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

Contents:

• HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY
• GROWG UP WH A GAY FATHER – CONFSNS OM A STRAIGHT SON
• SGLE GAY DADS GIVE TIPS FOR FIRST-TIME PARENTS: ‘I CREATED THE VILLAGE AROUND MYSELF’
• ‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD

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.

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

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”! 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.

SGLE GAY DADS GIVE TIPS FOR FIRST-TIME PARENTS: ‘I CREATED THE VILLAGE AROUND MYSELF’

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.

In talkg to both of them over the years, they both claim they had no ia my Dad was gay.

In retrospect, the fact that he was a cheerlear his bt iend was a male hairdrser (who was openly gay) that my Uncle Buddy nicknamed him “Percy” (which my Dad hated) and that my Dad went on to open a home furnishgs store might have been a clue. Realizg his sexualy and beg a gay father the late 1960s, pecially wh me a long way away, mt have been really transformative for my Dad. He lived and around the Oak Lawn area of Dallas (long a predomantly gay or at least gay-iendly neighborhood).

‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD

He was meetg lots of openly gay people & gog to clubs where was OK to be openly gay. Beg a gay father the 1960s. My Dad never actually me out as gay to me or to most people.

I’d known my Dad is gay for some time, but we’d never discsed . My Dad, of urse, was sistent that no one would obvly know he was gay (which also ma Tom and I lgh). Are you a gay father stgglg to e out?