Growg Up Wh a Gay Father - Confsns om a Straight Son

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? “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.

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

“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.

IS YOUR DAD GAY—OR ARE YOU A GAY DAD?

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

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.