After 20 Years of Marriage, My Dad Came Out As Gay — Gay Parents

Contents:

• TOUCHG VIO SHOWS SON E OUT AS GAY TO MORMON DAD
• WHAT’S LIKE FOR A CHILD WHEN THEIR MUM OR DAD OUT AS GAY?
• AFTER 20 YEARS OF MARRIAGE, MY DAD CAME OUT AS GAY
• HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY
• MY DAD COMG OUT AS GAY CHANGED OUR LIV — AND GAVE ME THE COURAGE TO BE MYSELF
• HOW A SON AND DGHTER RPOND TO A GAY DAD COMG OUT

TOUCHG VIO SHOWS SON E OUT AS GAY TO MORMON DAD

LUCIE - Comg out as gay is hard, but g out as gay to your Mormon dad is really Swk was preparg to go on his first missn trip wh the Church of J Christ of Latter-day Sats when he cid to reveal the news that he was gay to his dad, Vghn Swk. He cid to vio rerd his g out to his dad, and posted the reactn the vio above to see how Swk’s dad reacted to him g out as gay.

WHAT’S LIKE FOR A CHILD WHEN THEIR MUM OR DAD OUT AS GAY?

Almost everyone who is gay remembers the profound experience of g out to their parents, the terror and anxiety of tellg people you love that you are not who they thk you are. Although was fictn, Leavt’s novel unrsr the dilemma for the gay parent who clean. She has found her subjects through Colage, a support work for children of gay, lbian or transgenr parents that she was troduced to by her younger sister Paloma, who is also a lbian.

Photograph: Gabriela HermanGabriela was 29 before she uld brg herself to say out loud: “My mum is gay. “What I hear om a lot of my subjects, and n relate to, is that the gay thg tak precence over everythg else, so very ltle is alt wh – like, that there was an affair, that our fay is breakg up, that we’re gog through a divorce, that our fay is no longer. For a while she went to a high-school support group for children of divorced parents, but no one talked about gay parents and she was too nervo to brg up.

Some of her subjects have been raised om birth by gay or lbian parents, eher adopted or through artificial sematn, while others have e om backgrounds like Gabriela’s, where one parent has e out. “It was my first time talkg about , and this guy me up to me afterwards and said: ‘My ex-wife is gay, and we have two adult children, and I never realised what mt have been like for them. The first time my dad tried to tell me he was gay, didn't go well.

AFTER 20 YEARS OF MARRIAGE, MY DAD CAME OUT AS GAY

What I gleaned om his ramblgs were that he believed that human sexualy was a ntuum and that if he hadn't been born and raised a relig fah that shunned homosexualy, he might have gravated more towards that si of the spectm. "Dad told me he's gay. He was gay.

Not maybe gay some parallel universe. My dad was gay now, our actual life. My dad was gay for real.

HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY

Although had never crossed my md that my dad might be gay, wasn't a total shock eher. This environment mouflaged my dad's te sexual inty, both om himself and the rt of dad was his early 40s when he realized he was gay. They thought that "beg gay" would maybe pass, but they also explored the ia of havg an "arrangement" their marriage.

For gay, bi, and queer sons, who may grow up wh the sense that somethg about their masculy is different, your reassurance means the world.

“It's the words that you say that bee the thoughts their heads, ” Flor a recent study, published the Journal of Pediatric Healthre, Flor and his lleagu terviewed 30 gay, bisexual, and queer cisgenr teen boys on their munitn wh their parents about sexualy. Aga and aga, the boys emphasized the importance of an open and ongog clive nversatn about sexualy, one that acknowledg the existence of gay sex.

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

No matter how awkward, the nversatns signaled that ’s okay to e to mom or dad, that they n nfi their parents, and that they n ask them qutns — even before turng to iends or the nversatns are all the more ccial the era of “Don’t Say Gay” legislatn, one terviewee noted. ”Among the biggt securi a gay, bisexual, or queer boy has: that g out will dispt his relatnship wh you.

HOW A SON AND DGHTER RPOND TO A GAY DAD COMG OUT

”In his Journal of Pediatric Healthre study, Flor found that was important to gay, bi, and queer youth that their parents acknowledged sex and were open to clive nversatns about — the discsns helped remove some of the stigma of gay sex and rerced the ia that home is a safe environment.

”Chanc are, you’ve msed up the past — lghed at a homophobic joke on televisn, ma a remark about a man’s feme cloth or prentatn, or reacted wh disfort to nversatns about same-sex relatnships or sex. 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?