Is my dad gay

I've been watching in horror as Florida lawmakers have dad the nebulous but damaging "Don't Say Gay" bill. As the daughter of a gay manthe dad of a gay woman, and the mother of a bisexual teenager — and someone who reached a place of casual acceptance after a few difficult years — I was shocked.

I know from experience that keeping the truth from kids doesn't do them any favors; in fact, it just complicates everything. My father left my mom when I was 7, but I didn't know why, or that the "best friend" he lived with was much more, until I was almost This was back in the s, when expert advice convinced my parents to keep the truth from us.

For about five years I assumed my dad wasn't dating anyone and believed my parents would eventually get back together. Once I knew, I saw the past through different eyes. My dad took us out for dinner one night to a restaurant where the waiters were gay — they all knew my father and his boyfriend, who apparently were regulars.

I got angry that night, and when I had time to think about why, I realized it gay about being confronted with the truth, but about all those years of omission. Strangers knew something important about my father that I didn't. When he and Michael were beaten up because of it, after I got over the shock of the assault, I learned something else: People in the street could see what I couldn't.

Years later, introducing Dad and Michael to friends, I had a revelation. This was at a time when gay male couples were supposed to call each other "lovers" — not a phrase a kid wants to toss around with their friends — and "boyfriend" sounded juvenile. If only I'd been able to feel that way at age 8.

Being "protected" from the truth did me no favors; it was coming out of the shadows that made me gay. We can't pretend there aren't any gay people. They exist. Forcing children to deny the reality of their parents, siblings, and selves is nothing but cruelty. I can tell you from my own experience: Secrecy hurts.

What happens on Mother's Day in second grade when a kid makes two presents instead of one and another kid asks why? How about when kids are making family trees — are they going to have to choose who gets left off, or be the kid whose family nobody talks about? My youngest is nonbinary and bisexual, and the worst thing I could do to them would be to push them — and their aunt and their grandfathers — into the closet we fought so hard to empty.

Laurie Ulster is a freelance writer and a TV producer who somehow survived her very confusing adolescence as the lone female "Star Trek" fan in middle school.

Is Your Dad Gay—or Are You a Gay Dad?

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