I am a 74 year-old heterosexual male. For years when I was a boy my mother used to say to me, “Alex, you will never understand because you will never be a mother.” By the time I had figured out a retort it was 1973 and she was dead. I would have told her, “Mother, you will never understand because you will never be a father.” And so it goes with this sort of thing. I never had brothers or sisters so I have no idea on the relationship between my two daughters or my wife with her sister. I understand your anger. In my case I keep silent and as my mother used to say “lump it”. The word gay was taken away and now the rainbow, too. “And so it goes,” as Vonnegut used to say.

Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

Vancouver BC