Contact:
Suzette Southfox, Family Pride Coalition, 619-296-0199,
Funding@familypride.org

Felicia Park-Rogers, COLAGE (Children of Lesbians And Gays Everywhere),
415-861-5437, Director@colage.org

Straight Spouses, The Untold Chapter of Gay Liberation
By Amity Pierce Buxton, Ph.D.

"Oh he can't be gay. He's married and has kids!" or "His wife couldn't have come out. They're the perfect couple and she's such a great mother!" How often I've heard that when people hear that a husband or wife has come out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Being gay and married seems contradictory, and being able to produce children more so. A married lesbian mother told me just yesterday that someone asked her, "You mean lesbians can have children?"

Based on the most recent figures and conservative research estimates, up to 2,000,000 gay men or women are or once were married. While the James Hormels, Michael Huffingtons, and Jann Wenners among these make the national headlines, most are men and women in every sub group across our country, who are quietly coming out in increasing numbers. Most have children. Their spouses are devastated, and in the majority of cases, the families break up.

Gay, lesbian and bisexual spouses find support in their communities. However, the straight spouses are overlooked in the "news" of their partners' coming out, and friends and families do not understand their struggle. Most retreat into closets of their own to cope. Their stories are the untold chapter of gay liberation -- the unintended fallout of a social change albeit in the name of social justice.

The parenting role of the straight spouse is also forgotten in the hullabaloo raised over the gay parent's relationship with the children. Most studies about children of divorced lesbian and gay parents omit their experience in the homes of their straight parents. The many children I've interviewed say their major concern is that both parents continue to be there for them and to love and care for them.

My own writing and lecturing since 1986 and recent efforts of the Straight Spouse Network (SSN) have begun to sketch "straight spouses" into the public awareness. Yet, most Americans remain woefully in the dark about their existence -- or what their plight says about the role antigay attitudes play in gay persons' deciding to marry. Family Pride Coalition, the organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender parents, recognizes the inalienable place of straight spouses among the families they represent. At their upcoming Family Week in Provincetown, August 5-11, Family Pride Coalition will again offer a workshop to put the picture of the straight parent back into the family snapshot. Presenters include a straight husband of a lesbian and father of two teen age girls; the adult daughter of a divorced gay father and straight mother; and myself, formerly married to a gay man and mother of a son and daughter.

Family Week is jointly hosted by Family Pride Coalition and COLAGE (Children of Lesbians And Gays Everywhere) and is presented by Capital One. Family Week is also sponsored by the Straight Spouse Network, Subaru, HRC FamilyNet, and Growing Generations with Proud Parenting Magazine as the media sponsor and American Airlines as the official carrier.

Registration forms for Family Week may be downloaded from www.familypride.org or www.colage.org. For more information, call 619-296-0199 or 415-861-5437. Additional resources for LGBT families may be found at www.hrc.org/familynet.

Amity Pierce Buxton, Ph.D. is author of The Other Side of the Closet and Director of the Straight Spouse Network.