15 years ago today, I posted this comment on my Facebook page:

please pray for Ryan in critical condition at harborview

I had just gotten a call from the emergency room at Seattle’s renowned trauma hospital, asking if I was the mother of Ryan Robertson, and if so, would I come and identify his body.

Countless things have changed since June 30, 2009. Two of the biggest things, in my mind, are: First, Ryan will have been gone from this earth for what will be 15 years in July; he is, tragically, no longer an active part of my life, or the world. Anguish and grief are a part of my very bones, embedded in the marrow, alongside all the wonder, gratitude, joy, and rich, meaningful connection in my life. Second, in some ways I hardly recognize the woman who posted that plea for prayer 15 years ago. I have changed dramatically (for the better, I think). I am far more fully myself than I ever was before Ryan’s death, and far, far more comfortable with my conviction that every single human is deeply good inside, and that God actually does Love every single last one of us more than we could even begin to comprehend.

But here is one thing that hasn’t changed:

Kids like Ryan are still dying. Perhaps some of them are only dying on the inside, using distractions and addictions to numb their feelings of intense pain, but they are surely dying.

This is a plea to those of us – primarily parents – who consider ourselves “progressive” and “affirming.” We aren’t helping those kids when we shame and blame conservative parents. Even if they are parents who support efforts to marginalize and oppress LGBTQ people.

I’m not talking to queer people who need to allow themselves to be in their healing, reparenting process, naming the trauma that happened in their families, setting boundaries and feeling all the previously suppressed anger that they MUST feel in order to heal. Your fury is sacred and necessary, as is that of my own kids who are working to heal. Your rage just may save your life, since many of you have been blaming yourselves since childhood.

I’m talking about people like me – a cisgender, straight woman for whom it is easier to think, “Well, at least I am not like those bigoted parents,” than to see that I had – and have – a lot in common with those parents. It is painful to remember that I, Linda Robertson, wrote an anti-LGBTQ letter to the Seattle Times editorial board back in the early 2000s. Yup, I did that. I feared normalizing “the gay agenda,” and thought that choosing to embrace one’s sexual orientation and gender identity (if it was anything other than heterosexual and cis), was a “sinful choice.” I didn’t understand. I wasn’t educated. And so I believed people I thought were trustworthy…and that made me AFRAID. For someone who claimed to have such faith in a powerful God, I was an anxious mess.

I said this week, during a chance to speak to the Office of Family Affairs at the HHS in D.C, that there is one thing that research has shown over and over: When we’re afraid, we don’t operate from our best selves. No parent makes good decisions or is able to be a sturdy, loving leader when they are in panicked fight or flight mode.

When we are terrified (and especially when we don’t admit that we are), our brains literally aren’t capable of the self-awareness we need to recognize that the impact of our actions is hurting the people we love the most.

I know that more than most people out there. When I was terrified, my brain wasn’t capable of the self-awareness I needed to recognize that the impact of my actions was devastating the people I loved the most.

Parents of queer kids today, on both sides of the aisle, are scared. I have profound empathy for that. I’ve been there. Sometimes I still am there. And when those of us on the left who – in our understandable fear – shame parents on the right, I think we are harming our own kids by blaming outward rather than looking inward. And I also think that, unintentionally, we are harming the LGBTQ kids of those scared conservative parents.

When someone on the left shamed and blamed me after Ryan came out, it ended up hurting Ryan. That wasn’t the intention, but the impact sent me running back to the comfort of the familiar, fear-laden narratives about how dangerous homosexuality was. Those narratives were false, to be sure, but most of the “good people” I knew believed them. Certainly all the Christians I knew did. To question those “clear and certain” biblical beliefs would have been seen as questioning God Himself. So I didn’t. And I cut off relationships with “liberal” people who wouldn’t understand.

Nobody changes because they are shamed or blamed. It just makes us feel like we are bad…and we get defensive.

Just think about the conflicts you have with your partner or parent. When someone tells you how wrong you are, calls you ignorant or selfish, do you feel yourself opening up to new possibilities and ideas? Do you feel yourself become more willing to do fearless self-examination, and more ready to question your previous positions? The thought is absurd. Of course not. And yet how many of us are tempted to use shame and blame ourselves when we feel attacked?

I’m pleading here for us to listen to each other, and to acknowledge that we ALL love our kids. We are ALL wounded parents and leaders, trying to keep our kids safe. In the weekly virtual group I lead for parents – parents from both sides of the political aisle – we stack hands on learning to reflect the truly unconditional Love of God to our children. THAT is what our kids need most – to know that there is literally nothing that they can do or not do, say or not say, believe or not believe, be or not be that will change our Love for them. We are, forever, in their corners, trusting them and believing the best in them.

When Ryan came out, if the progressive people in my life could have seen that my panic – however misguided – was grounded in Love, and so could have come alongside me to gently help calm my fears, I think it is quite likely that I wouldn’t have received that phone call from Harborview.

Kids are dying. We can’t afford to blame and shame their parents. Let’s simply Love them, so that they can learn to Love themselves and remember how to Love their kids.

It is too late for Ryan. But it isn’t too late for so many queer kids out there who have not yet come out. How we treat their conservative parents will make a difference how safe those kids will be when they do.