I Unlearned Bias to Truly Love My LGBTQ+ Child
How do you navigate the unexpected when your child comes out as LGBTQ+ which completely redefines your understanding of their world? For Heather Hester, the journey began in 2017 when her 16-year-old son came out as gay. What followed was a raw, transformative period marked by intense mental health struggles, and substance use issues, forcing Heather to confront and unlearn bias inherited from her conservative, evangelical background.
This is more than a coming-out story—it’s an urgent call to action for every parent and ally quietly searching for a shame-free space to navigate similar experiences.
In this vital conversation, we sit down with Heather Hester—author of Parenting with Pride: Unlearn Bias and Embrace, Empower and Love Your LGBTQ+ Teen—to explore her family’s evolution and how grief transformed into healing and rebirth.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- The essential difference between acknowledging and embracing a new reality.
- The profound ways grief can surface in parenting, and how to work through its non-linear layers.
- The four transformations (Embrace, Educate/Unlearn, Empower, and Love) that purposefully guide parents toward fully supporting and loving their LGBTQ+ child.
- How to let go of fear and choose to lead with humanity, becoming a catalyst for change in your own community.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS HEATHER:
- What does LGBTQ+ mean exactly?
- What was it like for you and your husband when your son came out as gay in 2017?
- What is the intersection of queer identity and grief?
- Can you explain the four transformations—embrace, educate, empower, and love—and how they help parents fully support and love their child?
Learn how her family became freer and more fun after removing the constraints of who they “should be,” proving that when you commit to healing, joy follows.
🌈 Grab your copy of Parenting with Pride: Unlearn Bias and Embrace, Empower, and Love Your LGBTQ+ Teen—available now on Amazon or Bookshop.org and start building a more supportive, affirming relationship with your teen today.
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/93249/9781641709125
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Join Heather’s Substack for stories, reflection, and practical insight, and explore what it means to become more human and more kind in our relationships, our families, and our communities.: https://heatherhester.substack.com/about
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I Unlearned Bias to Truly Love My LGBTQ+ Child
I hope this message finds each of you so very well. I could not be more delighted to welcome Heather Hester, who is the Creator and Host of the podcast More Human, More Kind, the Founder of a support and education platform called Chrysalis Mama, and the Author of Parenting with Pride. Unlearn Bias and Embrace, Empower and Love Your LGBTQ+ Teen. Heather, whose journey into this work is profoundly personal, is a Speaker, Writer, and fierce advocate who has made it her mission to help parents, allies, and organizations move from confusion and fear into clarity, compassion, and courageous action.
She is the mother of 4 extraordinary children, 2 of whom are LGBTQ+, and the wife of the funniest guy she knows. At her core, Heather believes in the magic of human connection and in the idea that belonging isn’t just a feeling, it’s a practice we choose every day. I could not agree more. When their son came out as gay in 2017, it opened the door to a transformative period of unlearning, growth, and radical love, one that revealed how many families were quietly searching for supportive, shame-free spaces to navigate similar experiences.
What began as a deeply personal response to her own family’s evolution has since blossomed into a powerful platform, offering inclusive coaching, LGBTQ+ and human-first consulting, and storytelling-driven workshops that invite people to show up authentically and grow with courage and compassion, which makes Heather’s story an inspiring one of grief transforming to healing and rebirth. Whether she’s coaching one-on-one, speaking on stage, writing, or hosting her podcast, Heather brings a gentle honesty and a deeply human presence to conversations about identity, mental health, parenting, and belonging.
Her work blends lived experience with research-backed insight, creating spaces where vulnerability becomes a source of strength and where healing becomes a shared, courageous practice. I’m looking forward to talking with Heather, who’s joining us from Wilmette, Illinois, about the transformative period of unlearning, growth, and radical love that began when her son came out as gay.
We’ll explore the many ways grief can surface in parenting, the four transformations that gently but purposefully guide parents toward fully supporting and loving their LGBTQ+ child, why healing is essential for growth, and so much more. At its heart, this conversation is a reminder that when we choose to lead with humanity, we create the conditions for healing for ourselves and for one another. Heather, a warm, loving welcome to the show.
Thank you, Irene. That was such a lovely introduction. I’m very humbled. Thank you.
Defining the Acronym LGBTQ+
That’s who you are, and I really love for people to know the expertise and the humanity of the person they’re going to be learning about. They’re going to learn a lot, and you have a lot to teach us because how many of us really are part of this community? It’s a lot to learn. Let’s start about what does LGBTQ+ mean exactly? Some people know what some of those letters mean, but I don’t think they know all of them.
I think that’s a great first question and one I am very commonly asked, so there’s nothing wrong with asking it. L is lesbian, G gay, B bisexual, T transgender, Q there is some discussion on what Q stands for. Some say Q stands for queer, some say it stands for questioning. It depends on who you’re talking to. Of course, now you will see sometimes written some more letters before the plus sign, sometimes people will have an I on there, which stands for intersex. A stands for asexual. The plus, of course, then incorporates all of the orientations and identities that are not already listed there.
