The History Of The Folsom Street Fair

This Sunday, Folsom Street in San Francisco between 8th and 13th streets will close down to car traffic and welcome over 400,000 people to the largest kink and leather event of its kind. If you’ve never attended a Folsom Street Fair, you’ve surely seen photos.

 
But how did we get here?

 
To dig into the history of the Folsom Street Fair is to walk through the development of San Francisco from post-WWII port city to its current state, and weaves with it the narratives of gay rights, the war on poverty and the emergence of the leather and kink subculture.

 
Here’s a run-down of how the truly one-of-a-kind event came to be:

 
In the 1940s, thousands of male servicemen were given “blue discharges” for homosexual conduct. They landed back in the nation’s major port cities, contributing to the burgeoning gay populations in cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

 
San Francisco’s South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood (the epicenter of SF’s gay leather scene and where Folsom St. Fair takes place) was a poor, working class neighborhood where many single men resided. Honky-tonks, whorehouses, and gambling dens were scattered throughout the area.

 
By the mid-’60s, SoMa emerged as a hub of the gay leather scene. The first leather bar in SoMa was the Tool Box, which opened in 1961 at 339 4th St. (which is,of all things, now a Whole Foods). In 1964, Life magazine published an article called “Homosexuality in America,” profiling The Tool Box and cementing San Francisco and SoMa as the capital of gay deviance in the minds many Americans. More than ever, gays came flocking to the city.

 
At the same time there was a large activist movement in the city to fight poverty. One major player was the Society for Individual Rights (SIR), the largest queer organization at the time. SIR worked in SOMA to protect the neighborhood’s residents.

 
This strong community-based resistance to redevelopment efforts continued through the ’70s. In 1978, activists filed a series of lawsuits on environmental grounds which failed to halt the construction of the current Yerba Buena Park, convention center and museum complex.

 
By the late ’70s, SoMa’s “miracle mile” included nearly 30 different leather bars, clubs, merchants and bathhouses.

 
Kathleen Connell and Michael Valerio began working with activist groups in 1980 and held the first Folsom Street Fair in 1984 as a community protest against redevelopment. A major goal (among many) was to establish the neighborhood not as a blighted area in need of rebuilding, but an already thriving community. The fair was called “Megahood.”

 
Another major component of the first fair was to proclaim healing and support for the LGBT community — and leather community — in the throes of the AIDS crisis.

 
After the success of the first Folsom Street Fair, organizers created the “Up Your Alley Fair” on Ringold Street in 1985. This fair moved to Dore Street (“Dore Alley”) between Harrison and Folsom in 1987.

 
As fundraising to combat AIDS continued to be a major priority, Folsom Street Fair quickly became more about the LGBT and leather communities, especially as the city continued to shut down bathhouses and bars due to concerns about public health.

 
Through the ’90s and ’00s, the leather and kink components of the fair have taken center stage, and though the fair is still a largely gay event, it incorporates all sexualities and genders.

 
The fair now draws crowds in excess of 400,000 to the streets of SoMa every September.

 
Spinoffs now include Folsom Street East (New York), Folsom Street North (Toronto), and Folsom Europe (Berlin)

 

 

BIOLOGY 101 – Semen

A bullied 10th grader allegedly servedsemen-filled cupcakes to her tormentors at a Bakersfield high school recently. While we don’t condone that sort of behavior, we’d be lying if we said it didn’t make us chuckle just a little.

The whole thing got us thinking about the nutritional benefits of cum. So, like the studious gays we are, we did some research on the subject, and unearthed all sorts of mind-blowing information about man juice that we didn’t know we didn’t know.

Check out these 10 fun facts you may or may not have known about semen.

10. The discovery of sperm

Sperm was first discovered in 1674 by Dutch microscope maker Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. The story goes Mr. van Leeuwenhoek was sitting at home one day when he decided to take a peek at his semen under a microscope because — well — why not? What else was there to do on a rainy day in the 17th century? What he found were a bunch of “very little animalcules” (that’s an old-fashioned word for tiny animals) swimming around. He recorded his observations in his diary. Two years later, in October 1676, he shared them with the Royal Society, where the information caused quite a sensation. As a result, today van Leeuwenhoek is considered to be the father of microbiology.

9. Ingredients in semen

Contrary to popular belief, semen is not made up entirely of sperm. A tablespoon of ejaculate contains only 1% of actual sperm. The other 99 percent is a combination of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), calcium, citric acid, enzymes, fructose sugar, phosphate and bicarbonate buffers, protein, water and zinc.

