Being Gay Is the Best and Most Important Thing About Me
Broadway and television producer Richie Jackson celebrates his history and sexuality with life lessons for his son
Even before the award-winning theatre, film, and TV producer Richie Jackson’s son came out, he had begun writing down lessons and stories that he wanted to pass down to future generations of gay men. He compiled his writing into a celebratory memoir for his son to remind him that being gay will always be a big deal.
Jackson joined Zibby Owens on her podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books to discuss how he still manages to see his sexuality as a gift in spite of all the challenges it has brought along the way, and why it’s so essential to support your child if they come out.
Read an excerpt below and follow the link to listen to the entire interview.
Zibby Owens: Can you briefly describe your book, Gay Like Me?
Richie Jackson: I wanted to create a TV series about the difference between being gay when I was a teenager and what it’s like to be gay now. I wrote plot outlines. I came up with characters. I thought it would be really funny if an older gay man found himself living with a twenty-something gay man, and the hilarity ensues. Just as I was trying to figure out this show, our fifteen-year-old son told us he was gay. Everything I was trying to put in the pilot was happening at our dinner table. I thought, “This is not a TV show. It’s my real life.”
He told us, “It’s no big deal. My generation thinks it’s not a big deal.” I thought, “Oh, I need to tell him what a big deal it is.” Being gay is the best thing about me. It’s the most important thing about me. It’s been the blessing of my life. I wanted to share that with him so he wouldn’t undervalue what a gift it is. Then in 2016, Donald Trump was elected and I also had to warn him what it takes to be a gay man in America right now. That was the impetus for the book.
ZO: Would you have been disappointed to have had a straight son?
RJ: My son says I would’ve been disappointed if he was not gay. The real disappointment would’ve been if I wanted him to be nothing like me. How could I have parented with any self-esteem if every day I was praying, “Please don’t be like me. Please don’t be like me. Please don’t be like me.” It is the blessing of my life to be gay — why would I not want that for him?
We all have expectations of our children when we’re expecting. That’s what expecting means. Your ideas of your life will coalesce instantaneously once you know you’re going to have a baby. My desire was for him to be gay. Of course, we all know that the only important parenting lesson is you parent the child you have, not the child you thought you’d have. I would’ve, obviously, parented and loved whatever child I had, but I did have a strong desire that he be given the gift that I have been given.
ZO: Let’s talk about why you think being gay is a gift because there’s a lot in your book that shows the struggles that have come with it.
RJ: Look, it’s extremely challenging to be gay. I talk in the book about how every gay person has a gay guard. I have not in thirty-six years of being a gay adult let down my guard. I always know who’s around me, who can hear me. I don’t kiss my husband goodbye on the street without making sure the coast is clear enough.
It takes a lot of vigilance. It can be exhausting, that vigilance, but it’s still worth it. Religions have stigmatized us. Our government has battled us time and time again. We have survived a plague. We are bullied as children. We disappoint our parents.
That all doesn’t happen against us because we’re just defects. It happens because all of those people trying to diminish us know that our power is in our gayness. It is my creativity. It’s my worldview. It’s my empathy. It’s the way I love. Everything good in my life is because I am gay. That’s why I do not want people to say, “Don’t make a big deal of it.” My happiness is because I’m gay. Everything good that I can celebrate, my children, my creativity, my husband, our life, all stems from that well of gayness. I’m not interested in making that smaller.
ZO: How can you be the type of parent who is ready for your child to come out and knows how to handle it the right way? What advice would you have?
RJ: My first piece of advice for a parent who might have a child who is gay is to read Gay Like Me. What I would say to them is: Congratulations. I’m thrilled for you. I’m thrilled for your child. Now, you have a decision to make. You can be your child’s first assault, their first obstacle, or you could help raise them with self-esteem.
I laid out in my book how I did it for myself because I was not educated. I learned gay history, not because it’s a responsibility, but because it helped place me in a group of extraordinary people. It made me feel less alone. Then I immersed myself in literature that taught me how to be gay and taught me the gift of otherness and how otherness can be used as a positive, and art and dance. By doing that, I learned who I was and how extraordinary it was.
I would say for a parent of a young LGBTQ person, if you can do that for them, then you are going to have an extraordinary experience with your child that you never imagined. It takes one adult to help save an LGBTQ youth’s life.
ZO: Twenty-five percent of young people who didn’t have at least one accepting adult in their life reported attempting suicide in the past year.
RJ: Right. Forty percent didn’t if they had one accepting adult. The extraordinary thing about that figure is the adult does not have to be a parent. If all of us can watch our words — because words matter — and if we can make our young people around us feel seen and feel heard and not judged, that can save a life. It doesn’t have to be our own children.
ZO: Even though it comes with the struggle and the vigilance, you still want your son to celebrate his gayness?
RJ: Absolutely. The struggle is proof that it’s so worth it. I didn’t want to let him leave our house not understanding the struggle. We kind of kept it from him because we didn’t know he was gay when he was younger. We knew we had to make him feel safe and loved.
I didn’t share with him all the dangers that my husband and I feel on a daily basis or that I went through as a young person or the plague that I experienced. I didn’t want to scare him. Then when he told us he was gay and he was about to go off to college, I realized there’s a lot he doesn’t know. There’s a lot he doesn’t understand and that’s what I wanted to tell him.
Listen to the episode:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/richiejackson?rq=richie%20jackson
Buy the book:
https://bookshop.org/books/gay-like-me-a-father-writes-to-his-son/9780062939777
