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. 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.

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

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.

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

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

‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD

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). He was meetg lots of openly gay people & gog to clubs where was OK to be openly gay. Beg a gay father the 1960s.