If someone is queer, is that different than being LGBTQ+?
No. A lot of times, it is like a package of all that. Yeah, queer it depends on who’s using it. It is like a generational term, like kids that are like Gen Z kids, my kids’ age, tend to use queer as more of a descriptor of their community. “I’m part of the queer community,” so it’s like encompassing all. Sometimes it can be used as, “I don’t really feel like putting a label on my identity or on my orientation, so I am queer.” Somebody might use it in that way as well.
Discussing the Origin of Orientation
Have you thought about is it more generated genetically in people, or is it experiential when kids come out this way? Do you believe that it’s a gene that they have, or is it a product of their environment, or all of the above?
I think that there’s a lot of studies that are going on. I firmly believe that this is how people are created. My short answer to that is if you have ever known someone and watched them come out, especially a younger person, you will know without a doubt that it is not a choice. It is not based on a TikTok that they saw or some person that they were hanging out with. It is part of who they are as a human being. That doesn’t really answer either of those very specifically.
Yeah, but I think it to me, I’ve always thought that’s how we’re built. We’re built heterosexually, we’re built gay, we’re built whatever that is.
I think the best way to think about it is for anybody who’s heterosexual. When did you decide to be heterosexual? You didn’t. That’s just the way you were wired. Anybody who’s gay, it’s just the way they’re wired. I think that might be one of the easiest ways to just wrap your head around it. You know, it’s not something that one day a kid wakes up or a young adult wakes up and is like, “This sounds fun.”
The Personal Story of Her Son Coming Out as Gay
Yeah, it’s a whole community, and it’s just like with anything else. It’s difficult, and they’re struggling, and it’s even harder for them because there are so many prejudices against it. Let’s talk about your personal story. What was it like for you and your husband when your son came out as gay in 2017? How old was he at that time?
He was sixteen years old.
If you’ve ever known someone and watched them come out—especially a young person—you know without a doubt that it’s not a choice. It’s not because of a TikTok they saw or someone they spent time with. It’s simply part of who they are. Share on X
This reveal how many families were quietly searching for this supportive, shame-free space to navigate similar experiences?
It took a little while to actually reveal that because we were very much in our own space of surprise and then dealing with a lot, my son really struggled when he first came out in those first eighteen months.
Did you suspect it at all?
No, we did not.
He did not present in any way.
No. What I know now is that he was working so hard to appear a certain way, to present a certain way. He is the oldest of four kids. Even though my husband and I raised our kids very differently than the way we were raised, of course, your kids are always aware of generationally how grandparents, aunts, and uncles believe in things, and that has a great deal to do with the way that they respond in the world. That affected him a great deal.
Those first eighteen months were really tough, and we were dealing with some very intense mental health struggles. He attempted his life a couple of times. He had some pretty significant substance use issues. It took us a little time of getting him the support he needed and the help he needed and really just protecting our family of six before we got to a place where it was calm enough for me to start looking outward and realizing, “We’re definitely not alone in this.”
It’s also quiet because everyone else is feeling this way. Every other parent is feeling this like, “I don’t know who I can talk to. I don’t know where to ask questions. I don’t know where to find good information. What is good information? What is true, what is not true, what is disinformation or misinformation?” All these things we’re learning now.
Once I realized, like, “I have all this incredible information that I have now gathered over these past 18 to 24 months, and there are other people out there who are going through the exact same thing we did and are struggling in the same ways and are feeling the same intense fears and worries and all the things you go through as a parent,” I just figured somebody’s got to do something about it. I’m going to be that somebody.
When your son came out to you, did he say, “Mom and Dad, I really have to talk to you about something?” How did he stage that? He must have been so nervous.
You’ll actually love this story. He chose a weekend that my husband and I were actually traveling. I never traveled when I was raising them. We had four kids. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay home with our kids. I was a stay-at-home mom. I rarely traveled. My husband traveled all the time for work. This was a weekend that was a couple’s weekend, and my parents had come into town, which was definitely part of this equation of what happened, because my parents were very conservative, evangelical Christians. Fill in all of the blanks.
We were 2,000 miles away, and my son ran away the first night we were gone. He ran away, and my mother called me frantic, of course, like, “Can’t find Connor. Where’s Connor? Do you know where he is?” I’m like, “I’m 2,000 miles away, so I’m supposed to not be parenting right now.” Of course, my next younger child, who was his sister, who he told everything to, she was thirteen. You think about how young a thirteen-year-old is to be thrust into all of this.
She was carrying all this.
