What do you say to your homophobic dad?

For example, how would you respond to an email that says (in part) this:

There is a big difference  in a relationship  between the gay  and the traditional,it’s what comes after( children ) ,it’s human nature even wild animals , to look after their young,( to provide food and shelter/ all the necessities etc ,)  With the children in tow, they have to realize  to have to work to set up and run as a family , no more fooling around.
 
It’s obvious the gay relationship will not end up with  this kind of headache , so it’s party time every day,and it’s easy to find target of interest when you are young and full of energy/desire ,relationships don’t last , the possibility of contacting serious diseases prevail . It’s no wonder  gay men would general die young before their time.

I believe my dad isn’t aware of how his beliefs are actually hurtful and offensive to others (ie. me), so I patiently explained how his words weren’t very nice, and how his outdated, stereotypical beliefs were wrong.

My dad was responding to a personal essay I wrote about what it means to win people back after a relationship. I included some anecdotes in the essay about my father’s experiences trying to win my mom back, as well as my own. He had this to say about my piece:

You don’t need me to tell you that this essay can only be found in the gay magazine and newspaper

Well, I didn’t need him to tell me because, quite frankly, it’s not true. I know it isn’t. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I have a better picture of the publishing industry than he does. Also, and more importantly, most people, especially in Vancouver, are a lot more open to diversity than him.

How would you respond if you got this email?

Boyfriend dream

Woke up and wrote this all down before I forgot because I think it’s a little special.

Boyfriend dream

I was in a relationship with my dashing friend Owen.  We also were on tour with the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, on their tour bus as they drove across the country (which they don’t do, of course).  At one stop, the QFF set up some promotional stuff in this town, including Owen’s contribution: a bright pink, glittering diorama featuring him and another girl on stage.  There was also some writing with the diorama explaining how super gay he was.

Owen’s mother was there, and he had not come out to his family yet.  I found her staring at her son’s very loud diorama, and went over to her.  I asked her about his singing and his songs.  She kept asking me, “When?” which confused me, and when I tried to clarify, she only repeated the same question: “When?”  I told her I hadn’t heard any of songs Owen had been writing, but that he had told me he was writing some songs last summer.

I walked off so she could absorb the news of son’s strange coming out.  There were also two other younger kids there with her, presumably her other children.

I texted Owen to “come here” since his family was there.  He didn’t respond.  Instead, the next thing I knew, he was standing with his family and talking with his dad.  It appeared they were arguing.  I stood a little way off, watching, knowing this wasn’t my place.  Both of us, and possibly everyone there, was dressed in black.  I was dressed in my uniform from Fifth Avenue.

Owen came over and said I should properly meet them.  He took my hand and confidently walks over to his family.  I, on the other hand, am a nervous wreck.  I look up at him, and his face is hard and determined, and I feel bad.  I ask him if it’s really appropriate/too much that we’re holding hands especially since his dad just got the news and isn’t okay with it, and we let our hands fall.

Owen introduced me to his father, who glared at me.  I knew he though I “corrupted” his son.  My lip trembled from being so nervous.  His dad said I was just a “sex hookup” and left.  I yelled back as he was leaving that Owen and I hadn’t even had sex yet, and that we were still together because loved each other.  I said goodbye to his family, and called his mother Alice (because we were totally bffs).  I told Owen his mom was much nicer/understand than his dad, while Owen struggles to genuflect awkwardly and for seemingly no reason at all.

That’s it.  I don’t actually know if Owen’s mom’s name is Alice but it would be freaky if it were.  I texted him today and told him I had a dream with him in it but he didn’t respond.  I’ll ask him about his mom later.

By the way, Owen has a girlfriend.  Or so he says.

Family Event

An assignment for non-fiction class about a family dinner.

Family Event

I am told to write about an event of some sort about my family but nothing comes to mind.  I also don’t remember much of my childhood, and have even less memories involving my family; simple things like dinners at home are a blank to me, though I can speculate what may have happened.  Not knowing what else to do, I ask my older sister, Florence.

We’re supposed to be killing computer-generated people and warriors in an Age of Empires game online but instead, I stall and ask her some questions about our family before she hits the start button in the chatroom.

“Do you remember having dinner together as a family when we were younger?” I ask.

“Yes.  I made dinners” is her reply.  Florence is nine years older than me and my twin sister, Maggie.  I don’t remember her making dinner.  I can imagine it and it seems like it could be real but I don’t have any actual memories of it.

“Father didn’t cook and mommy worked often,” she continues.  This also makes sense.  It’s not that my dad couldn’t cook because I remember him teaching me how to cook vegetables one time, so I’m left to wonder why he didn’t do it for us then.

I tell her I can’t recall any time we as a family sat down and had dinner or dinners with other relatives.  She tells me how there were occasions when we would have dinner with our grandparents and someone would usually end up crying.