8. The prevention of tooth decay

Because semen contains zinc, calcium, and other minerals, it can potentially help fight tooth decay, as well as boost the immune and nervous systems. Of course, it’s not nearly as effective as toothpaste, but it’s an alternative should you ever find yourself at a man’s house without a toothbrush handy. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t leave quite the same minty fresh aftertaste.

7. Speaking of taste…

A man’s diet greatly impacts the flavor of his semen. This incredibly informative chart may help explain why the taste of your partner’s cum varies from day to day:

6. The majority of men, gay and straight, have tasted their own semen… and liked it

A 2010 questionnaire found that 57 percent of men surveyed had tasted their own semen and enjoyed the flavor, compared to 11 percent who said they did not enjoy it. 22 percent of men surveyed said they had not tasted their own semen, compared to 7 percent who said they had done so, but on accident. 2 percent of men surveyed said that they had never tasted their own semen, but they had tasted semen belonging to another man. Fascinating.

5. There are products designed to make semen taste better.

Semenex claims to be the “first and only all-natural, patented shake mix for men” that can add zest to semen. The 100 percent vegetarian powder reportedly tastes like “liquid pumpkin pie” and contains concentrated pineapple, banana, strawberry, broccoli, and celery, plus three essential spices and a selection of vitamins and minerals. Basically, you drink the crap and then 24 hours later, your cum tastes better. 10 servings cost $44.95. That’s approximately $4.50 per flavorful ejaculation.

5. Sperm softens the skin

Sperm contains spermine, an anti-oxidant believed to help diminish wrinkles, smooth skin, and clear up acne. Proving that whenever there is money to be made, somebody somewhere will find a way to make it, Bioforskning, a Norwegian company, has begun synthesizing spermine and selling it as a facial cream to spas around the world. But it doesn’t come cheap. A spermine facial at one New York spa runs around $250.

4. There is a cookbook devoted entirely to semen-based recipes

“Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties,” the description for chef Paul “Fotie” Photenhauer‘s cookbook Natural Harvest: A Collection of Semen-based Recipes reads. “Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic.” The 62-page cookbook contains dozens of recipes that feature semen as the main ingredient. Photenhauer also hasanother book with recipes for semen-infused alcoholic beverages. Yes, it’s slightly disturbing, a little disgusting, and 100 percent legit.

3. Alternative names for semen

There have been a number of nicknames given to semen over the decades, including: baby batter, jizz, spunk, trouser gravy, splooge, man chowder, two-ball compound, nut, man jam and pecker spit, among others.

2. Low in calories, low in protein

Rumor once had it that a single load of jizz contained about 20 calories and the same amount of protein as an egg white. In truth, the average male’s load only has 0.7 calories and 171 milligrams of protein. A person would have to ingest 4 ounces of semen to get the same amount of protein they would from an egg white. And considering that the average male’s load is only about 3/4 of a tablespoon, that’s a lockjaw-induing number of BJs.

1. Health hazards

Semen itself is not harmful to your health when swallowed, but if your partner has an STD, you can be exposed to it by having his spunk in your mouth. According to the San Francisco City Clinic, “oral sex provides the greatest risk for exposure to certain STDs such as syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia and shigella (if your partner has just topped someone else unprotected).” One way of preventing this from happening is by using condoms. These days, you can get them in just about almost any flavor: chocolate, banana, chocolate banana, cotton candy, mint, grape, strawberry, even cannabis. Seriously. A new pot-flavored condom just hit the market. Now that’s something we’d love to wrap our lips around!

via queerty

 

Things you can only get at a Wal-Mart in China

It seems like you can find anything at your local Wal-Mart, and most of the products are of course made in China these days. But that doesn’t mean that you’ll feel at home when you walk into a Wal-Mart in China. It’s quite the contrary based on these pictures. After all, China is known for its exotic, if not eccentric, food tastes. Take a look.