She was carrying so much. I’m calling his friends, I’m calling moms, and nobody knows anything except for one friend. One friend said, “Mrs. Hester, I can’t tell you where he is, but he’s okay. Just know that he’s okay.” I was like, “I appreciate the fact that you think he’s okay, but as his mother, being so far away, and it was the middle of the night in Chicago in February. It was like two degrees out. Eventually, I was like, “Listen, I’ve got to call the police.” I had been calling his phone and just it was ringing. I knew that it was still on, like he hadn’t shut it off.
I just left him a message saying, “Listen, honey, I’m so worried, and I’m going to have to call the police to come look for you.” Lo and behold, about two minutes later, he called me back, and he was crying. I was so relieved just to hear his voice. I was just like the relief. You know that relief where you’re just like, “Thank God. He’s alive.” Literally, he could have told me that he had grown like 5 new eyeballs and dyed his hair 13 colors, I would not have cared. This is such an odd example, but that’s just what came to mind.
He was like, “Mom, I’ve got to tell you something.” I was like, “Okay, what’s going on?” he was sniffling and crying, “I’m gay.” I was like, “Thank God, because I thought you were dead.” he was like, “Really?” I was like, “Yeah, really.” He’s like, “You’re okay with me being gay?” I was like, “Of course I’m okay with you being gay.” All the little pieces that go in your brain, like there was a piece of me that like cataloged the fact that he thought that I might not be okay with it. I was like, “Oh.”
Also, though, he had that evangelical Christian dogma.
Right. That’s what got him running. He was like, I said, “Okay, just stay on the phone with me, and let’s get you home.” He was like, “We’re not telling Grandma and Grandpa,” I was like, “Absolutely not. We are not telling Grandma and Grandpa. All I’m going to say is you have some things that you’re really stressed about, and you just need some love, and we’ll be on the next plane coming home.” Teach me to take a vacation.
I can just imagine the conversation with your husband on the way home. “Honey, what are we coming home to?”
He was like he couldn’t hear what was going on. He’s standing next to me, totally panicked, and he hears like the “Of course I’m okay. What?” He’s like, “What? What’s going on?” I’m like, “Our son’s just gay. It’s okay. He’s alive.” he was like, “Wait, what?” that was the beginning, and that’s how he told us, and it was it was dramatic, and whenever I tell the story, literally every single time I’ve told the story, I still get tears in my eyes when I tell it, and he’s so cute about it now.
Confronting Inherited Biases
How lucky he is to have you for his mother. Really, that you were accepting and that you were loving, and it was the beginning of a journey for you, too. I want to ask you. What is the intersection of queer identity and grief? Obviously, grief once you find this out, it’s bringing grief. How do parents create? Here you’re in the middle of this, and you’re trying to create a healing, affirming home before you even know what’s going on.
That navigates not just grief over his change in identity, but now he’s dealing with social stigma, internalized fear which you’re talking about. Do you want to explain that? Did that take a long time for you to create that healing, affirming home? What was that process like, and how did you deal with the grief of that? He was grieving the loss of what he thought was his identity, also.
I love this question for so many reasons. There are so many layers to it. I have a lot to say about it, so just stick with me for a moment. The grief realizing what I was feeling was grief took me a while. Understanding that that is what Connor had been going through to some degree took me a while. It took a while to get from, “Okay, he’s gay. Now I need to understand what does he need. What do I need to learn? What do I need to unlearn?” because that was a whole thing also.
I will back up for one moment and just say in that moment when he told me that, given my background, given the way that I grew up, even though I had left most of that behind, it’s still part of our fabric. It’s times like this where you realize that you still have some of these biases that are hanging around and that are sticking points.
In that moment, I remember standing there in that room and thinking, “There is no way that my child is going to hell because that’s all I’d ever heard. ” I was like, “That is crazy.” I just thought, “Well, I’m just going to figure that out because it’s not true,” but I need to also understand why it’s not true because that’s just who I am as a person. I have to like dig into everything and understand it. I think that was part of like my processing too, was I needed to learn, I needed to understand, I wanted to understand.
Not only that, you didn’t know yet that you were going to be helping a lot of other people with this.
Absolutely not. As you very well know, it’s just silly to even think that you might know what you’re doing ten years from now because life and the universe have their own plans for us, don’t they? Yes, so it took a little bit of time once we got home and once we were really learning from Connor where he had been, like what was going on for him, and he started unpacking all of this stuff.
By the way, he kept this all to himself except for telling maybe one or two people. That’s amazing. What was inside of him? What was my goodness?
It just came out. Talk about coming out sideways, it came out sideways. It came out in every possible way because he could finally relax. He finally knew that his home was safe. That wasn’t an issue. Creating a home that was safe, it was already safe. We just needed to add extra safety to that and learn these pieces that we needed to learn. The grieving part was super interesting for me because I imagine so many people reading this too, and you probably as well, grief, I had always been taught, was you grieve when someone dies. Otherwise, you don’t use the word grief. That’s not a thing.
Not on this show, but yes.
