“But let’s start at beginning. My wife and I met in high school. It wasn’t love at first sight, or even attraction at first site. In fact, I wasn’t even into women.”
‘Wait! I am 29 years old. I won’t poop my pants. That’s ridiculous.’ I didn’t want to bother my wife. I didn’t want her to panic that I was home alone. ‘I think it’s time. I think I’m in labor.’
‘We went out to eat. There was a family sitting beside us, obviously disgusted. That hurt. My ‘life choices’ interfere with their views. We ARE the new normal.’
“I still remember what the room smelled like, I even remember what we were wearing. I couldn’t look away as if I was frozen. I knew instantly, this was the very moment I had prayed for.”
‘During high school, I decided it was time to tell my family. The thought of losing them was scary. I would return to school after break, for the first time, as myself.’
“To others, I was in need of fixing. In an attempt to make me more masculine and ‘grow out of it,’ I was placed in sports. I feared what I would face.”
‘Mom! You are white and I am brown, and that means Martin made it so you could adopt me!’ He grabbed his little brother’s hand. ‘Look! Martin’s dream came true.’
“He was 4 the first time kids told him he couldn’t play with them on the playground because he was black. I wasn’t prepared for any of it.”
‘I was standing in line. An older gentleman said, ‘Why are you wearing that rainbow shirt? Are you some sort of fa***t?’
“This man then goes on to mumble homophobic slurs to me, the whole time I’m waiting in line. I ignore him, pay for my food, and start to walk away. I then notice his card gets declined.”
‘For us, he was only ever our son. Not our black or adopted son. Even though most folks find him adorable right now, they might feel differently when he dates their daughters.’
“A neighbor at a playgroup asked all the kids to go around the room and say what color they were. They all laughed when it was Eli’s turn. He said he was white, like everyone else did. They made sure he left knowing he wasn’t.”
‘Turns out, some people HATE a man in a dress.’
“My husband makes a hideous woman. My kids thought it was hilarious that daddy had boobies and a big wig. It didn’t take long before I realized my husband dressed-up as the bearded lady was not as charming to others as I thought it was. I was shocked.”
‘It was so simple for me to accidentally get pregnant with my twins. Why couldn’t I do this for my wife?! I felt as if I was failing her. Something I never wanted to do.’
“This was something we both wanted SO badly, yet everything was going horribly wrong. This wasn’t full of whispers and giggles and kisses like we had thought. This was full of frustration, anger, and disappointment.”
‘Flashing lights would induce a seizure causing them to fall and possibly suffer life altering damage to themselves.’ Mom creates Sensory Sensitive Trick-or-Treating after growing up in foster care watching kids ‘struggle’
“While I understand Halloween is about fear, and scaring, the night itself is very exclusive to a certain demographic of children.”
‘I’m the Veteran, not the Veteran’s wife’: Master Chief Petty Officer retires as senior enlisted woman in the Navy, wants others to know ‘we already are equal’
“Women don’t ask to be equal, we already are equal. Women simply want others to acknowledge that equality.”
