OutCasting; Gay parenting (Part 2 of 2)

a conventional life that so important growing up i really believed the reason that i couldn't deal with my sexuality i grew up in nineteen fifties sixties hadn't this wasn't a vocabulary for that wasn't there was no way to really understand all the only way to understand a totally negative it's certainly don't want that and i loved kids i very much wanted to be a dad there was going to be that to get married to a woman and have children and now their new traditions marry someone of the same gender and you can have children or not you have those options and those options would there but as i said for me the most important thing is to live loving connection with other people that can take all kinds of different things this is our casting public radio's lgbt q youth program we don't actually clear to be here how casting is a production of

media for the public good listener supported independent producer based in new york online about casting mia dot org hi andrew on this edition about casting out pastor jimmy speaks with jim how well known author about his experience coming out as gay while he was married to a woman and how his life changed after that this is the second part in an outcast in series of good parenting jim thanks so much for joining us something contrary when did you come out and how old is your daughter it came out in nineteen ninety seven my daughter was just a few weeks away from her tenth birthday so she would have been in the fifth grade what was the process of coming out to your way when it comes to coming out probably in general is know exactly and he does it in their own way and sometimes is bumpy rough process are coming

out within a marriage definitely a bumpy process i struggled with the question of my sexual identity for most of my life and i just reached a point where i felt i had to deal with it i was in therapy talking about it trying to figure out how i deal with us so as many people do anything on their way to coming out as gay i first came out as bisexual and told my wife about five years before i actually came out as gay that i was attracted to men as well as women and then as bisexual law but that i was committed to staying at our marriage i didn't know what that in terms of well what we do about the sour what'll i do about it now and in fact that's

a question that she raised to me a year or so later after we were kind of living with us and for saguaro so now what would we do with this information you know in a way i thought going back in the closet because once i had said ok i'm by and i'm going to stay in the marriage didn't have anywhere to go with that particularly and so it is kevin and how a bad stuff back inside you know and i didn't tell anyone else it was was kind of no more a shared secret the catalyst actually for me finally kamau zosen is going as a little strange perhaps but i was in a car accident and had a concussion and the effect of that is somehow i really grasped the idea that the body and mind about supper my body was simply telling me you have to do you know you have you know you can't keep living like this it was like i was is cautioning their you know it energetically and everything and

so i really worked hard in therapy and got help in other ways to come to terms and untimely because i understood all too if i was really going to come how can be who i am that would mean leaving my marriage and that was a very hard thing to have to face and deal with the hand and elsewhere that is what happened and we came out can you expand on what your experiences like being married and closeted well you know i was closeted for one day i was i was married before i married her corman right out of college we were dating together in college in america the g twenty three so in my twenties i was also closeted i'm married but i think over time because the times change someone's awareness changes and certainly what it meant to be gay or just the societal

effects and swollen well is long way to go before we can use that word at that time but being gay became more visible became something that i had more of an awareness of what it might mean to be gay for a long time i just couldn't even imagine how i would ever be that person i didn't see a life that made sense to me i have very very much want to be a dad i wanted to have children or to have that experience i wanted mainstream experience i guess of marriage and family but particularly want to be a death i became an uncle the very young age i loved kids and i think this is what i wanted and i couldn't see any way to have that as i made the choice early on to be with the woman to have to be married and it essentially cut off the gay part of myself i compartmentalize to compartmentalize and sometimes

don't work for there are lots of ways to make that work but when you compartmentalize in certain ways as in you compartmentalize that you see as the bad part of yourself that's a healthy thing and that's what i did i never acted on being gay i lived a straight life with them a straight marriage and ultimately didn't have my first wife had died too young to die of thirty one of cancer and how we did not have children and one i had remarried i mean we both very much wanted children my circle of allies and i just stuff that part down again you know and they end up but kept thinking of it as sort of the bad me in the good me it took a long time and was very much part of the process of what enabled me to come out to build a look at the part of myself as good as healthy has just who i knew and who i wanted to be how did have a wife and a child it harder to come out and live like he wanted to lead

well as i said i think the answer that is partly has to do with the divorce and you know it has been in my marriage and knowing that i was going to change forever what was the family not just for myself but for two other people including my young child and that was a very very hard thing to do and that's why i said that i tried i tried my wife and i talked about it are there ways for me too my sexuality in a more open way we understood that that was not possible and i knew that i was going to have to make this choice and it was by far the hardest they'll never done it it's still painful to me that that was the price that i i had been to other people had to pay but it was the only

way an and for my own well being and happiness it was absolutely not just the best was that the only choice if i was going to be able to really people who i am how did you coming out affected our school let it happen if it had any effect i don't know that it had an effect on her school life she was just beginning to go through very painful difficult time socially homeless a lot of us know what that could be like in middle school particularly so i can't i don't know that this piece has had an effect on her i don't recall if there was ever in fact the day after i told her telling her that i was gay it was coupled with telling her that i was leaving her mom i was sober and that was the reason so

