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

gay doctors and dads

Photographer Bart Heynen set out across the untry to make a visual archive of gay fatherhood "Dads."

Contents:

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.

MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI

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.

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

” 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. “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.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* GAY DOCTORS AND DADS

'Dads': A new photobook celebrat gay fathers wh their fai across Ameri | CNN .

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