I know that, compared to a lot of people, my life is quite good. My parents are about as accepting as one could accept them to be of my sexuality, and things could be a lot worse. D for example, who always seems to be one of the bravest people I know in regards to declaring who he is and being true to himself. And yet he feels he can’t tell his parents because of how they will react. It seems somehow unfair that I, coward that I am, end up with parents who go out of their way to make it clear that they are ‘ok’ with my sexuality, (Though I do, as I’ve said, find the intimation that they might not be offensive, I know things could be much worse.) whereas D, who thoroughly deserves, through his courage, to be accepted, can’t tell his. But really I’m selfish, so what I’m actually going to talk about is really all about me.

My mother is convinced that, because I’m gay, I will never have children. I’m annoyed by this. I accept that it is unlikely that I will be able actually to physically conceive offspring, but my genes aren’t so super that I feel the need to burden the next generation with them anyway. I would actually rather like to have children, whether by adoption or any other method the medical profession may care to come up with I don’t know. But I would like to raise a child, eventually, one day in the future. This may be harder for me than a straight person, but it isn’t impossible, and it isn’t as if heterosexuality is a free ticket to parenthood anyway. TV, for example, is riddled with couples who can’t have children by the usual method, and it isn’t even as if, where I straight, that would immediately imbue me both with the ability and the desire to procreate. (And, of course, there would still be the problem of finding someone who wished to procreate with me.) And so the casual way she said a few days ago to my sister “I might never be a granny.” did really annoy me. I don’t believe she meant by that simply that she might be dead before either my sister or I are able to furnish her with children to fawn over.

She’s said before something… well, not quite the same, but relying on the same assumption that my sexuality has removed my right to be a father. I’m not sure, and it doesn’t strike me as something I’m ever likely to challenge her on, whether this stems from a belief that as a homosexual I am now incapable of having children completely (And this seems unlikely, really, considering that she teaches the midwives of the future (Although in a university she frequently condemns as one of the worst in the country. Her course, of course, is its saving grace.) and some evenings at the weekends takes up extra work midwifing.) or that being gay renders me unsuitable to look after children. I wouldn’t really have thought she’d subscribe to this belief either, but I am sometimes taken quite by surprise by how prejudiced she can be.

Still, having said all this, I myself am not sure of the laws relevant to the fathering of children by a homosexual. I suppose that one would be more favourably (Hey, apparently Word doesn’t like me spelling it like that. The Chambers Dictionary, (The official Scrabble dictionary!) however, sides with me on this one.) looked upon if in a loving, stable and monogamous relationship, so maybe she’s actually referring to the fact that I will quite likely die alone. Probably not though, as she is unable to accept this truth about her son. I like to think, though, (I did think for a while about actually getting some rose tinted spectacles, although more as a declaration of my credulity and foolishness than actually to see how the world looks through them.) that by the time I’m actually of an age where this issue becomes slightly more real we may actually inhabit a society that deserves to think itself tolerant a sort of equality will finally have been achieved and we’ll all be able to marry who we like and everyone will have the same rights as everyone else. (Apart, perhaps, from people who can’t spell (My frequent typing errors are a different matter entirely.))