she got a lot of information once it was really painful hard for her and she asked me a lot of questions at night about what it meant to be gay and you know when that i know and how was that it was that i was dealing with this now and she also immediately called her favorite cousin who is an adult and talk to them on the phone about it was really pretty incredible itches processing all this and she said she wanted a school the next station is in the fifth grade and she went to her teacher was a very favorite teacher of hers and told her right away when it happened and the teachers can and kept an eye on her and you know was very supportive i don't know that she told other her friends are other people in school i was very concerned that she would feel awe a responsibility to become a defender of lgbt rights are some clear you know that that would become a something way older but that was not the case at all i can say that it really was an issue it wasn't as much talked about it i

think i don't think it was even a gay straight alliance and her school that time reading a high school she went to local private schools absolutely was i know she's twenty nine and i was speaking to earlier today and i said i'm going to do this interview tonight come are about gay parenting and said it means parenting and i love that possesses that's that's who she is you know it's like car why recalling day parenting it's parenting and our parents of their airwaves so often just open away on care that is why save money we're thinking about doing this episode that was one of the things that we want wanted to show the parenting as disparate right everyone goes through the voices of life experiences as a parent and it doesn't it doesn't change the center so troubled

right right and i think we are i think very much an evolving you know to where we understand that more and more it's also why when somehow identifies them as human as you are i personally embraced the word gay when i came out i was really important to me to be able to say i'm gay and after all is a lifetime in the closet i own that word probably but i also don't see that that's my identity you know and one of things that actually was really shocking to me and made me really angry after it came out was a rethinking all accounts this is not a big deal this is just a part of who i am and i've spent my whole life making this so oh huge lead to so much fear of a lot of people knew this about me or have to know what it can and then and then to realize oh it's just a piece of who i am that all women becoming rivers asleep now we're wasted a lot of time energy and that you

know alone it's it's that they think he that society has needed a big thing yes yes absolutely yes i have to be very careful about saying that was about you said the two kids went to schools and thought you know i had to catch myself to save weight don't listen as tami is a big thing and it still is a big thing to me to comment is a big thing to society society society those who choose to have made it into a very big thing and who you are is a big ol i mean is that i had kind of bought into the way that others had to find that is a big thing in a negative way and that's the part that i was sort of shocked and angered and it's thinking it's not true in that way what support systems to define lawyer in the process of coming out that is a great question because i came out of a very different time so this was in the

mid to late nineties that i was doing a lawless and there was no internet hard as it is to believe and in fact supported that i for one as well if it was going to an lgbt bookstore in new work and in a bookstore and i saw a flier for a men's group that was men who identified as gay or bi who were in marriages to win and i had been just hoping for something like that and the first time i walked out i was also getting support from of their best and i was in finding other ways to get support too but the first time i walked into that group and there may be work five or six men all together the group at that time and we started talking about this is the first time anywhere that i'm not having to translate anything and say that everyone in this room get

sick or a hall you know in the same boat we had different crystal goals and some men were very much on the mind they want to stay in their marriages some were open with their wives some were positive someone to leave or were not wanting to leave work worst scene of that was the path they were to fall and so that was certainly true for me and i was in that group for ladies three years or so as i worked through all the sudden that was a major major sport from a house where the arts a support system for the arts or a support system from a period in life and certainly reading books fiction and nonfiction to say that i could find that would help me see myself mirrored in some way if it was a character in a book or a struggle is going through merit or a book that would just help me understand myself better there were

two particular that i can think of that really helped me and there was one about a man who by a man who came out in mid life and left a marriage and the end talked about developmentally what it is to be a gay men especially gay men more the time that i was coming of age and then i'm feeling other than that book i actually was something of a bible to have to have a lot of that middle aged gay men who were dealing with these issues and who were coming out at that point in their lives and the other book was i think was call refusing to be a man and it had to do with gender or construct and gender politics and it really helped me understand that it kind of freed me from the constraints of thinking about myself as male in terms of sort of measuring myself against it rigid notions of what it meant to be male and that that helped enormously

certainly i was looking and movies and plays in art anywhere i can see i can remember going to two movies by myself that i would not tell my wife is going to see because it was a story that was too close to home and i didn't want the discomfort of scene that was heard having to have a conversation other words that many movies around the issue add to that the trade in positive ways and that's another thing you know i was a writer i write for children and young adults i was very very aware of what young adult books were out there was gay characters and i made a point of reading everything that came along a hand it even for a time was woods speak in different conferences and do was that pride works in our area here listen had national congress is that they don't quit same way anymore and i did a book talk crews and patients there and then there was a change

over time to a much more positive images of gay young people are lgbt young people in the books started thereafter when i started looking there were not that many so that that change and then as when i came out i wrote a book called the misfits which a twelve year old gay character because i want to put that image above someone that young is clear is gay who is who he is and feels very positive bottoms off and it's viewed within the book that this is natural this is just his development as a human being and sisters of natural impulses so that young people growing up now suppose when i was growing up i would have very different images of them this is a casting public radio's lgbt youth program produced by media for the public good in your online about casting media dot org on this edition how castro jamie is talking with jim how

