How To Get Your Mom to Accept You
How To! with Mike Pesca
Peach Fish Projects
4.3 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2020
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Hema first realized she was gay a few years ago after immigrating to the U.S., she knew she had to tell her mom. But the conversation didn't go well. Hema's mom lives in India and is convinced being gay is a Western phenomenon. So how does Hema help her mom accept her for who she is? In this episode of How To!, we bring in Sonali Gulati, a professor, filmmaker and queer rights activist who made a documentary about the parents of LGBTQ people in India. Drawing from her own personal experience, Sonali helps Hema figure out the best way to frame the conversation with her mom. One tip? Speak your parents' language to explain how your life fits their definition of success.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before I came here I was like I was really scared of like all this LGBT stuff I guess. |
| 0:07.0 | Like I've never seen a gay people in flesh in India like I've never met one or people who were like openly gay. So coming here and meeting people I |
| 0:15.1 | remember like suddenly like walking down the road and like realizing tears |
| 0:19.8 | started like flowing down my cheeks and I was like oh shit I'm gay. |
| 0:27.0 | This is how to I'm Charles Duick each week we help listeners work through a problem. |
| 0:33.0 | And this week our listener is struggling with something we've all experienced to some degree. |
| 0:38.0 | How to get your parents to accept you. |
| 0:41.0 | I'm Haima. I'm a biomedical researcher at Ohio State and I'm gay. |
| 0:47.0 | Haima didn't fully admit to herself that she was gay until just a few years ago in her |
| 0:51.9 | mid-20s after she moved from India to the US. |
| 0:55.0 | Initially it was like I didn't want to like be gay so it was like six months of struggle of trying to be |
| 1:01.2 | straight but that never works out. And then I was like |
| 1:04.4 | slowly starting to accept myself finding out people out there finding out stories. |
| 1:11.0 | One of the big issues for Hema is that even though being a lesbian is something she's embraced, |
| 1:15.0 | it's a very different story with her family who still live in India. |
| 1:19.0 | In particular, Hema has struggled with getting her mom, who's a big part of her life to accept this. |
| 1:25.0 | In fact, she can hardly even get her to discuss it. |
| 1:28.0 | Five months ago, Hema called her up. |
| 1:30.0 | I told her like, |
| 1:32.0 | Hey mom, you know you've been searching up for a guy |
| 1:36.0 | so I want to tell you something important like |
| 1:39.0 | I don't think I'll ever get married to a guy |
... |
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