Times have changed

When my father first came out, at least within the family, I didn’t tell anyone. I was a shamed which is no surprise since we were not even allowed to discuss it with each other. “Allowed” might be too strong a word since no one ever said we could not discuss it, we just didn’t. It was clearly a subject that made my parents uncomfortable and things such as a person’s sexuality were not discussed with children.

So we didn’t talk about it. I wrote a little about in my journal but that was something the teachers at school looked at, I didn’t keep a private journal for years to come, so I didn’t say much about it and what I did was written in code so the teachers didn’t know what I was talking about. It’s funny I wrote about my parents drinking with no concern for what the teachers might think, and if they did think anything they never said a word, but I wasn’t willing to let our family secret out of the bag.

Eventually, as I got older and realized that people knew my dad was gay, I didn’t hide it so much. After my first divorce I dated a man who had been left by his wife when she came out as a lesbian. They had a daughter so I could relate to her pretty easily but even more important to me was that they, the divorced couple, seemed to be handling the whole situation rather well. The relationship with this guy lasted for a couple of years but was never meant to be anything serious. He came into my life when I needed him and left when I didn’t any longer. I learned an incredible amount about myself and other people due to this man. After this relationship, whenever I met a new person one of the first things I said when introduced was that my father was gay. It seems crazy now but at the time it was as if I couldn’t prevent it from coming out of my mouth. Because I was meeting creative people it was not the least bit shocking and no one was ever judgmental. I suspect if they were going to judge me it would not be because my father was gay but because I couldn’t seem to shut up about it.

My father’s homosexuality is not the first thing I say when introduced to people these days. I rarely mention him unless the conversation calls for it which isn’t very often. I’m not ashamed of him but I have my own accomplishments and challenges that define me so when introduced to someone we talk about the things we have in common, the things that helped us meet, usually those are not dead gay parents so he comes up little in the first few conversations.

I don’t have a purpose to this post, I’m not surprised that this change has occurred, it seems rather normal actually. Time has moved on. I still wish we could have discussed some of this when I was a kid, I don’t know if it would have helped, probably not, the world was not ready for something like that. There are days when I wonder if it is yet. Things are changing, for the better, not as fast as they should but certainly faster than I would have imagined 25 or 30 years ago.

Tagged as: coming out, secrets