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

Contents:

• THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW
• MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI
• I'M GAY, MY DAD'S A PASTOR, AND ... WE'RE WORKG ON IT

THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW

A gay doctor wh the body of a Greek god relled the moment he stripped off his special Mormon unrwear and walked away om the church a movg Instagram post. 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. “Gay? “I’m not gay.

” she’d said our kchen—after a long nversatn she’d had wh an openly gay iend om llege, Pat, who had, apparently, been a nfidant of Dad’s. Years later Mom told me that, acrdg to Pat, Dad had been active Lexgton and Louisville’s gay club scene. ) But to actually let me —to s on that blue blanket, look me the eye and tell me he was gay—was somethg he uldn’t do.

MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI

“I asked Mom once if you were gay, ” I would have said. 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.

I'M GAY, MY DAD'S A PASTOR, AND ... WE'RE WORKG ON IT

For Heynen, they reprent addnal love and re and help illtrate some of the cisn-makg that, though not exclive to them, all gay fathers mt ntend wh. “Most of the women are Mormon, and Mormons don’t believe gay marriage and gays havg kids. Heynen, as well as the fathers he photographed, hope that the photographs “Dads” will dispel some of the hurtful stereotyp that still lger around gay fatherhood.

Abplanalp never knew when he was younger that fatherhood would be possible for him as gay man.