Author Description

In 1977 a law was passed in Florida banning discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexuality. This law was an important step towards respecting gay and lesbian civil rights. However, immediately after it was passed, Anita Bryant, a former beauty queen and a born-again Christian, started a group called Save Our Children to overturn the law. This group stirred up so much fear regarding any gay role model interacting with children that six months later the gay-rights ordinance was repealed. In 1979 Joe Gantz decided to show loving and supportive gay role models by finding families raising children in openly gay homes and asking them to tell their stories. A Secret I Can't Tell follows five families raising children in homes where one or both parents were not hiding their homosexuality. This book was first published in 1983, and it's being republished now in 2022 with an update from many of the children, and these stories are as relevant now as they were in 1983. As Gantz interviewed the parents and the kids, he let them talk about everything that was going on in their lives. It quickly became apparent that there were a lot of pressures on these families and that the family life could at times be difficult and confusing. Which of course is not unique to gay families, but nonetheless the situations they described were not always easy for the kids to navigate.In the 40 years since this book was first published there has been an incredible amount of change in the way the public sees and treats gay people. These days, gay couples raising children hardly raise an eyebrow. A Secret I Can't Tell is a time capsule that can give insight into the intense stress and uncommon bravery that gay and lesbian couples and their children had to go through as pioneers in this movement. The stories told by these kids and their parents can help us appreciate the many challenges that gay families had to deal with as the first wave of families living in openly