Gay bear vios: The bt of the bt

Contents:

• MY GAY DAD, MY QUEER FAY, HAPPILY EVER AFTER
• GROWG UP WH A GAY FATHER – CONFSNS OM A STRAIGHT SON
• HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY
• THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW
• EXPLORG WHO IS AND WHAT MAK A GAY “DADDY”
• IS YOUR DAD GAY—OR ARE YOU A GAY DAD?
• GAY BEAR VIOS: THE BT OF THE BT

MY GAY DAD, MY QUEER FAY, HAPPILY EVER AFTER

The only hardships of growg up wh a gay dad me om society, not om my wonrfully queer cred: iStockBy Alyssa RoyseMy parents were divorced when I was 6 or so. 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. 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.

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

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

HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS 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.

He lived and around the Oak Lawn area of Dallas (long a predomantly gay or at least gay-iendly neighborhood). He was meetg lots of openly gay people & gog to clubs where was OK to be openly gay.

Beg a gay father the 1960s. My Dad never actually me out as gay to me or to most people.

THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW

I’d known my Dad is gay for some time, but we’d never discsed .

My Dad, of urse, was sistent that no one would obvly know he was gay (which also ma Tom and I lgh). Are you a gay father stgglg to e out? In Loren’s se, he didn’t e to terms wh beg gay until the age of 40 and was married wh children at the time.

EXPLORG WHO IS AND WHAT MAK A GAY “DADDY”

How growg up wh a gay father affected me. The one benef to always knowg I had a gay father is that there was never I time I rell thkg was wrong. I first realized my Dad was gay when I was around 7 or 8, and I have no rellectn of him beg wh my Mom.

Almost all his iends were gay as were most of his employe (those 2 groups pretty much beg the same people). That beg said, I was probably spared a lot of bullyg at school sce no one there knew I had a gay father. I feel que sure I got lucky this regard and that many kids wh a gay father were picked on for their parent’s sexualy.

IS YOUR DAD GAY—OR ARE YOU A GAY DAD?

How knowg their grandfathers are gay affects my kids.

I’m proud of the fact that I and their mother have raised our dghters to not qutn or judge my Dad or Tom beg gay. They don’t see him as my “gay father”; jt my father. Our girls simply accept them for who they are, jt as they do all their other fay members who happen to not be gay.

I always knew he was gay and never had that “my Dad is gay” aha moment of realizg I had a gay father. Together we learned how to be a father and son a day and age where beg a gay father was most certaly owned upon. If you are a gay father or the child of a gay father (or mother), and your relatnship isn’t all that uld be, don’t wa until ’s too late to fix .

GAY BEAR VIOS: THE BT OF THE BT

[Gay Pri Para Rally Dallas] – This photograph is part of the llectn entled: LGBT Collectns and one other and was provid by UNT Librari Special Collectns to Digal Library. My brother picked up the word for "gay" – a word my dad repeated several tim durg that that pot, my parents had told they had problems their marriage, but a few months later, when I was around ne years old, we still went on our annual fay summer holiday to France. Until, out of nowhere, my brother sudnly asked, "Dad, are you gay?

"There aren't a lot of gay people out there wh a wife and children, " he told me. I once tagged along wh him to his favoure gay bar, where I met all the iends he's ma there over the years.

I also knew that my dad mt be gay—bee, well, of urse. While I’d never met an out gay man, I kd of knew what they were supposed to be like om movi and TV, and Dad f the mold: He loved to ok; he cleaned obssively; he kept the Internatnal Male talog around, bee, he said, “I like the cloth. “You know, ” I said to Dad, “I asked Mom once if you were gay.