A GAY WOMAN yearns to be active in RAISING HUMANITY

 excerpt from RAISING HUMANITY by Robin Alexis and 22 Storytellers
 
A Gay Family
By Erin J
 
 
I am a lesbian. I have a very mainstream job in a plastic surgeon’s office in Beverly Hills as a surgical nurse. I am exposed to what everyone wants to be. The ideal Hollywood look: youth and perfection. I feel like one of the most normal girls in the office. I just happen to be attracted to woman more than men.There is an occasional guy that makes me think, “I could like him. I could be in a relationship with him and be happy, and have kids and an easy life.” Maybe I’m ‘bi’ or whatever the politically correct term is at the moment. 
 
It comes down to this. Should I try to be with a man, so I can have kids and a “normal’ life, where I fit in everywhere and my kids will not be teased because of me? I have thought about it many times and sometimes think it would be okay.
 
Most times, I really want to go home with a woman and wake up the next morning laughing about the night before with her, not him. I don’t know why. What is strange is that I don’t feel gay. I feel like all my other friends except that I am more attracted to women.
 
I don’t feel like the lesbians with the rainbow stickers and male-hating personas. I look straight and act straight. I just want to kiss women. I grew up in Los Angeles and am a typical valley girl, wanting my prince to rescue me, except the prince would preferably be a princess. I don’t see the big deal, really. It seems so normal and natural that it is devastating that people are killed for being gay. I cannot even comprehend it. I do think in my lifetime things will change and it will not be such a big deal. Until then, what I do, I do.
 
I always knew I would have kids and be a great mother, just like my own mother. Now in my late 20’s I have been faced with quite a dilemma: how can I be in a gay relationship and have children? Is it selfish of me to create children who may not know their dad? Is it selfish of me to raise children who could and probably will be teased for having gay parents?
 
I want my children to have as perfect a life as possible and I don’t want them hurt or suffering because of me. I could never do that. I have thought that I could find a gay man to be the father of the children and that man could be involved in the children’s lives and be an active dad. Then my own homophobia comes out and I realize I don’t want my children to be associated with so many gay people. This is, of course, because I do not feel gay.
 
At other times I feel like it would be okay and my children would grow up open to all walks of life. Maybe they would not be teased. Is it wrong for me to want children if they will not have a socially acceptable family? Will the parents of my children’s friends think I am some perverted freak and not want to associate with me?
 
Maybe I should look at myself as an example for the future. I do not want to be known as the token lesbian couple. I do not want my family and me to be typecast as “the gay people.”
 
I am open and accepting and see the whole picture more than others do. But, what do I say when my child asks if he or she has a father? Do I have the right to take away the opportunity for my child to have a father? I do not think so. I want my child to have a healthy relationship with a father. I want to have a loving relationship with their father as well.
 
I feel there are many homosexual people who choose the straight life and live in secret simply so they can raise a family in its existing form. What would happen if everyone chose to develop the families they wanted in the manner in which they wanted them? Would society accept diversity? Is it fair for my children to be the guinea pigs for the new America? If I do not use my strength to help start a new American family, then who will?
 
I see a better future full of many people living peacefully, accepting their neighbor’s differences. There is no wrong. There is just love. I want to have the courage to know that love is love and know that I will raise loving, healthy, happy children that will have successful lives and futures and love me and the family I have created. I wish the world would catch up with my vision. Perhaps I will try in vitro.