The mourning process is fraught with pain and complexity for anyone who has lost a loved one, but for members of the LGBTQ+ community, it often comes with additional layers of heartache. From being deliberately excluded from funeral services to grappling with deep-seated guilt over strained relationships, LGBTQ+ individuals often face profound challenges when losing a loved one.
For many, their grief, compounded by rejection and exclusion from other family members and support groups, drives the risk of suicide to alarming heights, because they’re often left to navigate their sorrow in isolation. Studies have shown that the suicide rate among LGBTQ individuals is markedly higher, a stark reflection of the added emotional burden they bear.
Aimée’s Grief
Aimée who has been openly gay since she was 13 years old had a difficult relationship with her parents who refused to accept her sexuality. Her mother, a deeply religious women was vocal about her feelings. Aimée says, “My Mom thought my sexuality was the devil working inside me and that I needed to repent. She believed that if I gave my life to God and did conversion therapy, I could be saved.”
What Aimée needed was for her mother to be neutral. Then in 2019, something in her mother had changed for the better. Aimée’s mother met her partner, and the three would talk and have fun together. Aimée says there was a noticeable shift in her mother’s attitude; she was less hateful and more accepting.
Feeling cheated
Six months later, at the age of 45, Aimée’s mother died suddenly from a massive heart attack. Aimée says, “When Mom passed, I felt very cheated. We were finally heading in a good direction and then she was taken from me. That was another level of grief for me because I had experienced my mother being more accepting of my sexuality, and then she was gone.” Aimée felt that nobody understood her grief because it was so complicated with many additional layers.
The pain was unbearable for Aimée after her mother died. She was hospitalized after attempting suicide. Aimée says, “I think that may have scared my father straight. He saw how much my relationship with my mother and her death had impacted me. I felt very alone and isolated.” The profound sense of feeling cheated deepened Aimée’s grief and made her vulnerable to a mental health crisis.
Aimée’s father was becoming more involved in her life, which helped her tremendously. She says, “I would encourage everyone going through the complexities of grief to please reach out to others to let them know where you are at mentally, another death to an already difficult and tragic situation is not the answer.”
Bittersweet emotions
Aimée is engaged to be married to her partner in September. Aimée was thrilled that her father spent time with her and her partner and was talking about attending their wedding. Aimée’s father passed away this past January. “He once told me that he would never go to my wedding because he didn’t support it. And then before he passed, he told me he would attend my wedding and as a musician he wanted to play at her wedding.”
Aimée finds solace in her father’s change of heart. She says, “He did want to put their differences aside. He did want to come to my wedding. It was just unfortunate that he passed away before the wedding happened.”
Because of the intense grief she has experienced, Aimée has a message for others. “No matter who you lose, grief is obviously very complex, even without the added layers of sexuality and gender identity. As awful as it is, it can often bring to light the people who do care about you and want to be there for you. No one can make it better for you, but there are people out there who can make the heaviness feel a little lighter.”
Beaux’s Grief
At the age of 18, Beaux travelled abroad for an immersive theological studies program. In their new country, they developed a community and deep sense of family with those around them.
Beaux says, “The community that I built was around conservative religion and it was in that space that I discovered more about myself. I intended to come out as queer and non-binary in my mid 20s.” The decision to reveal their true gender identity changed everything for Beaux. They say, “Coming out as queer and non-binary, I lost my primary community in a different country. I lost the support systems that I had built there.”
Deep sense of loss
Beaux experienced a loss of choice, loss of friendships, a loss of their entire support system when they were rejected by their church community. Beaux says, “It’s been difficult to learn to trust. I was quite angry that I was required to leave something I didn’t want to leave. It was in their code of conduct that they did not accept queer people and church members wanted to have a conversation with me over what they said were, the mistakes I was making.”
It felt disenfranchising. Beaux asked, “How do I navigate finding a community where I fully get to be myself and feel fully understood in that grief. It’s been very isolating in that grief.” After reviewing their visa options, Beaux decided to move back to Canada last year.
Mis-gendered and dead named
Beaux is accepted by their family in Canada. But some people who have known them for years still refer to them as “she” or call them by their birth name. Beaux says, “It is a grieving process to not be seen, especially by people who are supposed to see you.”
Another element of Beaux’s feelings of grief is that they do not fit into a traditional mother/daughter or father/daughter dynamic and sometimes feel that they cannot meet their parent’s expectations as a result. Beaux says, “I think part of that grief is that there’s a proposed timeline for things that we’re supposed to have with family that a lot of queer people do not experience in the same way.”
Beaux points out that they have lost dozens of people, but those people happen to be still breathing. “I’ve lost mentors and caretakers all because I chose to become more of myself. It has deeply affected my ability to relate to my faith.”
Griefwalk offers inclusion and compassion
Elizabeth Lengyel is the Program Director of Griefwalk, a non-profit charity supported by Lakeside Church in Guelph that helps individuals walk through life’s losses, while being a safe place to find understanding, hope, care, and compassion.
Elizabeth’s heart goes out to Aimée and Beaux and other members of the LGBTQ+ community. She recounts the story of a gay man whose husband had passed away. The partner’s parents who had never accepted their son’s sexuality, forced the partner to sit at the back of the church during the funeral service. Elizabeth says, “It’s quite sad that members of this community can’t be loved and accepted like any other person. If family or friends don’t accept the sexuality of the person who died, that leaves the same-sex partner being excluded from the family grieving process. They feel very alone. They can feel a lot of anger and resentment for having no influence in the grieving process and how they are being treated.”
To grieve well, we must mourn well. Grief is our inward response to loss, our feelings and emotions, mourning is our outward expression of loss. Elizabeth says, “Grieving is our broken heart. It’s that hole inside of us. Mourning is how we demonstrate our grief. If individuals are not allowed to show their feelings, it deepens their grief. And that’s why we see more depression, mental health issues, and suicides, particularly in the LGBTQ+ community.”
With the loss of family, friends, and their best support, they are not only grieving the loss of a loved one, but the loss of life as they’ve known it.
Griefwalk support groups are free to anyone experiencing a loss. For more information visit them online here.
To continue offering help, hope, and healing to those experiencing loss Griefwalk relies on financial support from the community. Their largest fundraiser is the Golf for Griefwalk Tournament on September 6th, 2024.
For more information on the tournament visit them online.