This disturbs me, and I know it to be true as well.  Perhaps I am only used to the mother I know now, who doesn’t yell very often and have lost touch with the one who would to yell at her children.

Florence tells me, “Maggie would start crying if she didn’t eat certain things, or if you were bad and mommy yelled at you, or if I spilled something and get yelled at.”  I ask where dad was during this and I she merely confirms what I’ve been thinking: “eating”.

I imagine my mother’s loud, shrill voice, hurling insults at me in Cantonese while I stare down at my bowl of rice, feeling powerless.  As tears gather in my eyes, I feel aversion and embarrassment of my sisters’ eyes, and my father, watching the news on TV as if nothing was happening at all.

When I ask her if there was anything else we did together, she mentions grocery shopping.  Immediately, I remember that: my father always standing by the cart, indifferent to everything, while my mother, my sisters and I would go help bring preapproved food (by my mom).  But then Florence tells me Maggie and I would go into the toy and book aisles so we “wouldn’t get in the way”, and Florence would she looked after us.

There were questions my older sister couldn’t answer and she advised me to ask my mom, which I was reluctant to do because I didn’t think my mother would give me a straight answer.  My mother is the type of person who might pretend she doesn’t remember something but would simply rather not talk about it.  But I did ask anyway, to listen to what she had to say, when she came home and sat herself down in her green, mushroom-printed nightgown, in front of some Chinese programming on TV.

“Why didn’t we do things as a family?”  My mother gives me a look.

“Sure we did.  We went on vacations and trips…”

“But dad never came.”

“That’s because he would faint on planes,” my mom tells me.  “When you were young, we took a trip to Taiwan and he fainted at the terminal, before getting on the plane.  After that, he never went on another plane.”

I ponder this.  Maybe my dad had an excuse but…

“What about other things?  Like going out or doing activities together?”

“Well, those times we went to grandma’s birthday dinners and those potlucks—

“No, I mean things with just us.”

“We did lots of things together!  We had dinner at home!”

If the first thing my mother answers when I ask her about things we do together is dinner, then I know there’s probably not much else we were all there for.

“No, that doesn’t count.  Other things.”

“We did lots of things.  You just don’t remember,” she replies vaguely, before conveniently getting up and walking to the kitchen.

 

Perhaps my mother’s right; I just don’t remember the things we used to do.  Or perhaps the memories I’ve been searching for don’t exist.  Whatever the case, I know now that if I am to ever raise a family, I am determined to give them memories – memories they can write down and remember as good ones the rest of their lives.

Sleeping with a Stranger

Sleeping with a Stranger

Perhaps when I was around 7, 8 or possibly 9 years old, for reasons I do not recall, my family was not in the house for a few days.  They must have gone on a mini-vacation or something and I was either sick or didn’t want to go.  Whatever the reason, I found myself alone.  Except there was a stranger in the house as well: my father.

I had never been close to my father and currently have very few memories of him and I together, even fewer of them are good memories.  When my mother and my sisters left, because I would be sleeping alone, he told me that on the last day, I could come upstairs and spend the night with him in bed.  Naturally, I thought this to be a strange idea; I had never slept with my dad (or at least had no recollection of it) and he didn’t seem particularly lonely.  I didn’t even know if he was serious or not. I don’t even remember if my parents were, at the time, still sleeping in the same bed, but I doubt it.

For a few days, we minded our own business.  I probably didn’t see much of him, as usual, and the house must have been oddly quiet.  On the last day, I wandered up to his room with my pillow.  After a few minutes of getting ourselves ready for bed, I climbed in first, feeling awkward.  He turned off the light and crawled in next to me.

And for a while, neither of us moved.  I lay staring at the ceiling before closing my eyes but I couldn’t sleep on my back.  But as much as I wanted to move, I found myself paralyzed.  What if my dad didn’t like that?  What if he got annoyed at my moving?  Wouldn’t I be bothering him trying to sleep?  Eventually, I froze in that position for a long time, on the edge of the bed, until I willed myself to move quickly on my side when I sensed him moving at the same time, so that I wouldn’t be disturbing him.

I would repeat this maneouver several times that night, being extra careful not to wake the stranger sleeping next to me.

10 Defining Moments of My Life (so far) — #9: F*** you, dad

9.  After receiving an e-mail from my dad mentioning how he thought I had too much free time in my life, which lead to daydreaming and ultimately fantasizing about sex (among other things), I sent him back a long, angry and honest e-mail, basically telling him things I couldn’t muster the strength to tell him.  I told him about how I’ve never once said anything bad to him; how he didn’t have the right to judge who I was when he had never been there in my life; how if all I was to him was someone to pass on the family name (and because I’m gay, I can’t) then I was glad that I wouldn’t be passing on a name representing bigotry, hypocrisy, and ignorance.  I wrote a lot of things in that e-mail, and I don’t regret any sentence, word or letter.  I responded in a rage, my fingers furiously hacking at the keys like there was no tomorrow.  My mom told me the next day that my dad, already slightly ill, was even sicker because of me, because of that e-mail, and she told me to apologize to him.  She told me, her 18 year old son, that I shouldn’t be swearing, even though I only swore 3 times in that e-mail and it wasn’t insultingly (ie. Fuck you!) but adjectively (ie. I won’t be a fucking doormat!).  I just felt glad to not be harbouring my thoughts any longer.