1. Crocodiles in the frozen meat section

 

 

 

 

2. A whole lot of rice.

 

 

 

3. Misc. mystery meats

 

 

 

4. An oil + orange juice combo pack

 

 

 

5. Turtles and frogs

 

 

 

6. Walmart brand spirits

 

 

 

7. Open-air racks of ribs

 

 

 

8. Assorted dried reptiles

 

 

 

9. Even more live frogs

 

 

 

 

10. Ducks

 

 

 

 

11. Beef granules wrapped like candy

 

 

 

12. Sharks

 

 

 

 

13. Pig faces

 

 

 

 

14. Anti-bacterial men’s underwear 

 

 

 

It’s been estimated that China accounts for about 10% of Wal-Mart’s international sales. That’s a lot of pig snouts.

Source: Reddit.com

 

Study: 93 Percent Of Straight College Dudes Enjoy “Cuddling, Spooning” With Their Bros

Turns out straight male jocks actually aregetting as close in the locker room as you had hoped.

According to a recent study out of the UK, nearly 93 percent of male athletes surveyed said they’ve enjoyed cuddling and/or spooning with male friends on a regular basis and — better yet — don’t understand why American bros don’t cuddle more often. Of the 40 participants surveyed, 39 also revealed that they’ve shared a bed with another man since starting college.

Published in March in the journal of Men and Masculinities, the study observed the social habits of 18 and 19-year-old white, middle-income college students enrolled in study co-author Eric Anderson’s sociology of sports class at the University of Winchester. Along with co-author Mark McCormack of Durham University, Anderson concludes that homosocial behaviors becoming more acceptable among heterosexual friends is a sign of the times.

Or, more specifically, “the expansion of esteemed homosocial behaviors for heterosexual men is evidence of an expansion of changing conceptions of masculinity in contemporary culture.”

“We knew they [straight males] were hugging and cuddling, and we wanted to understand this phenomenon in more detail,” McCormack said in an interview with HuffPo. “They don’t realize this is something that older men would find shocking; It’s older generations that think men cuddling is taboo,” he said.

He continues:

“The social taboo against cuddling has been because for two men to get close was traditionally seen as ‘gay’. Men wanted to avoid being the target of homophobic abuse, so they would be macho to distance themselves from any perception of homosexuality. But there is a generational effect here: Older men who grew up in the 1980s may still feel the need to present a very straight version of themselves, but more positive attitudes toward homosexuality in contemporary culture mean that younger men are simply less concerned about how other people view their behaviors.”

As a result, it seems modern teenagers aren’t too concerned with “defending” their heterosexuality. And who in their right mind would ever reject a bro cuddle?

Students and test subjects Jarrett and Max explain:

Without being prompted, Jarrett repeatedly stressed the amount of cuddling he and his mates engage in. ‘‘We’re always cuddling, my lot. We’re all comfortable with each other.’’ Others highlight that cuddling occurs during the day and will often be described as ‘‘a quick cuddle.’’ John praised these short interactions, saying ‘‘I love a quick cuddle, just so you remember your friends are about and are there for you.’’

It’s worth noting that these are European teenagers — men from a continent where rugby players use making out as a celebratory gesture. It might take some time for ‘bro cuddles’ to catch on here in the States, but I think I speak for everyone when I say we’re totally ready for this to happen.

 

Very informative stuff about tipping

Here’s What You Need To Know Before You Tip Someone:

The Stats

The most critical step in avoiding Ambiguous Tipping Situations is just knowing what you’re supposed to do:

This table nicely fills in key gaps in my previous knowledge. The basic idea with the low/average/high tipping levels used above is that if you’re in the average range, you’re fine and forgotten. If you’re in the low or high range, you’re noticed and remembered. And service workers have memories like elephants.

 

11 Other Interesting Findings and Facts:

1) Different demographics absolutely do tip differently. “Do any demographics of people — age, gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, profession — tend to tip differently than others?” ran away with the “Most Uncomfortable Question to Ask or Answer” award during my interviews, but it yielded some pretty interesting info. I only took seriously a viewpoint I heard at least three times, and in this post, I’m only including those viewpoints that were backed up by my online research and Lynn’s statistical studies.

Here’s the overview, which is a visualization of the results of Lynn’s polling of over 1,000 waiters. Below, each category of customer is placed at their average rating over the 1,000+ waiter surveys in the study:

Fascinating and awkward. Throughout my interviews, I heard a lot of opinions reinforcing what’s on that chart and almost none that contradicted it. The easiest one for people to focus on was foreigners being bad tippers, because A) it’s not really a demographic so it’s less awkward, and B) people could blame it on them “not knowing,” if they didn’t want to be mean. Others, though, scoffed at that, saying, “Oh they know…” As far as foreigners go, the French have the worst reputation.

