Growing up with a gay dad

Alison Wearing’s Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter tells the story of a 12-year-old girl whose father comes out of the closet.

It happened more than 30 years ago, when Wearing lived with her family in small-town Ontario.

“I was 12 when [my father] came out,” Wearing says. “So I spent my adolescence telling stories about what was happening – making up stories, making up lies to cover up the dancing pink elephant behind me that I couldn’t reveal.”

The stories that Wearing made up slowly transformed into something much closer to the truth. She wrote an essay about her experiences and eventually created a one-woman show before turning her stories into a book.

Below is an interview between Wearing and proud gay parent Elvira Kurt.