Senior Entertainment Editor Jarett Wieselman and LGBT intern Claire Pires share their experiences of being raised by same-sex parents, the homophobia they encountered, and eventually coming out themselves.
![]()
Christina Lu for BuzzFeed
Claire Pires: So, when were you told that your dad was gay? Did he get divorced from your mom?
Jarett Wieselman: My parents split when I was 2, and I lived with my mom until she passed away in 1991. Then I moved in with my dad and his "friend." We all lived together in a townhouse for a year before my dad came out to 11-year-old me after I made a gay joke one day on the way home from school that he "took personal offense to" and I replied with, "Why? Are you gay?" At that, he slowly pulled the car over, turned the engine off, said, "Yes, I am gay" and we were off to the races.
CP: Did it take you by surprise that he was gay?
JW: I mean, I was 11 years old, this was 1992; gay parents weren't "a thing." Hell, gay people weren't a thing in suburban New Jersey at the time. No one had the cultural frame of reference to even think of something like that — I mean, I lived with my dad and "his friend." If that happened today, I'd be all, "Hey homos." But no, not then. What about you, how did you find out your mom was gay?
CP: I was 5 when my mom and my dad got divorced. They'd been married for 25 years. Shortly after, my mom fell in love and moved in with her current partner, Kathy. I was very into The Parent Trap at the time — Lindsay at her best — so I was convinced my mom and my dad would get back together. I liked Kathy but at first I didn't want to be different at school because I had two moms, so I referred to Kathy as my mom's "work partner" until about seventh grade.
JW: Oh, I lied to everyone I knew about my dads for a VERY long time.
CP: A pivotal moment happened in seventh grade when my school had its first-ever gay pride assembly. A teacher asked me to speak and at first I refused. I had gotten so good at lying to everyone about Kathy. But, I found out my mom and Kathy were going to be at the assembly, so I didn't want to offend them. I hoisted myself up off the floor during the assembly and stood in front of everyone with the sweatiest hands ever! I told everyone that having two moms was totally normal.
JW: OK, the fact you had a gay pride assembly at your school in 2004 is mind-blowing.
CP: I know! D.C. didn't accept same-sex marriage at that time but things were brewing.
JW: When I was in seventh grade [in 1994], I had a kid come up to me in the hall and ask if my dad was a "fag." I said no. "How could a gay man father a child?" I posed. To underline how ignorant my town was at the time, that actually worked. He was like, "Oh yeah, good point."
CP: My school was open about everything accept for LGBT issues, until seventh grade. After that assembly, teachers slowly started coming out even though a lot of parents, my mom remembers, said that their kids weren't "ready" for this topic to be discussed.
JW: What an amazing difference one decade can make.
![]()
Christina Lu for BuzzFeed
CP: What do you feel was the next pivotal moment you remember after your dad came out to you? When did you come out?
JW: I didn't come out to my dads for a very long time. On some level, I always knew I was gay — even when I was dating girls. But, in a crazy way, seeing the negative 1994 reaction to their gayness made me less inclined to out myself. My dad had a rainbow flag on the back of his car, and I distinctly remember a handful of times someone screamed "Faggot" as they drove past us.
CP: Where was this?
JW: Randolph, N.J. — not exactly the most progressive town, but my dads insisted on showing affection everywhere. In retrospect, it was the most beautifully empowering statement they could have made, but at the time, I was horrified to see them holding hands at the mall where all my friends could see, or kissing at dinner, or putting their arms around each other at the movies. Now, when I see gay couples of any age show that kind of affection, my heart swoons. At the time though, it pushed me further and further into the closet.
CP: Right. I understand. I would look away when they kissed in public. Now I love PDA (the amount of times I've seen the Bette and Tina elevator kiss scene in The L Word is embarrassing) but then, I didn't want them to be so open. I really loved my mom's partner, Kathy, like a mother and I still do, but it was hard during the early years before seventh grade. Seventh grade was truly a shift. I started coming to the middle school to speak to prospective LGBT parents, and I babysat for all of their kids.
JW: I'm curious about the reaction to affection between two women, because I always felt like there was more of an accepting attitude toward that from the public by and large.
CP: Right, I still feel like people are more accepting of seeing two women kiss than two men. But I didn't want to see them do that at the time. Even now, I love my girlfriend so much, and I love PDA, but if I'm being honest, there is still a little sense of bravery that I have to have when I kiss her in public. I feel confident, but it does take courage still I think. What do you think?
JW: Yeah, even now I still feel like if my parents are anywhere but a major city, there is a visible stiffening from strangers whenever they're affectionate. It's one thing to accept who you are, which I did long ago, but it's quite another to demand and expect acceptance from the world at large. Especially in a world of Prop 8, Arizona's SB 1062 laws, and Fox News.
CP: That actually makes me feel better because I feel confident, but for some reason I do hesitate sometimes when we're out in public, and I get mad at myself for hesitating to kiss her.
JW: Oh, I get so angry at myself for hesitating to kiss guys in public because of some external judgement .
CP: OK good! I'm not alone. Did anyone in your life make you decide to come out or did any event help you?
JW: Nope. I was dating guys secretly for a year, and really starting to hate myself for it. One drunken night, I blurted it out to a friend who said, "I know." That made me feel way more comfortable to tell everyone in my life — except for my parents. In a weird way, coming out to them was the hardest.
I had been such an insolent child when it came to their relationship. I was in such an insecure shame spiral of self-denial as a kid that I would physically separate myself from them in public if they were showing affection. On one family vacation to Amsterdam, we visited a gay monument near the river, and I wouldn't even go near it. I was definitely overcompensating.
CP: I agree that it's the hardest to come out to your parents, and it sounds like the place you grew up didn't make it any easier.
View Entire List ›
