My journey to Other Daddyhood is all about making my own choices and being someone else’s choice, over and over again. 

My partner in our two-father family chose me, long before the children existed and chose to call me Other Daddy. We’re both “Daddy,” but when one is out of the room — like I often am being a Volunteer Firefighter back in my small Canadian hometown — that’s “who I am” to our 5 and 1 year-old, the two kids I’m lucky to call my daughter and son. 

My partner’s sister chose us to give the gift of surrogacy to; her egg and my sperm for the closest possible thing to me conceiving with her brother. She made a choice to offer her body and time being pregnant just for us; now our kids (her niece and nephew) are biological siblings to each other and literally owe their lives to their Aunty’s unbelievably selfless decision. 

My partner and I chose to be honest about this reality with everyone from the very beginning, including with the kids themselves. We do so out of gratitude for what we realize was a leap of faith and is an act of pure love, empowering us to find a future, rooted in something that wasn’t a “choice” for either of us — our authentic identity. Who we are is both “not a big deal” and “a huge deal,” simultaneously,  a sentiment with which I think many LGBTQ+ readers can identify.

But, also, we are who we are. And kind of always have been… right?

Daring to become parents in ways more challenging than many others who are able to so considerably more easily “doesn’t change anything.” Except it does. The act of defiance it can be to pursue happiness while gay just might change the world that our kids grow up in. It might make it so that who we are really is just a random fact about us that isn’t such a huge deal. Kids innately have the capacity to understand, accept, and cherish this. All lesbian, gay, trans, queer, genderfluid, open-minded, loving families with kids are a testament to this. I say “all” because all are brave enough to believe, even when the world throws things our way that challenge the choice to live and love authentically.

So who are we? It depends who’s asking.

To some people — our own parents and caregivers — we are, or were, the child. To others, we are a leader or loved one to family and friends of a different kind. To many, even amongst those closest to us, we are some “other” thing in all the roles we play and hats we wear. Supermodel of the World and Mother/Father/Other of the House of Hidden Meanings, RuPaul, says, “We as gay people get to choose our family.” And that’s true. But in a sense, our family also gets to choose us. Sometimes we get very lucky and are blessed with a biological buddy system or family-in-law that sees us for who we are (and really were all along) and chooses to stick by us, recognizing what we ourselves may need a little more time to. Maybe now we are finally ready to be embraced, if not accepted. And not simply tolerated.

I’m proud of who I am as both an Other and a Daddy. I’m proud to lead by example just by living and trying to love along the way. For being one of the only rainbow-associating members in my fire service and for leaning into it, so that maybe some other Gays With Kids (or still without, but hopeful) can see that there really is hope. It does get better. It is getting better because we’re choosing to make sure of it.

It’s nice to be chosen and even to be told who you are, if it’s coming from the right person with the right amount of respect and affection for you; when names and labels are just a linguistic necessity — not a suggestion of your relative value.

I wouldn’t have it any Other way.

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