Maybe it’s time to ask the kids.
By Gabriela Herman
For the past four years, I have been photographing and interviewing subjects with one or more L.G.B.T. parent. Their experiences are wide ranging. Some were adopted, some conceived by artificial insemination. Many are children of divorce. They were raised in urban areas, the rural Midwest and all over the map. They juggled silence and solitude with a need to defend their families on the playground, at church and at holiday gatherings.
Here are their stories...
“I think the operative word in describing our family is not LGBT, it's in family. If you look at the vast majority of things that define who my moms are, or who my family is, it's really no more accurate to say that my moms are gay married, than to say they are Packers-fan married, or work-in-healthcare married. They're both really just about as accurate in describing who my moms are.”
“My moms split up when I was about 7, because my biological mom fell in love with a man. I knew my family was different, but it wasn't weird different, it was just a different kind of family.”
“My dad is gay. He's still really in the coming-out process right now. I had an inclination that my dad was gay from the very beginning of time. I always knew I was queer, which helps. I would see early on in my childhood, my father using the same behaviors to conceal his own femininity that I did, like he would uncross his legs or he would stop talking with his hands.”
“The first time it was ever spoken about was when my mom bought this book 'Daddy's Roommate'.”
“I took for granted the fact that I was surrounded by lesbians all the time and I thought that was very normal. I have a vague memory of listening to pop music on the radio and just assuming that the person singing was probably singing to a person of the same gender. ”
Read Gabriela Herman's own story and those of other children of gay parents here
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