PinkNews celebrates the best parenting wins of 2015.

How parents will handle the news that they have LGBT children can be a constant source of anxiety for the kids involved.

Being in the closet to those around you is hard enough, but if your parents are not accepting of you sexual or gender identity? The results can be downright horrifying.

But this year, there have been countless stories of parents not just tolerating the sexual their LGBT offspring, but downright hitting the acceptance ball out of the park.

Here are our favourites examples of amazing parenting from the last year.

1 This ‘redneck’ father who gave some amazing advice to his gay son

This cute video about the gay son of a dairy farmer in 1950s America tells the story of when Patrick Haggerty received some great words of wisdom from his ‘redneck’ father. If the fact that his father accepts his son’s sexuality isn’t enough to force the tears out of your eyes: just wait till you hear what he has to say about ‘sneaking’.

Watch the full video below, and read our main article here.

2 Mother of bi daughters who silenced anti-gay vandals in colourful style

A real test for the parents of LGBT children is if their child experiences bullying. It can be very easy for even the most accepting of parents to brush the situation aside with a ‘tone it down’ or a ‘hide it’. But that wasn’t what Erin and Joe Delong did when bullies vandalised their garage with homophobic nonsense aimed at their bisexual children.

Instead of just painting over the graffiti, the parents decided to show their support for their LGBT children by turning the garage door into an LGBT pride flag.

3 Dad who penned epic response to trolls who called his son a ‘fag’ for playing with toy kitchen

So what would you do if your son expressed an interest in cooking? Do you encourage him to pursue this thing he clearly enjoys or do you ignore him and hope that your son develops an interest in sports?

One man, who made the correct decision, built a toy kitchen to play with after his son took an interest in cooking family meals. And it was fantastic.

4 The mother who opened up about life with two transgender children

We all know how tough it is to come out to your parents, but it can also be hard for the parents to deal with. Not only do they have to overcome any personal prejudices they may have or handle the fear of their child having a much tougher life, but they also have to learn all of the issues around their child’s LGBT identity and how best to support them (although these days there are plenty of books out there that can help).

Beth McGarrity went through this twice when both of her children came out as transgender earlier this year. But instead of buckling under the pressure or reacting out of fear, she smashed it. At the time she said that she reacted from the gut when her children came out, telling them “I’ll support you no matter what.”

She did admit to feeling a little afraid for her kids, scared that they would experience discrimination, but she can see the funny side.

“I always wanted one of each,” she said.

“Now I still do!”

5 Gay guy shares his surprise after coming out on his birthday to ‘very conservative’ father

Sometimes the words that you need to hear come from the most unlikely of places, and for many LGBT people the depressing reality is that the unlikely place is their own parents.

Brett did not expect the reaction he received from his ‘very conservative’ father when he was outed on his birthday earlier this year. After drunkenly posting that he was ‘a faggot’ on Snapchat, his father asked him if this was true. When Brett said yes, he didn’t hear from his father for a day.

So far, so depressingly ordinary. But then his father sent him a message that simply said “Happy Birthday Son, I Love You more than you will ever know and I am sooo proud of you. I am Lucky to have a son like you.

“Brett, I Love You more today than yesterday, we will talk soon.”

If you are out there Brett’s dad, you have won everything.

6 This trans woman who has to come out to her mother every time she sees her

But of course coming out is far, far more challenging for the person who actually has to say the world ‘I am L/G/B/T’ after being told all their lives by a homophobic society that being who they are is weird and wrong. Doing it once is hard enough but imagine if you had to do that every single time you saw someone.

Tina Healy doesn’t have to imagine. Due to her mother’s dementia, she has to come out to her mother every time she sees her.

But thankfully, her mother is amazing and accepts her ‘new’ daughter every single time explained Ms Healy.

“She said – at the end of it, she said, ‘Well,’ she said, ‘What do you know?’ She said, ‘I’ve got a beautiful new daughter.’ And she said, ‘Come here, love,’

“I go and see Mum every few weeks and she’s forgotten each time, and every time I tell her again, she gives me just the same beautiful reaction that she did exactly the same, almost word for word every time.

“I’m kind of the luckiest one of all because I get to come out to Mum 100 times a year, and every time, she’s beautiful.”

Being amazing isn’t just limited to the matriarch of the family, Ms Healy’s daughter Jessica Walton has also written a transgender childrens book based inspired by her transgender parent.

Read the full article here.

7 Inspirational mother who explained the challenges of raising a trans child

If a two year old tried to tell you that they are trans, would you listen? What if they were your child?

Jodie Patterson, a mother of five, released a video explaining why she listened to her son when he told her that wasn’t a girl. She is clearly nailing this whole parenting thing.

In the video Ms Patterson explained “One day I remember pulling Penelope aside… and asked what is really wrong and why are you so upset.

“And Penelope said, ‘Because everyone thinks I’m a girl, and I’m not.’

“And I said, ‘Oh baby it’s fine. However you feel on the inside is great.’ And the two-year-old said, ‘Mama, I don’t feel like a boy. I am a boy.’”

Whilst she admitted that she was overwhelmed at first about raising a transgender child she soon overcame her fears, saying “you get it together really quickly when it’s your kid.”

Watch the video below and read the full article here.

8 A gay son and father who wrote a memoir about their coming out experience

We have already covered how coming out to your parents is a horrific source of anxiety, and how being the parent of an LGBT child has its own challenges too. But nothing brings people together like adversity (and snacks, but mostly the adversity thing) and now Kevin Newman and his son Alex have found a way to re-establish their relationship.

The father and son have begun writing a book about their experiences, with Alex writing from his perspective as the gay son and Kevin as the father who struggled to accept his son’s sexuality.

Read the full article here.

9 Proud parents who spoke of raising their brave transgender 5-year-old

So 2015 had a lot of transgender stuff in it. Transgender people were everywhere and awareness of the issues trans people face have emerged into the public consciousness. But even then it can take a few years for the parent of a transgender child to come to terms with their ‘new’ son, daughter or non-binary child. Mimi and Joe Lemay were no exception.

They said that initially they hoped their son Jacob’s “obsession with being a boy would go away” when he first started to talk about his gender identity at the age of two. But eventually they realised that their sons feelings were not going away and they did what any good parent would do. They educated themselves and decided to let Jacob live as the boy he is.

Watch the video below and read the full article here.

10 This dad’s moving response to his son’s new toy

The old way of thinking about gender is going away for ever. Slowly but surely the lines between ‘mens thing’s’ and ‘womens thing’s’are getting blurrier and blurrier. You only have to watch that episode of Friends where Ross’ son enjoys playing with a Barbie, much to the comical annoyance of his father, to see how far we have come.

Mikki Willis shared a video on his Facebook where he talked about his reaction to his son wanting an Ariel princess doll.

Watch the video below and read the full article here.

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