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

Contents:

• THE HEARTBREAKG TE STORY OF THE GAY TEEN AND HIS DAD BEHD ‘JOE BELL’
• MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI
• THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW
• 'DON'T SNEAK': DAD'S UNEXPECTED ADVICE TO HIS GAY SON IN THE '50S
• ‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD
• THREE SGLE, GAY DADS REFLECT ON FATHERHOOD, SURROGACY JOURNEYS

THE HEARTBREAKG TE STORY OF THE GAY TEEN AND HIS DAD BEHD ‘JOE BELL’

In April 2013, Joe Bell left his home La Gran, a small town the northeast rner of Oregon, to walk across the untry honor of his 15-year-old son, Jad, who had died Febary a few weeks after attemptg and his wife, Lola Lathrop, told lol and natnal news outlets at the time that Jad was bullied for beg gay, both onle and at school. He was the only out gay stunt at La Gran High School. In addn to beg the only out gay stunt at his school, he was also the only boy on the cheerleadg squad, and Bell told Salon 2013 that he was bullied for said he uld relate to Jad and his story, bee he was also bullied growg up Texas.

19, 2010, Seth Walsh, a gay 13-year-old livg Southern California, died by suici after beg bullied. Three days later, Tyler Clementi, a gay stunt at Rutgers Universy-New Bnswick, killed himself after beg rerd on a webm kissg another man. 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.

MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI

He had seemed kd of lost his new life – phg 60, recently divorced om my mother, recently out of the closet as gay man. 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.

THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW

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 dad knew he was gay at age 16, but he did what he thought he was supposed to: He married a woman and had children.

'DON'T SNEAK': DAD'S UNEXPECTED ADVICE TO HIS GAY SON IN THE '50S

Once he uld live openly as a gay man, his anger dissipated, but also unvered a well of emotns he had supprsed for years. He was a gay man a society that did not approve of his sexualy. He was raisg a teenage girl—hard enough on s own, but most gay men were not fathers.

‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD

I never felt the need to five my father for beg gay. Growg up, I was a tomboy — or what Larry David would later ll “pre-gay.

THREE SGLE, GAY DADS REFLECT ON FATHERHOOD, SURROGACY JOURNEYS

And while my father was anx when I first me out as gay at 19, I have only ever felt supported by him. Such a photograph would have been extraordarily rare jt s ago, but now is one of many published the book “Dads, ” a four-year visual archive of gay fatherhood across Ameri that began 2016. “I felt a ltle b lonely as a gay dad – although there are two of – but lonely the sense that all the other fai I knew were straight parents, ” Heynen said a vio ll, explag why he began photographg the seri.

“I also thought was important for (my kids) to see other fai wh gay dads. “For many people, the book will be an troductn to gay fatherhood.