all butterflies and fairies, but you know people are talking about something they know nothing about.

“So why should that affect me? At the end of the day, it’s not going to really affect my family life. Ultimately, they care more than I do about my father’s sexuality.”

For her, the way to deal with it is to say: “My father is happy now and I love him – why should I get angry about it?”

Ms Galea instead focuses on the people who truly support her family and understand the situation, while “everything else is quite insignificant”.

‘People coming out much earlier’

A Q&A with psychologist and training consultant Cher V. Laurenti Engerer:

A lot of people find it difficult to understand how a person in a heterosexual relationship comes out years later, sometimes even after becoming a parent. Is this a reality you come across?

Yes, this is a reality. I have encountered many people in this situation over the years. We need to appreciate that until a few years ago, gay people were denied the right to become parents and the only route they saw to fulfil their fundamental right and psychological need to have children was to go down the heteronormative route and get married to someone of the opposite sex.

Homophobic sentiment was also much more pronounced in our society and created a lot of fear and discomfort for gay people, so much so that many of them chose to deny their true selves in order to be accepted in their families and communities.

We also have the fact that some gay people remain in denial of their sexual orientation for many years.

I am very hopeful that in the next few years we will be seeing much less of this dynamic, since people are now coming out much earlier and much younger, hopefully avoiding this turmoil for all concerned.

What impact does the coming out of a child’s parent have on them?

This question is hard to answer, because all children react differently depending on their age and personality.

Parents have to be honest with their children, even when at times the truth may hurt them, but timing and age-appropriateness are critical.

It is also a known fact that children do not like change, but instead crave stability and structure.

A parent coming out – just like a separation, death, moving house, birth of siblings or other major life events – usually triggers the same reaction: anger, confusion, sadness and fear. However, if processed well and if the environment is supportive, there will eventually be acceptance and integration.

What are the most common struggles of LGBT families?

One is accepting themselves and coming to terms with their own internalised homophobia, pre-conceived notions and guilt that their children may be denied something children in heteronormative families will have.

Another is choosing schools where such families are accepted and not discriminated against or bullied.

They sometimes have difficulty with family members or friends who do not accept their disposition and choice to be parents. Some children of LGBTIQ parents have been known to be bullied at school about their family set-up.

Insurance agencies and other such organisations sometimes insist on charging them more for family coverage than heterosexual families.

And then there is the difficulty with teachers and carers, who are often not yet prepared to deal with children of same-sex parents and falter when it comes to discussing such families in the classroom.

Why the video?

▪ To support all parents (LGBTIQ and others) to create and facilitate open, honest dialogue with their children about who they are and the different families in our society.

▪ To further promote equality and quality of life for LGBTIQ people, with a particular focus on children being raised by LGBTIQ parents.

▪ To provide a psycho-educational platform designed to generate awareness of the challenges faced and joys experienced by LGBTIQ families.

▪ To give a voice to the LGBTIQ parent through a narrative and personalised approach that the community can relate to and identify with.

▪ To bring out not only the differences but most of all the commonalities between LGBTIQ families and other families. ▪ To further address violence, discrimination, bullying and ill-treatment of LGBTIQ people, especially children, and promote tolerance and acceptance.

sarah.carabott@timesofmalta.com