This morning I read a wonderful and heartwarming article by John Kinnear called “Dear Hypothetically Gay Son“. It is inspired by the horrendous letter that floated about the internet a few weeks ago – a letter from a father disowning his son because he came out (read the letter and listen to a CBC interview with James, the recipient of the letter by clicking here). Although I’m not a father yet, this has made me realize that Out With Dad is my open letter to any future child I might have who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or otherwise not heterosexual, heteronormative or conform to gender-binary.
In April 2009, when an idea struck me that would later evolve into Out With Dad, I nearly dismissed it because I thought this issue was a non-issue today. About twenty minutes of research online taught me how wrong I was. To think, the first storyline I conceived was the daughter (who was not yet named) is forbidden to bring her girlfriend to a school dance. I dropped the idea because I figured that kind of thing would never happen in this day and age. Two weeks later Constance McMillen hit the news with exactly that story. So, it’s that kind of world still, eh?
Yet, I remain hopeful about the future. I have grounds for my optimism: Friends of my generation look at letters like Kinnear’s as common sense. Organizations like A Note To My Kid are popping up all over. Brave people in Uganda hosted a pride parade. Icons like Ellen DeGeneres and George Takei are adored by queer and not-so-queer alike. An entire generation of Torontonians are ashamed to have the homophobic mayor we have (at the time of this writing). Barack Obama, need I say more? And, a small group of mostly straight, mostly strangers, came together three years ago to embark upon a challenging project that would change all of the lives of those involved, and (we’re proud to know) lives others around the globe because of it.
Out With Dad is our open letter of acceptance and love. Thank you for watching, and thank you for sharing.
Oh man… I read that letter and I was like. “We had some good times, but because you choose to follow you’re heart, I don’t want to have any more contact with you”. Even tough he doesn’t use those words, that’s in fact what he is saying. He wanted his son to not follow his hearth and either live alone or marry someone he wouldn’t have feeling for.
I don’t have good relationship with my father, but he would never say something like that. Of course, he said that he would have preferred if I was straight, but my father isn’t good at expressing himself. He’s excused from that.
If my son turned out to be gay. Honestly, I don’t think I would have made a letter. I just think I would have talked to him about it. I would have just said to him “I love you no matter what you are, and I want you to be happy no matter who you’re happy with”. And honestly… I don’t think I would have been in shock either. I would have been in shock if my son was in fact gay and I hadn’t noticed. Then I would be like… “Just give me a moment to think about this”, and then depending on how surprised I was, I would have said the exact same thing. However, I think I would have become very sad. Very sad that I didn’t know. As a father I would have felt sad if I didn’t know my son that well.
Well, my son is now 4 years old, so it’s not possible to know yet. When do children start to develop a sexual orientation? I started to feel attracted to boys when I was about 8-9 years old.
Should you let your kids talk when their ready themselves or should you try to talk to them about it themselves? When is it a good time to talk about it in that case? I remember my mother asked me directly out when I was at children school: “Do you like boys or girls?” I answered “Neither” because I felt like they where hard to understand either of them at that point. And at that point, I didn’t know that boys could be boyfriends. No one had ever tough me that.
Thank you for your kind of “letter” Jason.
I wish all people and all parents would be think like you do and simply accept us how we are.
At some point I went with asking “tolerance” only but by now I realized that tolerance would mean that I am not normal. Because only things not normal have to be tolerated.
Your web-series really is amazing and if only one person is changing from being offensive or abusive toward non-straight people to understanding and accepting then all you did already was worth it.
My two cents…
Thank you
Madelaine
I think a lot of parents are not judging, but their often like “Oh no! I won’t get any grandchildren”. Well, at least some of them are.