well known author the gay parent what's something you'd like straight parents to know about raising lgbt key if you do your best to see your child for who they are and that can be very tough cause we all have all those filters that we put everything through our projections of ourselves our children are objections of what we hope for in which for her were comfortable with and what we imagine our family looks like what we imagine our children look like and what their future and our future as we imagine it looks like a hand they can really be work to pay real attention not just your child to yourself and to be older step back sometimes and say oh i see this is so i imagine my child to be around i want my child to be but this is not a watch elders who is my child who is this person let's see and i have

friends who are so good at this because they're not only do this but they take delight and i'll say i know where this kid came from your you know but is that wonderful you know and as much as possible as we should be doing you know should be not looking at our children is something we project on or problems to be solved or a repository of our dreams and hopes and ambitions and disappointments but you know as it shows up you know who's who is this i think four specifically for when you have a child who has lgbt q it's hard i think sometimes for parents to understand the other we see someone as other because they're just there different from us in a fundamental way that we just never thought about what is it like to be that or there may be something that's scary about that or off putting or as

often happens four straight parents with lgbt q kids do is fear and desire to protect and i think that really is changing and i do believe were to come to a point or getting there where those american abuses but they still are for people and so i guess i would say in their noses as you need to really not only do that were above you letting your child be the person they are ending support of celebratory that unique person but also educate yourself and i mean they're both intellectually emotionally address the fears you have or their narrow comfort zone you're living with that within say you can expand with all our children to grow and flourish and be who they are if were held in borrowing constraints on our own fears they're looking to the us to be the ones who are going to

water them emerge in them and help them grow and that requires the spaciousness and an openness it can tamp it down temp the plant down think it's going to grow but first you have to do the work or you're comfortable not camping now you're comfortable encouraging growth why do you think some people believe that hamas actual people shouldn't have or raise children and how to respond to these concerns that's what i have to allow this or reaction i want to say it to get over to calm you know i just this is this is me trying to understand some of the things are differently for me you know it's i have to really think ok where is that coming from within about their home and i think where i come to

that is that having a major stumbling block always still someone is that sexual identity is just way too often equated with sex that's that's a nice that's come sign up a what is a fear but it's it's the idea that being homicide for means being sexual in ways that are just really uncomfortable to some people and that's what they will immediately go i'm guessing an listening consciously but it did and they become just can't get pass up about sort of what it's about armor than that i think says society that is really change your own

news no question is so people who are uncomfortable with that are and i don't i guess the only answer i would have it as a practical answer to those people would be to say get to know so you're gay marriage and families get to know some people who are because kitchen is an lgbt people you know whether they're individuals or couples are certainly if you're concerned about parenting get to know them as paris they'll find that their it's the same concerns and worries you do you know homosexuality was no more about sex and that was actually knows how important is a traditional lifestyle a gay marriage and having kids to you at this point in my life i'm not sure know the answer to that growing up it was really important to them as a young

as well i guess in some ways i have to say i'm not sure the answer because i've had it so it satisfied that was so you know what i necessarily make the same to his now i i don't know probably it is important may not in the sense that i'd like to think that living at quote unquote conventional life that's an important way but living a life of real connectedness with people you love and that's important in fact growing up i i i really believe the reason that i couldn't deal with my sexuality for so i had no you know i grew up in nineteen fifties and sixties and there just wasn't a vocabulary for that was in there was no way to really understand god only way to our understand we're totally negative ways so singing and what that is i

had three older brothers considerably older all who got married in their twenties all of whom had started insuring their twenties and i became a google i would my first bills prohibit married woman seven and a believer was ten twenty and they have their first child and then well the nephews nieces came along was young and i just a lot of kids i would very much want to be a dud and there was only to do that you know and that was to get married to a woman and have children and now thompson now we were talking about traditional traditional their new traditions you know now you can marry someone of the same gender and you can have children or not you can make you know those options those options weren't there but as i said for me the most important thing is to live in modern connection with other people that take all kinds of different forms

and so it doesn't have to be a traditional family doesn't have to involve having children but i think love was prepared for jim thanks so much for joining us well thank you too that's it for this edition about casting public radio's lgbt q u program we don't have to be here to be here at this program has been produced by dr passing team including the participants alex samantha andrea that's when the gulf war and dante lucas jamie sarah briana and make sure our system producers are alex nunes and josh valley and our executive producer is mark so this casting as a production of media for the public good listener supported independent producer based in europe more information about our casting is available at apple casting media dot org you'll find information about the show are some links for all our past episodes and the podcast link how casting is also on social media connect with us on twitter facebook and youtube how casting mia if you're having

trouble whether its at home or school or just with yourself call the trevor project hotline at eight six six forty eight seventy eight six or visit them online at the trevor project dot org the trevor project is an organization dedicated to lgbt q u suicide prevention call the mecca of a problem seriously don't be scared they even have an online chinese news if you don't want to talk on the phone again the numbers eight six six four eighty seven three six being different isn't a reason to hate or hurt yourself you can also finally got our side now casting media dot org about casting lgbt q resources and drew thanks for listening