Dreaming forward. Moving backward.

The morning after five people were murdered at Club Q in Colorado Springs, I sunk into a booth with a childhood friend and her family at a gay-friendly brunch spot outside Miami. The news hadn’t made it to us, and the mood was light as we waited for our food. Ours was the only table in the place with little kids, and the waitress—a drag queen with fabulous sparkle lipstick—brought them bacon shortly after we sat down. Little sister ate hers and then stole a piece off her brother’s plate, and we all cracked up at her precociousness.

Kris and I attended middle school together; her family moved after 8th grade. As anyone who has read The Family Outing (Order The Family Outing ) knows, middle school years were not my best years. (See photo above!) I was a gay kid who had no reference point for my condition. As I wrote in the book:?

Now, in conversations for the Project, both my parents say we knew gay people. Mom mentions her guitar student, a single woman who teaches school in the town over. Dad points to Randy, the Church organist, who died of AIDS in 1987. Pastor’s wife gathered the ladies who sewed at church to make a square for him for the AIDS quilt. I remember this. I knew that Randy died of AIDS, but I never knew he, or anyone else was gay. No one talked about that.

A couple years ago, Kris found me on social media.?I watched her life unfold on Instagram for a long time before I reached out to chat with her. She’d become a school teacher, and married her girlfriend. In a bit of symmetry bestowed upon us by the universe, she and her wife had a son a couple months before we had Jude. Their daughter arrived just two months before we had Camille.?

When?I was invited to Florida ?for the Miami Book Fair, I seized the opportunity to finally meet my old classmate in person. As her little kids, who so closely approximate my own, wiggled in their seats and took walks to explore the restaurant, Kris and I compared notes on our middle school memories. The English teacher we loved. Her uncle, a beloved track coach, who’d recently passed. That overnight field trip to Mystic Seaport where we slept in triple bunks on a real boat. The crushes we had, and crushes we didn’t understand. “Did you know gay people back then?” I asked her.

“No,” she said, “Not really. Not anyone I?knew?was gay.”

And then I shifted to the what-ifs. What if we’d known each other’s secret confusions back then? What if we’d had?out?teachers? What if there had been a Gay Straight Alliance at Shrewsbury Middle School? An LGBTQIA+ safe haven of any sort??I really could have talked to Kris for a week without pause. That’s the power of knowing someone who had shared my out-of-body adolescence experience and somehow also transcended moments of deep otherness to create a life that looked so much like my own.?

This thing that I’m talking about? It’s the power of visibility. It makes us feel less alone. It emboldens us to live into the most authentic versions of ourselves.

Kris surely believes in this power. A high school art teacher, she has long been the head of the Gay Straight Alliance at her high school, the person high schoolers seek out when they are looking for ways to know and accept themselves. I believe this is the future we both want our children to inherit, one in which they will feel less alienated than we did and more empowered to become whoever they are called to become.?

But right now, we are moving backward.?

After brunch, Kris’ wife took the kids home while we explored the murals of Wynwood where, despite the drizzle, people were setting up for Art Basel. Over hot drinks, she told me about the impact of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, which will determine the material her son will see in his future kindergarten classroom, the images of family he will be taught about. She shared that she’d dropped the name “GSA Alliance” in favor of “The Equality Club” to give students cover, and that shortly before the school year began, her school’s administration had removed a bunch of books from her classroom. This wasn’t a mean-hearted move on the part of a bigotted administration, she explained. This was simply a school trying to protect itself from unannounced Florida Department of Education?inspections.

As she dropped me back at the book fair, I felt the heaviness that comes with realizing that the advances we have experienced in our adulthood may be gone by the time our children hit middle school. Gay marriage is up for review at the federal level. House Republicans have?introduced national legislation ?based on Florida’s bill. And even if the law swings in our favor, raising the questions has unleashed a wave of hatred that reverberates through communities, creating a silencing effect for people who might have otherwise chosen to put a family photo on their desk at work, teachers who might have read?Julian is a Mermaid?to their students, anyone who loves queer culture and?might have chosen to go dancing at a drag bar on a Saturday night.

The rain was coming down in sheets by the time I finished my panel in Miami. I thrust my umbrella out in front of me like I was a knight heading into battle and rushed back to my hotel to pick up my luggage. There in the lobby of the Miami Yotel, somewhat drenched, waiting for a car that would take me to the airport, I sunk onto a plush stool beside one of the other panelists, who was also waiting for a car, and pulled out my phone. Up popped the news:?Gunman kills 5 at LGBTQ Nightclub in Colorado Springs .

We are moving backward. What are we to do?

Now more than ever, if it is safe, and even sometimes when it is not, for my children and for those children who are not mine: Come out. Come out. Come out.

Praise for The Family Outing

TIME included The Family Outing on its list of?100 must-read books of 2022 .?The New York Times?calls it "sweeping in scope ." And one of my favorite interviews for the book published last week: Elise Loehnen had me on?her show, Pulling the Thread .

It’s been just more than a month since The Family Outing was released, and I’m grateful for the support this community has offered. My great hope for the book is that it continues to find readers who find it helpful. If you also feel like this is important, I’d welcome your help. Here are a few ways that readers have been helpful:

??? ???Do you know someone who has a book club??Invite me! I love Zooming in to talk to people who have read the book, and would gladly to come to yours.

??? ???Does your office have an LGBTQIA+ resource group??I’m speaking with several in the coming weeks.

??? ???The holidays are approaching.?Do you know anyone who’d like a copy??I’m happy to sign them if you’re in the area, or work with a local bookstore to get signed copies to you.

??? ???Share your thoughts on the book offline!?My wife’s uncle, Scott, called to tell me he’d talked about a chapter from the book in his Sunday School class. This is everything.

??? ???Share your thoughts on the book online!?Offer your thoughts on it.?Or, post a photo of someone you love reading it. I’m collecting all these photos and they are truly the best. Here are just a few!