‘I Thought I was the Only One Whose “Dad” was a Woman’: Overcoming Internalised Homophobia After Growing Up in a Same-Sex Household
By Courtney Walker
‘A Kerby is what you call it when instead of a dad, you have another girl parent.’ This was my faux fact for many years; it’s what I used to tell people in Nursery school. We would be talking about our families – somewhere amidst pretending we were animals – and while the other kids would tell stories of how their mummy was a princess and their daddy was an astronaut pirate, I would say something about my mum and Kerby.
‘What’s Kerby?’ someone would ask, and my little five-year-old self would get more excited than if you were to say we were having pasta for dinner. I was about to tell my peers something completely unheard of. I was about to blow their minds! I’d answer the question the same way every time and wait impatiently. I knew what to expect; the reactions were always the same. It was as I got older, and the people I were talking to got older also, that the reactions varied.
In Nursery school, those I told would react with amazement. They took it as truth that another woman as a parent was called a Kerby. I sometimes wonder how long the kids I told believed this before they found out there wasn’t actually a word for a mum who’s not your mother, stepmother or mother-in-law. I thought it was a fact myself until sometime in primary school.
How was I supposed to know this wasn’t true? I had never met or even heard of anyone else with a family like mine before. I thought I was the only one, like how those other children thought they were the only ones whose dad was an astronaut pirate. I thought I was the only one whose ‘dad’ was a woman.
As time went on the reactions to my ‘fact’ changed, and so did my wording of it. While one probably catalysed the other, I am not entirely sure in which direction this was. In secondary school, the amazement I was used to receiving turned to more questions and often even accusations. I would get, ‘So… you are too?’. I wasn’t certain how to answer this – they meant the gay thing.
It caught me off guard the first time this happened. I stuttered out a no, despite still not really knowing what a lesbian actually was because, contrary to popular belief, gay parents don’t talk an awful lot about being gay. Or at least mine didn’t. Whether this was down to fear I would tell the wrong people, that I would recount the words wrong, or my parents’ lack of the correct words themselves, I still have no idea.
A few times the responses I received consisted of a laugh, like the whole premise was some joke, and I found myself laughing along with them, although I didn’t understand what was so funny.
The first time I learnt the term same-sex family was in GCSE sociology. The teacher was listing off the names and descriptions of different types of families recognised by society. First was the nuclear family, of course, and in my head I thought that was the one I fit into. Parents and their children. It took me aback when a same-sex family appeared on the board a few minutes later. A few giggles sounded from around the classroom before being hushed by the teacher. I sunk into my chair and focused on making my handwriting look neat.
I treated questions about parents like bullets and dodged them as much as I could. Whenever a time came that I couldn’t avoid referencing my parent who wasn’t my father, I would say something like ‘mum’s partner’ or even the word dad to avoid further questions. This is how it went for quite some time. Only a handful of close friends knew what my family was really like, and it was those friends who helped to erase the insecurity I felt about my parents.
Later on, it came out (pun intended) that a few of those friends were gay themselves. I – someone who would hug her friends as much as possible – was suddenly afraid to get too close to them. It would have just been another reason for people to accuse me of something that wasn’t true. I was afraid no boys would like me. Crazy, how even the girl raised by lesbians wasn’t safe from internalised homophobia.
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment my anxieties began to change, but somewhere amongst the side-eyes thrown at my friends and slurs whispered behind their backs, I realised something important: they were the ones being sworn at and threatened, and yet I was the one swallowing hard when the topic of parents came up in conversation.
They wore Pride flag badges and shouted their love for fictional gay couples in films and books. They referred to themselves with those same slurs being pushed onto them, and laughed with humour instead of mockery. They weren’t afraid. They were much braver in the face of something much scarier than what I was facing, and I felt selfish and enlightened by this new perspective. The change in my way of thinking wasn’t instant, but it was still a change I am beyond grateful for.
Now, I go to Pride and sing along to Lady Gaga with my parents and hug my friends until it annoys them, which is very often. Now I don’t feel shame or excitement but simply comfort when people ask ‘What’s Kerby?’ and I reply without thinking, ‘One of my mums.’
At this point I’m still unsure if same-sex families need their own category. It seems arbitrary to class parents as anything other than just parents because they’re of the same sex. On a positive note, there’s been a rise in families like mine shown in the media over the years. I hope this representation helps children like me to understand that their family is as valid a family as any.
Courtney Walker is a writer currently studying at the University of Lincoln. As well as prose she also writes poetry, and the majority of her work focuses on women's issues.