An open letter to concerned parents:

Dear Mr & Mrs Smith,

I understand that your daughter Jane has just told you that she is lesbian. I am a mother too and I think I can understand how you are both feeling just now. I expect that you are both confused and finding that you know next to nothing about the subject. Homosexuality has been such a hidden and taboo subject that most heterosexual parents find themselves in the same predicament.

Dear Mr & Mrs Smith,

You have a fine strapping son of whom you feel very proud and then one day he tells you he is gay. A father's worst nightmare?

For many men, yes, it probably is, but it shouldn't be. After all, your son is still exactly the same person he was the minute before he told you.

Mum and Dad,

I hate the fact that I'm actually writing what I have to say in a letter, but I can't bring myself to say it to your face.

Over the past year, something has been bottling up inside and things were somewhat confirmed over the summer. After camp and even now, I've put coming home off because I've been scared to be honest.

In January 2002 my daughter Nicola who is 18 had suddenly become extremely friendly with a girl called Vik who is 22. Nicola bought Vik to meet us and she is a truly lovely girl but I noticed that Nicola seemed to be in love with Vik the same way we thought she would fall in love with a boy one day.

Christine says: 'Rachel had just come home after graduating from Leeds University in 2001, and we were enjoying a family Sunday lunch. We've always like eating and talking together. That day, we were discussing the subject of gay women having children, when Rachel suddenly turned to me and said "Actually, Mum, I'm gay"

Mark, the second of my four sons, came out to his elder brother fourteen years ago. He was living in America at the time. It was just after his thirtieth birthday and he was very agitated and emotional. He had been living in America since my husband passed away nine years earlier.

My daughter left home at 19 to (as I found out later) find herself! Some time later she came home for a weekend and asked if she could speak to me without her father being present.I guessed something was wrong and immediately asked if she was on drugs or was she pregnant? She denied both of these and I then asked her if she was gay.

When my daughter, Joanne, finally admitted to me, after much questioning on my part, that she had a 'girl friend', she promised me that it was just a phase and would not last.

I thought she was mad but I kept my cool in front of her and told her it would not come between us.

The date was Saturday 21st October 2000, a date I shall never forget. I was at work, and Donna my wife rang me in a distressed state, saying I must come home straight away. I gathered from the brief conversation, that the cause for concern was our 14-year-old son Ben.

Jane Harris, 36 lives with her sons Phillip, 19, and Joe, 11, in Kent. She works for social services.

'By the time Phillip went to nursery I knew there was something different about him. He was a very polite, gentle boy and straight away the other kids started calling him a girl. Shortly after he started junior school I wondered if he might be gay.