I have same sex parents

Fiona's Story

I love my Dads more than anything in the world and would never, ever trade them. But having same-sex parents was something that no-one else at my school was familiar with and I have been bullied a lot.

Before I started school, I didn't realise my parents were different than anybody else's. My Dads raised me as any other parents would. It wasn't until school that I really realised how different my family was from other children's.

Everyone always drew pictures of their "Mummy and Daddy" and found it hard to understand that I was drawing "My Daddies."

Bullied

I was called names a lot and pushed over on the playground. When my Dad came to pick me up after school, kids would point and laugh, whispering things behind his back.

Back then my Dad was a homemaker, and the "Mums" would swarm him and ask really awkward questions. They described him as "the woman in the relationship", which made him really uncomfortable.

Dealing with ignorance

Other girls got it into their heads that having gay parents would make me gay, so they wouldn't let me into the girls' changing rooms sometimes and pushed me out of the girls' toilets.

The teachers were amazing though and very good at preventing most of the bullying. Unfortunately there were always some ignorant people.

In secondary school, kids were a lot more tolerant of homosexuality, but kept asking me awkward questions. I really didn't want to answer them and be the centre of this unwanted attention, but they wouldn't let me go until I did.

One time a girl asked me if I was adopted, and when I said I wasn't she said I must be and kept pestering me about it until I cried.

Positives

There are a lot of people at my school who believe that two men shouldn't raise a child, but I think I've turned out fine. My homemaker Dad has a job now, so they're actually thinking about having another kid - I hope they do!

I've met my real mother, but she's just like a friend to me, like she is to my Dads. I don't know which of my Dads is my biological father and I don't want to know. They both mean so much to me and I love them more than anything.