Growg up wh a gay father created challeng for both my Dad & I. His journey out of the Bible Belt & closet was not easy. Most importantly though . . .
Contents:
- HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY
- THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW
- GROWG UP WH A GAY FATHER – CONFSNS OM A STRAIGHT SON
- IS YOUR DAD GAY—OR ARE YOU A GAY DAD?
HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY
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?
THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW
"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. “Gay?
GROWG UP WH A GAY FATHER – CONFSNS OM A STRAIGHT SON
“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.
IS YOUR DAD GAY—OR ARE YOU A GAY DAD?
) 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. 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. Th I never had that aha moment of realizg “I have a gay father”!