09/02/2026
You're going to want to read this story ...
In 1977, author Armistead Maupin sat down at his desk at the San Francisco Chronicle and wrote a letter from a gay son to his mother.
At the time, Anita Bryant was leading her infamous “Save Our Children” campaign, built around the idea that gay people were a threat to children. Maupin was writing Tales of the City as a newspaper serial, and one of his characters was Michael Tolliver, a gay man whose parents were conservative Christians and Florida orange growers.
So Maupin had Michael receive a letter from his parents telling him that they were supporting Bryant’s campaign.
And then he had Michael write back.
But there was something readers didn’t know.
Armistead Maupin himself had not yet come out to his parents.
They subscribed to the San Francisco Chronicle. They would read Michael’s letter.
And Maupin knew they would understand.
He has since said that although Michael was speaking, the letter was really his own.
It begins:
“Dear Mama,
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write. Every time I try to write to you and Papa I realize I’m not saying the things that are in my heart.”
And then comes a sentence that, all these years later, still takes our breath away:
“I’m sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment.”
Michael goes on to tell his mother about the shame and fear he carried growing up, about wishing someone had simply told him that he was all right, and about finally discovering that being gay was not something from which he needed to be saved.
Maupin wrote the letter in less than an hour.
Before it appeared in the newspaper, he read it aloud at a benefit at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre. He remembers reaching the end and hearing silence. Then people crying. Then hands reaching out to touch and comfort him.
Over the years, people have told Maupin that Michael’s letter gave them the courage to come out. He now considers it perhaps the most significant thing he has ever written.
And maybe one reason it still resonates so deeply is that the question at the heart of the letter hasn’t disappeared.
What happens when the people being discussed from pulpits, political stages and television screens as a threat to children turn out to be our children?
Our sons.
Our daughters.
Our trans and nonbinary kids.
The children we rocked to sleep and packed lunches for and worried about and prayed for and loved long before we had the language to understand everything about them.
Nearly fifty years have passed since Michael wrote, “Dear Mama.”
The political targets have shifted. Some of the words have changed.
But there are still people telling parents that LGBTQ+ people are dangerous. There are still campaigns claiming they are protecting children while LGBTQ+ children listen.
And there are still children wondering what their parents will do when they discover that the people everyone is talking about are them.
That’s why this old letter matters.
Because sometimes history leaves us something worth carrying forward.
A son telling his mother the truth.
A mother being given the opportunity to know her child more fully.
And a reminder to every parent who finds themselves standing at that crossroads:
When the world tells you to fear your child, choose your child.
Every time.
🩷🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Here's the letter :
Dear Mama,
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write. Every time I try to write to you and Papa I realize I’m not saying the things that are in my heart. That would be O.K., if I loved you any less than I do, but you are still my parents and I am still your child.
I have friends who think I’m foolish to write this letter. I hope they’re wrong. I hope their doubts are based on parents who loved and trusted them less than mine do. I hope especially that you’ll see this as an act of love on my part, a sign of my continuing need to share my life with you. I wouldn’t have written, I guess, if you hadn’t told me about your involvement in the Save Our Children campaign. That, more than anything, made it clear that my responsibility was to tell you the truth, that your own child is homosexual, and that I never needed saving from anything except the cruel and ignorant piety of people like Anita Bryant.
I’m sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment. I know what that feeling is, for I felt it for most of my life. Revulsion, shame, disbelief - rejection through fear of something I knew, even as a child, was as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes.
No, Mama, I wasn’t “recruited.” No seasoned homosexual ever served as my mentor. But you know what? I wish someone had. I wish someone older than me and wiser than the people in Orlando had taken me aside and said, “You’re all right, kid. You can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher just like anyone else. You’re not crazy or sick or evil. You can succeed and be happy and find peace with friends - all kinds of friends - who don’t give a damn who you go to bed with. Most of all, though, you can love and be loved, without hating yourself for it.”
But no one ever said that to me, Mama. I had to find it out on my own, with the help of the city that has become my home. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but San Francisco is full of men and women, both straight and gay, who don’t consider sexuality in measuring the worth of another human being.
These aren’t radicals or weirdos, Mama. They are shop clerks and bankers and little old ladies and people who nod and smile to you when you meet them on the bus. Their attitude is neither patronizing nor pitying. And their message is so simple: Yes, you are a person. Yes, I like you. Yes, it’s all right for you to like me, too.
I know what you must be thinking now. You’re asking yourself: What did we do wrong? How did we let this happen? Which one of us made him that way?
I can’t answer that, Mama. In the long run, I guess I really don’t care. All I know is this: If you and Papa are responsible for the way I am, then I thank you with all my heart, for it’s the light and the joy of my life.
I know I can’t tell you what it is to be gay. But I can tell you what it’s not.
It’s not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity. It’s not fearing your body, or the pleasures that God made for it. It’s not judging your neighbor, except when he’s crass or unkind.
Being gay has taught me tolerance, compassion and humility. It has shown me the limitless possibilities of living. It has given me people whose passion and kindness and sensitivity have provided a constant source of strength. It has brought me into the family of man, Mama, and I like it here. I like it.
There’s not much else I can say, except that I’m the same Michael you’ve always known. You just know me better now. I have never consciously done anything to hurt you. I never will.
Please don’t feel you have to answer this right away. It’s enough for me to know that I no longer have to lie to the people who taught me to value the truth.
Mary Ann sends her love.
Everything is fine at 28 Barbary Lane.
Your loving son,
Michael
09/07/2026
09/05/2026
09/03/2026
09/03/2026
09/02/2026
09/01/2026
09/01/2026