A friend of mine whose son is gay says she was very aware of his need for her to react badly as a form of sounding board. There are times when I think that the fireworks and drama of revelation are part of the process, and a flaming row, or thrashing out of rules and regulations, might have made things easier for Lucy. In some senses, I wonder whether we have failed my daughter by not being more shocked or reactive to her sexuality. In this respect, Lucy is the "son he never had" she has to climb higher, run faster and get into more danger than any boy she knows. Neither my husband's own son, nor my son, are particularly into the kinds of traditional male pursuits my husband favours – rugby, mending cars and performing physical jerks. How could you think I would be offended? Gosh, what do you take me for?" After that, I really didn't worry much again.įor my husband, having a gay stepdaughter is interesting and an advantage. I rang the girl's mother to check she wouldn't mind her seven-year-old daughter receiving a declaration of undying love from another girl. Lucy's first Valentine card was to a girl. That proved she was a boy she was wearing boys' pants. They took her into the boys' loos and pulled down her shorts. One day the boys at school, uncertain of Lucy's gender, performed the acid test.
I didn't think much of it I'd been through a very similar stage myself, at the same sort of age (I pretended to be called "Peter" on all our family holidays).
She asked to have her hair cut short and began to wear her brother's cast-off shorts to school with the rest of the androgynous uniform. When I told my late mother's sister the news, her reaction was: "Well, it's not like you haven't had 14 years' notice." She wasn't wrong Lucy's primary school had a policy that read "Everyone shall be called by their chosen, or given, name." Lucy interpreted this, at the age of six, as her right to go to school and be called "Max".
GAY TEST COMEDY SHORTS GAMER FULL
I find the idea of any of my children engaged in "adult pursuits" absolutely repugnant and I know full well that they extend me the same courtesy (or revulsion). As long as they are happy and safe from harm, the sexual orientation of my children is, frankly, none of my business. I can only conclude that the event was so insignificant that one, or all, of us has completely forgotten it. We are all agreed on where we lived at the time, but that's about it. My husband distinctly remembers her telling us in the kitchen. Now 19, she swears blind she told me in my bedroom – that her stepfather and I were sitting up in bed, with her on the other end, and that we listened intently and sympathetically to her well-rehearsed declaration.
We were walking up the drive to our house when she began to chant: "I'm gay, I'm gay, I'm gay!" I'd had a long day at work, and my reaction was to chant back: "I don't care, I don't care, I don't care!" followed by a brief explanation that my other two children hadn't felt the need to shout: "I'm straight, I'm straight, I'm straight!" And then I went indoors to make the dinner. My daughter was 14 when she first told me she was a lesbian.