I remember that being such a thing. I never thought about it at the beginning. I remember very clearly about six months in, I was sitting in my son’s counselor’s office, and we were trying to figure out ways that we could support him and things that he needed. Thank God this man was gay, and he just knew. He was so in tune with Connor. He knew like what I needed to understand and guide me. I remember sitting there and just crying because I was so worried about him. He was dealing with bullying, he was dealing with like the whole gamut of things.
He’s taking substances too.
When he you talk about checking all the boxes of maladaptive coping mechanisms, this kid checked them. I was like, “I just feel like my movie reel has exploded.” What I’ve come to learn over time as I’ve worked through this is that was my first realization of “I am grieving.” What I thought all of this that I had thought I’d created is now no longer. What I thought for his future is now uncertain. My future is uncertain. Our family’s all of these things. It was my first step into “This is grief.” This is really important that I sit in this and understand what this is exactly and what it is specifically that I am grieving. Super helpful.
What part of it was the loss of the son you had, and now you had to accept a new kid?
Absolutely. We could talk about the layers and layers of things that I was grieving. I will say also on top of that, about the same time I come from I’m the oldest of three kids, a very interesting family dynamic, but I was very close to my we were bookend girls, so my youngest sister. She was five years younger than me. About the same time, she became very ill, and she lived also in the Chicago area. She had never gotten married. We were like her family, but she was uber successful in business and in that way traveled the world all the time, got very ill, and ended up passing away. In the midst of all of this, she had frontotemporal dementia. For anyone who’s familiar with that disease, you grieve all the time because you’re constantly grieving.
Now you’re grieving two people, grieving a life like that.
Correct. Yeah, so it was a lot. It also became really important for me to understand grief and understand grief and that it’s not something that has a beginning and an end and it’s not something that’s linear. Learning what that looked like for me and how to become really comfortable with being uncomfortable and sitting in that.
My first realization was, “I am grieving.” Everything I thought I had created—everything I imagined for his future, my future, and our family—suddenly felt uncertain. That was my first step into understanding what grief really is. Share on X
Your son was dealing with social stigma and being bullied, but how about you in your community? Now you’re coming out with a child who’s gay, and I know you have another child who’s also gay, and now this was just the beginning. How did you deal with the social stigma? Did you go to counseling, or did you talk to people? What did you do about because you had it in your own family?
All of the above. First of all, one of the things that we decided right at the beginning, the three of us, my husband, Connor, and I, we talked right away about who do you want to know this information and who do you want to wait to tell. The first probably 6 to 12 months, it was only a small handful of people who he wanted to know. That certainly, in some ways, made it easier because we had the wagons were circled and we were keeping it very internally and only with the closest friends and family members who knew.
Once more, people started knowing, we did start dealing with our friends. It’s one of those things that I there were people that I was nervous about telling who ended up being so beautiful and just loving and accepting and affirming, which is even more important. People that I thought like over time might come around never have, and I think that’s been one of the most surprising things to me in all of this.
I was more concerned about what was going on for my son in a social way, and what he was dealing with at school, and dealing with socially, and my other kids as well, how it was trickling down with them. I’ve always had a very small group of friends, and I was like, if they aren’t going to love him for who they are, like these are not my friends.
I look at it as a reason, a season, lifetime people. Some people were for a reason, a season, and things change, and they’re really not for the lifetime, but they’re part of your growth. They got you to a certain point, but now you’re moving on, growing past it with what’s going on, and they cannot step up to that plate.
Before that, I had been a very typical oldest child. I was a major people pleaser and peacemaker. When you have a crisis with your child, you have choices to make. One of the choices was, “No longer am I playing either of those roles because this is my priority.” it’s funny.
In other words, you’re not going to be worried about what other people think anymore.
Prioritizing Her Son’s Crisis
You can decide that in one day, but it doesn’t go away in one day. I just remembered like one part of that question was what did I do. Yes, I had lots of therapy. Thank God, I started seeing a therapist two years before Connor came out.
Really? Why did you see her? That’s so interesting.
A friend of mine dragged me along to this workshop she was going to on self-care. I was like, “Self-care? What is this self-care thing? I don’t know.” I had like all little kids, and I was, you know, a Gen X mom. We don’t do self-care.
Take care of myself? What? Self what?
I can put myself first sometimes? That’s amazing. I remember sitting in this workshop being like, “This is amazing. I’m allowed to do this? This is so cool.” I started working with that woman who did that workshop. She’s still my therapist to this day. We’ve been together for many years.
I have a similar story with my grief and things I’ve been through, and I had worked with a therapist for a long time.
Aren’t you just so grateful? There have been so many instances in my life where I’m like, “The universe is so looking out for me,” because it was just a no-brainer to do that.
I agree with you. It was part of your path. In your own way, you’re a role model and a healer with what you’re doing, and it took you step by step. The people who couldn’t meet you in your steps, you detach from. All of a sudden, there are sometimes other people who step up to fill new spaces.It’s amazing.
