Just a Phase...My Firsts

How many times have we heard that phrase coming out? ..."its just a phase"...The implications being, that you decided be be gay on a whim. Like dying your hair bright pink and developing a taste for 70's punk. This off handed comment, often made by parents struggling to deal with there child coming out to them, completely ignores the soul searching and inner turmoil that we have to go through to accept ourselves let alone find the courage to tell those closest to us. It also ignores the fact that being gay is as much a part of us as the color of our eyes or the frustrating fact that I will never be any taller than 5'9". It hard for those around us to accept that we really thought about this....tortured ourselves over it...and that its the naked, unalterable truth. Its so mush easier to dismiss it as a changeable facet of our personality, like deciding to dye your hair.