I Love My Gay Dad : I Love (Heart) T-Shirts

Contents:

• MY GAY DAD, MY QUEER FAY, HAPPILY EVER AFTER
• GROWG UP WH A GAY FATHER – CONFSNS OM A STRAIGHT SON
• IM GAY AND IM ATTRACTED TO MY FATHER..
• IS YOUR DAD GAY—OR ARE YOU A GAY DAD?
• HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY
• 10 THGS YOU’LL ONLY KNOW IF YOU’VE GROWN UP WH GAY PARENTS
• THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW
• I LOVE MY GAY DAD GIFTS

MY GAY DAD, MY QUEER FAY, HAPPILY EVER AFTER

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.

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.

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

” 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.

IM GAY AND IM ATTRACTED TO MY FATHER..

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.

IS YOUR DAD GAY—OR ARE YOU A GAY DAD?

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.

HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY

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.

10 THGS YOU’LL ONLY KNOW IF YOU’VE GROWN UP WH GAY PARENTS

I don’t thk anyone knew yet that my Dad was gay.

THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW

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. 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.

I LOVE MY GAY DAD GIFTS

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. How growg up wh a gay father affected me.