Let me ask you this. You created that healing, affirming home and all of that, but there’s a question you had posed. In what ways can grief show up in parenting? How can families embrace radical compassion and resilience as healing tools for everyone involved? You’re in the family, this is all happening, but there’s this dynamic going on with everybody. You and your husband set the tone on this. Was he in therapy too?
He is now but it took him a number of years longer. We did a lot of family therapy, too with Connor. Once we moved through that, then he was like, “This is a good idea. I think I definitely need this.” My husband is one of those perpetually the glass is half full. He’s kind of magical. There are times where I’m like, “I’m so happy that is the way you’re wired.”
Thank goodness you’re blessed with such an open-minded man who’s willing to work with you because not every guy is like that.
I will say that when all of this started happening, we worked with an educational consultant and trying to figure out major solutions for Connor. One of our first meetings with her, she sat us down, and she was like, “I just want you both to know that families that go through this many times get divorced.” We both walked out of that and we were like, “Really?” I think we took it as a challenge. We were like, “We’re going to show you.”
Good for you and good for your husband.
He is a rock star. He’s amazing. I’m very lucky.
Grief and Healing as Non-linear, Layered Experiences
So is he. Don’t forget that. Self-love. Do you want to tell us about these different layers of grief and how healing through one surfaced another?
Yes, there are just so many. I think that’s one of the beautiful things about healing.
It’s like layers, right?
It is. It is totally layers. You don’t know what’s under the next. Forever and ever, I have been using the phrase embrace the beauty and the messiness because while uncomfortable and hard, all of that difficulty also unearths beauty. It unearths traits in yourself or in others in a way that you see the world or the way that you communicate and connect with other people that you just didn’t have the layer above that. In my experience, it’s never been super clear to me like, “I’m finished with this layer and I’m going on to the next.” It’s always kind of that looking back and being like, “This is where I’ve come from and now I’m here.” It’s almost like a layered experience, like a layered evolution more so than checking the box of like, “I’ve got to get through this before I can get through this.”
It’s the same thing with grief. I think a lot of conventional thinking around grief is that it’s these different, you are in denial, and then you feel angry, and then you feel, “I’ve checked that one, I felt anger, now I’m going to move on to the next.” It’s not like that.
It flips back and forth between all of it.
It sure does. It’s one of those things that again, you just embrace it because one day you will feel like, “I’m at peace, and it feels like settled.” The very next day, you could read something or hear something or smell something, and you’re triggered again.
It’s so wonderful. You and your husband got into therapy with an open mind and you wanted help. There are some people don’t walk their talk. They give it they go there, but they don’t want to really change. They don’t really want to learn. Over and over. Would you say?
A thousand percent. Yes, I have a very good friend of mine who we’ve been friends for decades and decades, which is why I can put up with what I’m about to tell you, which is that she is a perpetual victim. She has been to therapy. She could tell you everything that’s in that therapist’s manual about how you handle grief and how you handle trauma and how you handle disappointment or whatever it may be. Does she thrive on being in crisis?
She loves drama.
Yes, she does. I have gotten to the point with her where I give her a certain amount of time, and then I’m done.
Did you learn about that in therapy, how to establish boundaries?
Boundaries. The most magical thing ever. I’ll give her enough listening, and I’m like, “Okay, I think it’s time you need to go talk to your therapist again.” At some point, I just keep thinking at some point, it’s going to click, and it’s going to be like, “Oh.”
You’re hoping, but she may never get it until the next time she comes back to another life.
That’s right. She may not. This might be what she is here to experience. That in and of itself, can I just say, from where I was even ten years ago and in my belief system, I did the whole deconstruction thing alongside all of this as well, to now thinking, “Yeah, I am healing generational trauma. I’m healing lifetime trauma. Now, next time around, who knows what I get to do? “
It’s a picnic. It’s a party. Let me ask you this. You had did therapy, but you did other modalities also. What were some of the other modalities, and you made the comment that their order matters and it led to what you’re doing.
I’ve been thinking about that since you had had repeated that back to me. I think that I meant that it’s good to have a base of understanding of doing that personal work. I could be wrong, somebody wants to prove me wrong, absolutely go for it but I think that some of these more intense modalities would be just too much to be a starting point. I think starting yourself someplace gentle, which I think that a grief therapist is a gentle place to start with healing and then moving into more specific modalities.
I’ve experienced a lot of different things and have been very open to if somebody will say, “Oh, you should try this,” I’ll try it. I’m just curious about the way things work. I have met with a number of shamans. Now, if you would have asked me five years ago even if I knew what a shaman was, I would have said absolutely not. In fact, to this day, I don’t know that I could give you like a clear definition of one, but I have worked with them. It has been fascinating learning every single time about myself and about energy and about interacting with other human beings and about interacting with the universe. I found that to be just extraordinary.
