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

Contents:

• HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY
• MY DAD COMG OUT AS GAY CHANGED OUR LIV — AND GAVE ME THE COURAGE TO BE MYSELF
• GROWG UP WH A GAY FATHER – CONFSNS OM A STRAIGHT SON
• IM GAY AND IM ATTRACTED TO MY FATHER..

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.

I once tagged along wh him to his favoure gay bar, where I met all the iends he's ma there over the years. In late 1980, at a support group for gay fathers, my dad met Lnel –– the man wh whom he would spend the next 23 years.

MY DAD COMG OUT AS GAY CHANGED OUR LIV — AND GAVE ME THE COURAGE TO BE MYSELF

He had seemed kd of lost his new life – phg 60, recently divorced om my mother, recently out of the closet as gay man.

He asked that I march wh him, alongsi the other gay fathers and their kids, the Los Angel Pri Para.

What I do remember was that someone had ma T-shirts that said "I LOVE MY GAY DAD" and I refed to wear one. I told my dad, “I love you, but not bee you’re gay. ” The tth, though, is that I lacked the urage to stand all the way up for my father and his ras agast a homophobic and different world.

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

I probably left my "I LOVE MY GAY DAD" T-shirt next to the box had e out of, though I might have taken home wh me and buried a drawer.

Pete Wilson’s office, or at the Natnal March on Washgton for Lbian and Gay dad and his hband lost a lot of iends to AIDS. Even when I was an obnox 22-year-old and wouldn’t put on a T-shirt to clare, unashamed, unembarrassed and unapologetic, that I love my gay dad.

I'm gay. I n't remember exactly what I unrstood of the word "gay" at that pot my life, but whether me om hearg my classmat e to disparage our peers or the nate unrstandg that s existence our life meant plete and utter change to our fay dynamic, I stantly registered the word as synonymo wh "bad.

IM GAY AND IM ATTRACTED TO MY FATHER..

The word "gay" was not a taboo word our hoe. I never hated to pull asi even the tought bulli after hearg them make fun of our gay classmat to give them a piece of my md, and I preached csantly about why the f-word should be dropped om everyone's vobulari anytime was uttered my prence. We would se together as adults and share stori om our childhoods about our gay parents that others wouldn't unrstand.