People also consistently said that those who act “entitled” or “fussy” or “like the world’s out to get them” are usually terrible tippers.

On the good-tipping side, people who are vacationing or drunk (or both) tip well, as do “regulars” who get to know the staff, and of course, the group of people everyone agrees are the best tippers are those who also work in the service industry (which, frankly, creeped me out by the end — they’re pretty cultish and weird about how they feel about tipping each other well).

2) Here are six proven ways for waiters to increase their tips:

• Be the opposite gender of your customer
• Ideally, be a slender, attractive, big-breasted blond in your 30s
• Introduce yourself by name
• Sit at the table or squat next to it when taking the order
• Touch the customer, in a non-creepy way
• Give the customer candy when you bring the check

Of course those things work. Humans are simple.

3) A few different people said that when a tip is low, they assume the customer is cheap or hurting for money, but when it’s high, they assume it’s because they did a great job serving the customer or because they’re likable (not that the customer is generous).

4) When a guy tips an attractive female an exorbitant amount, it doesn’t make her think he’s rich or generous or a big shot — it makes her think he’s trying to impress her. Very transparent and ineffective, but she’s pleased to have the extra money.

5) Don’t put a zero in the tip box if it’s a situation when you’re not tipping — it apparently comes off as mean and unnecessary. Just leave it blank and write in the total.

6) According to valets and bellmen, when people hand them a tip, they almost always do the “double fold” where they fold the bills in half twice and hand it to them with the numbers facing down so the amount of the tip is hidden. However, when someone’s giving a really great tip, they usually hand them the bills unfolded and with the amount showing.

7) Some notes about other tipping professions I didn’t mention above:

• Apparently no one tips flight attendants, and if you do, you’ll probably receive free drinks thereafter.
• Golf caddies say that golfers tip better when they play better, but they always tip the best when it’s happening in front of clients.
• Tattoo artists expect $10-20 on a $100 job and $40-60 on a $400 job, but they get nothing from 30% of people.
• A massage therapist expects a $15-20 tip and receives one 95% of the time — about half of a massage therapist’s income is tips.
• A whitewater rafting guide said he always got the best tips after a raft flipped over or something happened where people felt in danger.
• Strippers not only usually receive no salary, they often receive a negative salary — i.e. they need to pay the club a fee in order to work there.

8) According to Lynn, tips in the US add up to $40 billion each year. This is more than double NASA’s budget.

9) The US is the most tip-crazed country in the world, but there’s a wide variety of tipping customs in other countries. Tipping expert Magnus Thor Torfason’s research shows that 31 service professions involve tipping in the US. That number is 27 in Canada, 27 in India, 15 in the Netherlands, 5-10 throughout Scandinavia, 4 in Japan, and 0 in Iceland.

10) The amount of tipping in a country tends to correlate with the amount of corruption in the country. This is true even after controlling for factors like national GDP and crime levels. The theory is that the same norms that encourage tipping end up leaking over into other forms of exchange. The US doesn’t contribute to this general correlation, with relatively low corruption levels.

11) Celebrities should tip well, because the person they tip will tell everyone they know about it forever, and everyone they tell will tell everyone they know about it forever.

For example: A friend of mine served Arnold Schwarzenegger and his family at a fancy lunch place in Santa Monica called Cafe Montana. Since he was the governor, they comped him the meal. And he left a $5 bill as the tip. I’ve told that story to a lot of people.

• Celebrities known to tip well (these are the names that come up again and again in articles about this): Johnny Depp, Charles Barkley, David Letterman, Bill Murray, Charlie Sheen, Drew Barrymore

• Celebrities known to tip badly: Tiger Woods, Mariah Carey, LeBron James, Heidi Klum, Bill Cosby, Madonna, Barbara Streisand, Rachael Ray, Sean Penn, Usher

 

This is why nobody wants to live in Mississippi

The Mississippi House and Senate on Tuesday, in a fit of overwhelming stupidity and unbridled religious bigotry, approved a bill which opponents say would legalize discrimination against gays.

The Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act (also known as Senate Bill 2681) aims to “provide that state action or an action by any person based on state action shall not burden a person’s right to the exercise of religion.”

Each individual will be guaranteed the right to deny goods and services to anyone (not just gays) just by stating it is against their religious belief to do so.

Democratic State Senator Derrick Simmons has repeatedly said that the proposed legislation would allow discrimination in Mississippi.