One of the most helpful things that I did was working with a nervous system specialist. She is to this day one of my most favorite human beings. I worked with her for about a year and a half. We started with just fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, and what was sending me into each of those, and why my go-to was freeze or I would dissociate.
I bet you that came from your childhood somewhere.
Offline, we have to talk about mediumship because I’m in search of a good medium. One of the most fascinating things is doing that healing of and cutting the threads and like doing all of that of things. Each time, it hasn’t been like a right away, but it’s been like all of a sudden, a few days or a few weeks later, I will become aware of the way I’m moving in the world or the way that I’m speaking about something so much easier or so much more freely and I think, “Look at that. That’s amazing.”
The Value of Moving from Judgment to Curiosity
Through all of this, you’re releasing blockages also. It gets easier, but people don’t realize that it really is a wonderful feeling to let go of that stuff that’s been like an anchor. Holding you down that you weren’t even really aware of it.
No. That’s it. You just you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know what’s weighing you down, what’s hanging on you, what’s what is causing you to see the world in a certain way. I think the key to all of this is just a small shift to being curious. Of course, it makes you feel more safe to be able to say, “This is good, this is bad, I’m judging.” having that judgment, there’s some faux safety in that. When we allow ourselves to just shift for a moment into curiosity and to have that like, “I wonder what that’s like,” or “I wonder what would happen if I did this,” or “I wonder what that person’s experience is like. What is it like to walk in their shoes?”
It sounds to me like you’ve moved from black and white to gray.
There’s a world of gray.
The 4 Purposeful Transformations (Embrace, Educate/Unlearn, Empower, and Love)
Let’s talk about your book, Parenting with Pride: Unlearn Bias and Embrace, Empower and Love Your LGBTQ+ Teen. You explain four transformations embrace, educate, empower, and love that can help parents towards fully supporting and loving their child. Let it rip. Tell us about that.
This is one of my most favorite things that came to me early on as I was really fully immersed in our experience as a family and beginning to pull it apart and really think about like how we got from point to point to point. I realized that it was an order. I think of it as the three first things. Embrace, educate and of course, educate also includes unlearning. Empower, and then love is like a big bubble around all of it. That’s how in my brain I picture it. I like to share that first before I explain them, just so you can picture it in your brain that way.
I think the first thing that we have to do with anything that is difficult, it’s not just having a child who comes out as gay, but anything that might be a surprise in your life, or a struggle in your life, or you are working through grief, or anything. We have to embrace that whatever that “that” is. Embracing can mean acknowledging it. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re like, “Yes, this is going on.” It’s just it is. Acknowledging that it is and acknowledging, “Okay, what do I need to do? I love this person.” For me, it was, “This is my child. I unconditionally love him. What do I need to know?” It immediately moved into knowing. What did I need to learn to be the best parent for him?
How lucky he is.
That’s very kind. I feel very lucky too. I think because of this kid’s 60 seconds of courage well, a lot more than 60 seconds, but you know what I mean, but because of that kid’s courage, not just my life, like all six of us, our lives are utterly changed forever, like 180 evolved. It is extraordinary.
I would bet you also that you like yourselves better now, too, don’t you?
I love myself now, which I could never have said before. I think that goes for all every single one of them. We are freer, we are way more fun. There is probably a lot more swearing in my house than there ever was before. They were a lot freer to just be them. It took off so many constraints of this is who we should be in this life.
It removed your masks.
It did, it did 1,000% and so much fun. It chaotic, but so much fun. Who they are becoming as young adults now, every day I’m like, “I just feel so lucky that I get to be the mom of these.”
LGBTQ+ Children Providing Unique Perspective on Relationships
I think it’s wonderful. Heather, I want to ask you. How soon after your son coming out did your second child come out or was it the second or the third one? I know you’ve got four.
It’s my third one.
Your third one’s also gay? It’s a guy? It’s a boy?
A girl.
You’ve got a gay girl and a gay son?
I do, yeah. I have LG. I actually knew she was gay before she came out. It was probably maybe two years after Connor came out that I began to realize, like, “I think that she might be,” but of course, I didn’t say anything. It was probably another two years after that that she came to me one day and she was like, “Mom, I think I might like girls.” I was like, “I think you might.”
You’ve got 2 and 2.
I do. It’s so interesting. I giggle. I’m like, “This is so funny.” I have like a boy who likes boys, a girl who likes boys, a girl who likes girls, and a boy who likes girls. How fun is that?
It is fun. It’s fascinating. You’ve got actionable tools and mental shifts you provide in Parenting with Pride that help parents support their teens and themselves to help them become the catalyst for change in their communities, which is what we’re talking about because you’re shifting through your family and your acceptance and being out there. You’re shifting perceptions. Whatever happened with your very conservative parents? Did they come around?
