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

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? "There aren't a lot of gay people out there wh a wife and children, " he told me.

THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW

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. ) 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.

IS YOUR DAD GAY—OR ARE YOU A GAY DAD?

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.