Twenty-two years ago, I asked my dad if he was gay. Then he was gone.

Contents:

• GROWG UP WH A GAY FATHER – CONFSNS OM A STRAIGHT SON
• HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY
• MY LIFE CHANGED FOREVER THE DAY I FOUND OUT MY FATHER WAS GAY
• THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW
• MY DAD COMG OUT AS GAY CHANGED OUR LIV — AND GAVE ME THE COURAGE TO BE MYSELF

GROWG UP WH A GAY FATHER – CONFSNS OM A STRAIGHT SON

In late 1980, at a support group for gay fathers, my dad met Lnel –– the man wh whom he would spend the next 23 years. He had seemed kd of lost his new life – phg 60, recently divorced om my mother, recently out of the closet as gay man.

HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY

He asked that I march wh him, alongsi the other gay fathers and their kids, the Los Angel Pri Para. What I do remember was that someone had ma T-shirts that said "I LOVE MY GAY DAD" and I refed to wear one. I told my dad, “I love you, but not bee you’re gay.

” The tth, though, is that I lacked the urage to stand all the way up for my father and his ras agast a homophobic and different world. I probably left my "I LOVE MY GAY DAD" T-shirt next to the box had e out of, though I might have taken home wh me and buried a drawer.

Pete Wilson’s office, or at the Natnal March on Washgton for Lbian and Gay dad and his hband lost a lot of iends to AIDS. Even when I was an obnox 22-year-old and wouldn’t put on a T-shirt to clare, unashamed, unembarrassed and unapologetic, that I love my gay dad.

MY LIFE CHANGED FOREVER THE DAY I FOUND OUT MY FATHER WAS GAY

But I knew he was gay by the time I was 7 or 8. So this is my story of growg up wh a gay father.

Growg up wh a gay father, particularly one who was aaid to e out, prented challeng our abily to get emotnally close.

THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW

I don’t rell a time when I didn’t know my Dad was gay. From my earlit memori of my Dad around age 5, I thk I always knew my dad was gay.

Th I never had that aha moment of realizg “I have a gay father”!

MY DAD COMG OUT AS GAY CHANGED OUR LIV — AND GAVE ME THE COURAGE TO BE MYSELF

To hear both of them tell , my Dad beg gay wasn’t a factor the spl. How my Dad me to terms wh beg gay. I don’t thk anyone knew yet that my Dad was gay.

After all, he was the son of a Baptist Preacher and there would not have been much tolerance the 1940’s or 50’s for him to e out as gay. In talkg to both of them over the years, they both claim they had no ia my Dad was gay.

In retrospect, the fact that he was a cheerlear his bt iend was a male hairdrser (who was openly gay) that my Uncle Buddy nicknamed him “Percy” (which my Dad hated) and that my Dad went on to open a home furnishgs store might have been a clue. Realizg his sexualy and beg a gay father the late 1960s, pecially wh me a long way away, mt have been really transformative for my Dad.