queerspawn.community

as a part of this hidden minority i grew up with a burden thats silence did not ease its weight. my personality at home with my dad differed from my character around my mother and even more so from my public self. with age, however, came understanding and eventually true appreciation. having a gay father, what i had seen as embarrassing and compromising of my ideal vision of family transformed into a precious asset.

queerspawn defines a community that values having nontraditional parents. to identify as a member of this community i cannot hold a passive perspective. others may disagree, but i find that being a member of a community means playing an active role. there aren't communities for people with blue eyes, right? it's not just about biological fact - it's a living, breathing piece of my character. because accessibility to queer resources is severely limited due to disease, stigma, and a scattered population i have a responsibility as the gay son of a gay man to share my experiences, observations, and stories.

i own my homosexuality. i am thankful for my father's homosexuality. most importantly i treasure our queer family and i never take for granted the opportunities and human lessons afforded to me because of it.

--Brendan Ranson Walsh

Posted by at 02:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I think being a queerspawn (a word that makes me think of squid) means being part of a largely invisible culture by birth (i.e. like Jews without any established history or culture ... yet) — invisible, in many ways, to both straights and queers. And it's a culture and identity that still hasn't figured out what it means to itself. Our history is short. Queer culture has only recently become public. Up until Stonewall, gays, too, were invisible. We queerspawn of those Stonewall (and beyond) queers are in the very protean stages of figuring out if and how to deal with our many sexual and cultural identities and the fact that we can manipulate them, change in and out of them like clothes. I'd say it doesn't help that the gay community's struggle for equal rights has forced many of us queerspawn to show a black face of normalcy and contentedness for the struggle. It's implied that we're to demonstrate our assimilation so that we AND our parents can be seen as such. But I've come to see this "normal" face that I presented to the world for many years as a kind of self-hatred lite -- a caricature and deprecation of ourselves that should be shed post haste. There's also the issue of "pride" ("I'm proud of my gay parents"), which also often feels contrived and should be implied at this point. Even at 33, I still feel deeply conflicted and think often about what it means to have gay parents. But I do prize it. It's my fucking culture too, even if I don't always feel like I belong exactly.

-- Noel Black

Posted by at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Being Queerspawn means being part of a vibrant, dynamic community of diverse youth and adults who share the unique experience of having one or more LGBT parent. I feel like I am consitently learning from, being challenged by, and finding support from the queerspawn community. To me it doesnt matter that our experiences can be quite different and our narratives quite diverse- we do have this common bond. there is something that happens in queerspawn space and communities that is truly special, powerful and transformative.

-- Meredith Fenton

Posted by at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Queerspawn is an acknowledgement of everything that is unique about me, as a child of the queer community. Queerspawn says I don't have to be normal if I don't want to be. Queerspawn makes people wonder and raise their eyebrows. Queerspawn means my moms' are dykes, but for other queerspawn it means something different. Queerspawn is a big word with a lot of room in it for everyone in my family and everyone I love.

-- Jesse Carr

Posted by at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Queerspawn is me.

Queerspawn isn't my mom's lesbian identity, or my dad's gay identity. Queerspawn does not open up the box of other possible ways they could identify: it is raw enough to lift an eyebrow when heard by virgin ears, and true enough to elicit a smile from the same person a moment later.

Queerspawn is me. I am not alone. Queerspawn is us, and now my daughter.

-- Hope (Berry) Manley

Posted by at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)