10 Defining Moments of My Life (so far) — #3: Daddy issues

3.  I must have been about 7 or 8 when this happened.  When I couldn’t find my favourite stuff reindeer (that would also play Christmas carols and flash a red light on his nose at the same time), I naturally became very upset.  I sat by the “cold heater” (the ventilator in the house), sulking.  My dad walked by and I asked him if he might know where it had gone.  He informed me that he taken it from me, probably because he wanted me to grow up and live without it.  I got angry and even more upset, and he laughed.  After thinking about it, I offered him $10 for the safe return of my reindeer, to which he quickly agreed, and the exchange was made.  I hugged my stuffed white reindeer, grateful that he was back in my arms.

Prayers for Bobby — a reflection

Several months ago, I heard about and then read Prayers for Bobby.  When I heard it was going to be made into a TV movie, I was excited to hear about it, seeing as how it was a fantastic book.  And when I did see it, of course, I cried a few times.  Not only did the movie bring about so much emotion in me, as a young gay man, but it also reminded me of my own coming out and how painstakingly difficult it was for me and what it must be like for young gay teens all over the world.

Prayers for Bobby is about Bobby Griffith, a young man living in a small town in the US during the early 80’s.  It’s a time when the AIDS epidemic is just beginning and the belief of homosexuality (ugh, I don’t like that work.  It sounds so scientific and formal) was generally negative.  I won’t talk about Bobby’s life too much, as you can read that up anywhere (or just read the book), but that I just want to say how I’m glad his story, as tragic and sad as it is, is being shared with the world.  He seemed like a genuine, sympathetic guy, and after watching the TV adaptation, I feel so much sadness for other Bobbys out there–Bobbys with religious, ignorant parents and don’t put love first.

When I came out to my parents, it didn’t go as well as I had hoped.  My mom came into my room when I was 15 and asked if I was gay.  She did the easy part for me; all I had to say was yes.  We had a lengthy discussion about what being gay is and how she wanted to “help” me by trying to get rid of it.  Perhaps it was naivety, but I honestly didn’t think my parents would be the type to try and “cure” me.  They’re not particularly religious but they are traditional.  My mom tried to find an excuse–any excuse–to try and why I was this way; she suggested I go out on dates with my sister’s friends and even making an appointment with the doctor.  I thought this suggestion was wayyy out of line but I couldn’t blame my mom for not being able to look past her beliefs.  After all, she was raised in a different country with different values and beliefs, and she retained these beliefs even after coming to Canada (which is why it can be difficult to talk to her about certain things).  In the end, I asked her, “Do you still love me?” like they always do in gay-themed novels.

Surprisingly, she answered, “You’re my son.  Of course I love you.”

And then I cried some more.   Yeah.

It didn’t quite feel like love when we had other arguments about the taboo subject of being gay–and we definitely had some heated ones.  I won’t get into those now but maybe another time.

I don’t remember where I was going with this… I guess the film was very emotional for me because of there were such powerful scenes.  For example, when Bobby’s mother (played by Sigourney Weaver) tells Bobby (played by the wonderful Ryan Kelley) she won’t have a gay son, he responds, “Then mom, you don’t have a son.”  And if that’s not enough, she replies, “Fine.”  I’m tearing up again just thinking about it… in some ways, I never felt like a son to my parents because they never really understood me.

Throughout the film, I also remember thinking about how much better society (or at least Western culture, to some extent) has gotten since the 80’s in terms of recognizing gays and lesbians and their attitudes and treatment towards the minority.  It saddens me when I think about how there are still kids, teens, even youth who are struggling with this, who may contemplate suicide because of their parents.  I think of my ex and how he was/is so afraid to come out because of his overly-religious mother and how he believes she would kill him if she ever found out.  I think of his choice to stay in the closet and have an unfulfilled life because of it.  I think of myself, when I was 14, writing in my journal for the first time about my crush on a guy at school and then writing at the end, ‘If anyone reads this, my life is over.”  I remember being so, so scared to even write it, for fear someone might see it and know.

I look back on those days and am reminded that people are still going through that today.  Obviously I wish they weren’t; I wish people could just be who they are without fear, without consequence.  I wish those people, those young boys and girls everywhere, strength to get through it–strength that one day, they might be looking back on those days, feeling not an ounce of regret.  I wish for those people not to give up trying.  Not to ever give up trying.