Parents of queer teen ‘stopped loving’ them when they came out. Now, they’re looking for a new family

A queer teenager wants to find their forever family after their parents “started not loving” them when they came out.

Dax, a 16-year-old student from Oklahoma, told KFOR that they had been adopted and lived with a family for seven years before they were abandoned for being queer.

“It was nice, but then they like – they started not loving me anymore for who I was, being LGBTQ,” Dax said.

Dax shared they loved showing chickens and had successfully “raised 26 little ones” by themself. They also loved going to school because it is “basically my getaway from home”.

The teen told KFOR they hoped to find a new family to adopt them and “give me a chance”.

Ideally, Dax said they would like to be adopted by a same-sex couple or “someone who is very understanding of my situation”.

They said they would also love to join a family that enjoys doing “family stuff” like “going places together, going on road trips, doing stuff together” or “going bowling”.

“Give me a chance,” Dax said. “I’m open-minded, I care about a lot of different kinds of people. [I have] a good soul.”

Same-sex couples can legally adopt and foster children in Oklahoma, but the state doesn’t make it easy for LGBT+ parents to bring new children into their families.

Oklahoma passed a law in 2018 that allows faith-based adoption and fostering agencies to choose not to place children in LGBT+ homes because of their religious beliefs.

LGBT+ youth are “overrepresented” in the US foster care system, according to the HRC Foundation. The foundation said LGBT+ children and youth enter the foster care system for “many of the same reasons as non-LGBTQ youth in care”.

It said many queer young people face an additional “layer of trauma” that “comes with being rejected or mistreated because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression”.

• Dec 01 2023

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