“I urge you not to legalize discrimination in the State of Mississippi,” Simmons told colleagues debating the bill.

“I believe certainly by the way that this bill is drafted that it will allow discrimination in Mississippi,” he said. “There is nothing in the proposed legislation that prohibits that.”

The ACLU said in a statement that the measure “could allow individuals and businesses to bring challenges against what they view as substantial government burdens against religion, including challenging existing nondiscrimination laws.”

However, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill into law.

Mississippi, once again leading the country in hate, prejudice and bigotry…if nothing else, they are consistent!

It stands to reason the state has one of the lowest levels of parental education in the nation and the most families in poverty. They are the only state in which less than 20 percent of eighth graders are proficient in math and reading.

While a mere 63 percent of their students graduate high school, the bigger problem for Mississippi is that the high school assessments and credits do not align with postsecondary school standards. They lack an assessment at the district level to ensure children are ready for school. In all categories, they have the worst NAEP scores in the nation.

Way to go Mississippi.

 

The Story of Cory

This is the true story of Corey, a 15 year old gay youth whose parents professed being evangelical Christians and the *REAL* Christians who saved his life.

 

Corey did not have an easy life. He was a popular jock guy in high school, but by the age of 15, he had been handed more than his share of abuse.

His parents were conservative, religious, on welfare and dabbled in narcotics. His birth father beat Corey at times, and neglected him at others. Corey was raised with a belief gay people were not only sinners, they were sin itself. His birth father made sure Corey was aware gay people all were killed at some point before they reached old age.

Corey had been meticulous about keeping his sexual orientation a secret. He was athletic and popular as a ‘ladies man’. ‘It was all to keep everyone from knowing,’ he told me.

Finally he started telling some of his extended family. This left him feeling exposed and vulnerable at home. If the subject were to come up, he could no longer deflect and hide. Whatever security he had felt was gone, and his self-doubt and self-loathing were at all time highs.

One evening, the issue of sexual orientation came up, in a big way. As Corey prepared for an evening at a relations’ house, a news story about gay rights came on the television. Corey reacted with a subtle positive endorsement. His birth father exploded. ‘If any fag lived in this house, I would shoot them in the head with a shotgun,’ he screamed.

Corey bolted from the house immediately. He was feeling feverish, scared and sickened. Did his father know? Was that a threat for him, or just a reminder that he lived in a den of hatred?

At the party, Corey got drunk, and physically sicker. He ended back at home and as fever raged, his despair imploded into his gut. His parents, suspicious, ignored him. Several days later, at 2am in the morning, he was up, unable to sleep, delirious and suicidal.

Across town, a woman named Mindy was closing up her household. Husband Dale was sound asleep, as were her two sons. Only her daughter Aubrey had the late night candle burning. As she strolled by Aubrey, who was diligently typing on the computer, Mindy opened her mouth to scoot her daughter off to bed.

Suddenly she saw something chilling on the computer screen over her daughter’s shoulder. Written in the chat box was the statement: ‘I am desperate. Things here are so bad, I want to slit my wrists. I am not kidding.’

Mindy dove in. ‘Who is that?’ she asked Aubrey. Aubrey told her it was Corey, whom she had met when he had taken Aubrey to the homecoming dance. Aubrey explained he was sick, but his parents were ignoring him. Much to Aubrey’s shock, Mindy declared: ‘We are going to get him.’

Some mama-grizzly instinct took Mindy over. ‘It was like I was possessed by someone else. I knew I needed to act, and to do something, but everything I did was against my nature and not how I usually act as a person.’

Forty minutes later, Mindy and Aubrey were at the trailer in which Corey lived with his family. He came out and got in their van. His father wandered out and demanded to know what Mindy was doing.

The normally honest to a fault Mindy heard herself telling a lie. In a casual nonchalant demeanor, especially one for almost three in the morning, she heard herself say: ‘Oh hi! Sorry to disturb. We had invited Corey to go to the mountains with us. We thought an early start would be best.’

Corey’s birthfather turned flirty and asked Mindy when she was going to come take HIM to the mountains. Mindy laughed coyly, played the part and flirted right back. After a few minutes, the van was on its way, with Corey in it.

When they returned home, Mindy was in for the biggest shock of the night. When Corey walked into the light, she could see he was almost blue, he had pneumonia, and she knew that without her intervention, he would have likely died.