Grieving Relationships with Family Members
No, they still haven’t come around. That’s another form of grief that we could totally talk about. It’s grieving relationships of people who are still on this plane with us that the relationship is not what you hoped it would be. Probably my most recent grieving is grieving those relationships.
Yeah, because in a way, you’ve lost them before they’ve left. It’s hard.
It’s very difficult. I think everybody has a right to do whatever they want with their parents because we don’t know. I would never judge anybody who chose to go no contact. For this time, this point in time, I have chosen to not go no contact, but it is very low contact and it’s very boundary contact.
It’s actually setting an example for your gay kids too, because they need the boundaries and all that and you’re supporting them. How do you teach people to become a catalyst for change in their communities to adjust to this whole new paradigm that people are still walking around?
That’s it. I think it goes back to that letting go of that fear. All of it boils down to fear of something. Maybe easiest things for a person to do is to breathe. It’s to breathe, it’s to pause and start inserting pauses in your day when you feel yourself coming up against something that is uncomfortable, something that you don’t understand, something that maybe yesterday or last week you would have immediately judged or seen as something that divides you from another person. We’re seeing so much of that right now, and it’s very purposeful.
It’s very purposeful and we’re seeing and in your world, in so many other worlds, is the fear of the other.
Yes, that’s exactly right. When you feel yourself coming up against that, first of all, I give so much grace to people and I have a lot of compassion for that because it is insidiously just programmed in us. Everywhere you look, everything you listen to, everything you see is it’s in there somehow. It has to be an active effort on your part to deprogram that. The pause is the easiest way to do that. When you come up against that, pause and recognize that’s what’s happening.
How do you handle that, though, in your community, if you’re coming against unkind remarks and different things that go on?
When you’re able to pause, it gives you a moment to decide how you want to handle it. At bare minimum, it is you don’t join in with the comments that are going on when maybe a week ago you might have joined in or you might have added a comment, you start where you can. This is how growth works. You don’t immediately jump to here. You start with little, tiny steps. I think that is also a really important thing for people to understand, that it is all baby steps. It is all steps of just becoming really aware of what is going on around you. Aware of your thoughts, of how your body is reacting to what’s going on around you because your body gives you a ton of information all the time.
This is how growth works—you don’t jump straight to the destination. You get there through small, steady steps. Share on X
Really becoming more aware of the people you’re interacting with. What are you adding to those conversations? Is it possible to shift those conversations? Do you feel like you have the strength or the courage or the knowledge to do that? That all takes time, but it’s something that each one of us is very capable of doing.
I guess that the other part about it is in a community setting, you get to figure out who’s open to changing and supporting you and being part of your world and who just can’t go there. That’s okay. You can bless them and wish them well.
That’s right. It might sting in the moment. It might be surprising in the moment. When you are able to pause, then you realize, “Okay. Season.”
Let’s talk about Chrysalis Mama. I know you have a powerful platform that so many people now want to avail themselves of that offers inclusive coaching, LGBTQ+ and human-first consulting, and storytelling-driven workshops. This all sounds fascinating, that invite people to show up authentically and grow with courage and compassion. Tell us all about that.
This is a perfect time to be talking about this because I am shifting from Chrysalis Mama. I’ve had this whole branding visibility thing going on. For the first eight years that I’ve been doing this, I’ve done everything behind Chrysalis Mama. I love the name because chrysalis, of course, is how a butterfly changes from caterpillar to butterfly, so it’s a very transformational message there.
I am now shifting into being Heather Hester and so identifying letting myself be more seen and my message and my voice be more heard and doing that through the book but also through my podcast. The platform is still doing all of those wonderful things that you said. I just thought I would note that I’m changing it. Chrysalis is hard to spell.
What are you going to be calling it now?
It’s going under Heather Hester right now as like just the umbrella Heather Hester, but it will eventually have a new name to it. That is a TBD. Heather Hester is also easier to spell.
Sure, it is. HH.
That’s right. I do work with parents one-on-one.
If someone has a child who’s just come out as gay or somebody is grappling with that, they could listen to your podcast.
Yes. There are six years of information on that podcast. They could get my book, Parenting with Pride, also chock full of amazing, really helpful information for especially for a kid who’s just coming out and a parent. If you are really struggling, if you are dealing with really specific painful issues, I absolutely work with parents. I do always speak ahead of time with you before you just jump into working with me. If you have questions, if you’re curious about, “Where am I with this?” I do have a discovery call that I answer all those questions.
You learned how to be a coach? You took coaching?
Yeah. I’m not certified under any of those certifications, but I’ve taken a lot of different courses to learn how to do that. I have created my own program that I work with parents through. If you work with me as a coach, it’s a four-month program that I work on very specific things. I do workshops once a month.
Are they online? Are they remote?
Yeah, they’re online. I would say the easiest way, if this is sparking interest for you as you’re reading this, just get on my email list and you will find out. I’m not a big spammy emailer. When I have important information to share, I share it. I have a twice a month newsletter and then important information. You’ll learn about my workshops that I am doing at least once a month, and I’m starting to amp that up a little bit more. That’s a great way to just get in and get information.
