Advice Archives

Abigail Garner and her brother, 1975

My online advice column, “Answers from Abigail” started because I began receiving unsolicited questions about LGBT families and relationships as soon as I launched FamiliesLikeMine.com in 1999. By 2001, I officially declared myself an advice columnist and began publicly posting my answers to selected questions on a monthly basis for nearly six years.

While I no longer respond to personal requests for advice, the archives of my published column remain here as a resource for LGBT families and our allies. While most of these questions are over a decade old, the need to address challenges and conflicts in LGBT families does not have an expiration date.

Please take a look around and see if you can find the answers you are looking for. Use the search feature in the right margin, as well as the categories to explore the topics I’ve addressed. The category “Reply Included” are questions to which the person who asked the original question read my advice and then posted a follow-up in the comments.

Additionally, here’s my short-hand responses to the three most common questions:

  • How do I come out to my kids? Should I come out? When should I come out?
    You are not alone in feeling lost about this issue. See the archives on this topic. I am asked so much, I devoted an entire chapter to it in Families Like Mine.
  • How will having gay parents affect my children?
    Kids are individuals and since I don’t personally know yours, it’s not fair for me to say. Again: read the archives and read other people’s comments for additional perspectives. My book will give you a broad overview of how adult kids think they were affected by having gay parents.
  • What about my children’s sexual orientation?
    A hot-button issue for us all. The last two chapters of Families Like Mine are all about this. The short answer is some turn out queer, some turn out heterosexual. It is their process in “coming out” either way that is notably different from kids with straight parents.

I have found that 9 out of 10 requests for advice from me are by people who have not read my book, Families Like Mine, because they are asking about issues that my book addresses. Find Families Like Mine at your local bookstore or order it online.

In pride,
Abigail Garner

P.S. If you are interested in reprinting material from this site in your print or online publication, contact me for details.