For Dale, he was just mystified. ‘I came downstairs in the morning to cook breakfast and there is this kid sleeping on my couch. He wasn’t there when I went to bed!’

For the next few weeks, Corey’s birth parents did not inquire as to where he was. Finally, nursed back to health, he returned home and the growing awareness of his homosexuality again became the unspoken issue. Finally, he decided to confide in his mother. He figured she was oppressed and passive, and likely to keep it to herself.

That was not the case. She called Corey’s birth father who stormed home and broke into the house railing at the top of his lungs.

‘He was yelling and screaming about how a fag was living in his home and he can’t believe the devil was in his presence. I locked myself in my room when my brother came home. The first thing my father did was tell him about how his brother was nothing but a worthless fag,’ Corey recalled.

All three family members tried to break into his bedroom for hours. Later they retreated, and Corey escaped to the bathroom with a much stronger door and lock. He sat in a corner of the bathroom with his possessions in a paper bag, afraid for his life. In the wee hours of the morning, when the three had passed out, he escaped the house – never to return.

He went back to his friend Aubrey’s house. It was not just Aubrey and Mindy to his rescue. Dad Dale, and brothers Andrew and Mason all stepped up as they had during his illness. The family had come to love him. For them, he belonged. He was home.

They did not know at first that he was gay. They just understood that he needed them. When they did find out that he was gay and had been driven from his former home because of it, it did not matter, not even to conservative dad, Dale. They already loved him, and for some unapparent reason, they seemed to need him too.

The family met together so that each person could have his or her say. It was unanimous; every single member wanted Corey to stay permanently.

Dale described what happened next: ‘Initially we set Corey’s bedroom up in our basement. We gathered what we could since he didn’t bring anything with him.

‘His first bedroom in our home was made of walls with moving blankets tacked to the ceiling. There was a bed, a nightstand, an old dresser and a box fan.

‘That kid was so freaking happy. I think that moment really made Aubrey, Andrew and Mason appreciate what they have. Made me cry to see Corey with next to nothing and be happy about it.’

The next year was a challenge for all involved. At first the birth family created noise. The small community also backlashed against Corey’s new family. Andrew and Aubrey were both taunted at school for going after a gay brother, and some of Mindy and Dale’s family and friends out and out rejected them.

Corey stood strong, and it inspired his new family to do so as well.

Dale stated: ‘I had issues growing up and I wish I had been as strong as Corey to stand up for myself when I was a teenager. Corey has taught me a lot.’

The family got a court date. They were extremely nervous and had documented all the events leading up to the adoption. They watched the door of the courtroom waiting for their adversaries to arrive. They waited and watched. Time passed.

Corey’s birth family did not show up. They had no apparent argument to contest the adoption, no concern. Their offspring was gay and they signaled they were perfectly willing to adopt him out as a consequence.

For Corey, Mindy, Dale, Aubrey, Andrew and Mason, the day became known as ‘Gotcha’ day. A family got Corey, and he got them. Aubrey, Andrew and Mason became tireless advocates for Corey and LGBTI rights in general. Eleven year old Mason, who previously had been disinterested in things outside of a little boy’s world made a rainbow freedom art project he dedicated to his new big brother.

Mindy describe the events of the past three years: ‘I want the world to know that Corey is a beautiful human being. I want them to know that any pain we went through or will go through is worth it.

‘Why is it worth it? Because love is the most powerful force. I want the world to see Corey’s pain and know it is not necessary. Sexuality is such a small part of who we are. First and foremost Corey is a loving, genuine, caring, intelligent human being. Who he is attracted to and who he marries is of little significance.

‘I’m certain his partner will be as kind and loving as himself. Isn’t that what this world needs? I want the world to know that standing up for people who can’t stand up for themselves is vital to our survival. Standing up for what is right is not always easy, but it is always right.

‘Our family fell in love with Corey for Corey… his sexuality did not change who he was. I also want the world to know that we are a family. I want people to understand that genetics are just science. Families are built from unconditional love.’

For Dale, it is a little simpler. He told me that he still sees Corey’s birth father around their small town.

‘He knows how to put on a front,’ Dale commented. ‘He smiles and acts like nothing is a big deal. He says: “Thanks, appreciate what you are doing for my boy.”’

In those encounters, Dale does not say much. He turns and walks away. He whispers to himself: ‘I have news for you. He is not your boy. He’s my son.’