They sound fascinating. Really. Don’t you have a special promo?
I’m so excited. There are so many ways that you can connect with me. That is actually my promo. I was trying to decide what would be the best way, the best one for your community. I think probably my most favorite one that I’m working with like a wider group of people right now, is my Substack. I do a weekly writing in there that is almost I want to say free writing but as a writer, like that is my joy and that is something that I just as stuff comes through me, I write.
It’s like automatic writing.
It is automatic writing. I don’t write only about parenting and LGBTQ+ kids. Actually, my last three articles were about grief, and I talk a lot about greater, broader, more human topics, things that we are all dealing with as human beings. My offer to people reading is three months free in my membership. As if you’re familiar with Substack, that’s the way it works. There will be a code that Irene will have that you can use. Come join me on Substack.
She’s so friendly and welcoming, I’m sure you’ll love being in there with her. My famous question that I love to ask. What is the Heather message about the importance of healing to share with our readers? Join us in our passion, get people out of their suffering.
The Importance of Healing
It’s going to sound like you stumped me on this one. I am trying to think of a concise way to wrap everything that I just said up into one sentence.
I do know that you believe you must heal to grow.
You absolutely must heal to grow. I think I’m going to circle back to one of my previous taglines or comments, which is when you are enabled to embrace that beauty and the messiness and really participate in the healing, the joy follows.
That’s my second question. What is your tip for finding joy in life?There it is. Heal, and you’ll open up those spaces that have been blocked, and then you’ll start to feel joy. Even if you’re grieving. Even if things are not good.
Absolutely. It can feel so frightening to let go and to walk those steps that you need to walk when you heal, when you are grieving, when you are processing through something very difficult. When you get on the other side of that, it’s extraordinary. It’s almost like you can say, “I’m so proud of myself for all the work I just did and all that growth.” Of course, when you’re in it, you don’t feel that. When you get to that, I don’t want to say the other side, but when you get through it to a certain point and you can start to look back and acknowledge what you’ve done.
I liken it to that we’re carrying a backpack full of all our old issues and all the old baggage and all the old stuff. As we heal it, we’re dropping stuff out of the backpack, and all of a sudden, you’re not carrying. You didn’t even know how carrying that stuff around with you was so debilitating for you.
No. I think that’s such a great analogy. I think we can carry extra weight on us physically when we are carrying so much too. A lot of these things can start to manifest in a very physical way. That is probably a conversation for another day.
That’s another one. We’ll come back and we’ll talk about that. Heather, your story’s really inspiring. Your loving wisdom reminds everyone that transformation is possible, that love can be expansive, and that when we choose to lead with humanity, we create the conditions for healing for ourselves and for one another. I want to thank you from my heart for sharing your extraordinary story with us. I wish you and yours abundant blessings always.
Thank you. It was such a joy to be with you. Thank you for having me.
Thank you. As I like to say, to be continued.
Yes. Absolutely.
Guest’s Links:
- Check out Heather Hester’s website
- Heather Hester’s podcast More Human, More Kind
- Heather Hester’s book Parenting with Pride: Unlearn Bias and Embrace, Empower and Love Your LGBTQ+ Teen
- Parenting with Pride: Unlearn Bias and Embrace, Empower and Love Your LGBTQ+ Teen on Bookshop
- Connect with Heather Hester on Instagram
About Heather Hester
Heather Hester is the creator and host of the podcast More Human. More Kind., founder of Chrysalis Mama, and author of Parenting with Pride: Unlearn Bias and Embrace, Empower, and Love Your LGBTQ+ Teen. She is a speaker, writer, and fierce advocate helping parents, allies, and organizations move from confusion and fear to compassion and courageous action.
Heather’s work is rooted in lived experience. When her son came out as gay in 2017, it ignited a journey of unlearning, deep personal growth, and radical love. She quickly realized the need for more supportive, shame-free spaces for parents of LGBTQ+ kids and those seeking to become better allies. What began as a content-rich website and podcast has grown into a platform offering inclusive coaching, LGBTQ+ and Human-First consulting, and storytelling-driven workshops and talks.
Whether through one-on-one coaching, corporate training, her podcast, or the written word, Heather helps people unlearn bias, embrace complexity, and lean into the messy, beautiful work of healing and connection. Her approach is gentle yet honest, research-backed but deeply human. She creates spaces where people feel safe to show up as they are and empowered to grow.
Heather is married to the funniest guy she’s ever known and mom to their four extraordinary kids (two of whom are LGBTQ), and one super sassy mini Bernedoodle. She’s a weather nerd, a lover of indie bookstores and coffee shops, and a yogi who believes in the magic of connection and that belonging isn’t just a feeling—it’s a practice.
