- My parents split up when I was 7, but I didn't know for several more years that my dad was gay.
- Secrecy about sexual orientation and gender is what hurts kids, not those things themselves.
- A Florida bill would prohibit some teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity.
I've been watching in horror as Florida lawmakers have passed the nebulous but damaging "Don't Say Gay" bill. As the daughter of a gay man, the sister 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 firsthand what not talking directly and openly to kids can do. My parents hid from me that my dad was gay because they thought they were protecting me, when in fact it made things way more complicated for me.
My parents didn't tell me for years that my dad was gay
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 13. This was back in the 1970s, 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 wasn't about being confronted with the truth, but about all those years of omission.
Those waiters knew my dad was gay and I did not.
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. I took my cue from a sketch on "The Tracey Ullman Show" and tried, "This is my dad, and this is my Michael." It was gloriously freeing. If only I'd been able to feel that way at age 8.
I don't want my children to be forced to deny the reality of our family
Being "protected" from the truth did me no favors; it was coming out of the shadows that made me whole.
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.
It's a massive step backward and accomplishes nothing.
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. She writes about pop culture, parenting, and other topics for print, digital, podcasts, and TV.