How do father figures show up in our lives — for better and for worse — and how do we decide what to take from them and what to leave behind in our own journey, especially as LGBTQ+ parents? 

To answer these questions and more, Family Equality sat down with Steve Majors, LGBTQ+ parent and author of Man Made: In Search of Dads, Daddies, Father Figures, and Fatherhood. Together, we discussed the search for healthy masculinity, the importance of representation, the pressure to be “perfect,” and what it means to reclaim our past. 

Steve set out to write Man Made after finishing his memoir, High Yella: A Modern Family Memoir, having realized that there was an important facet of his identity that he had yet to explore deeply: Fatherhood. 

“I certainly addressed those themes in the first book,” he says. “But I felt there was more I wanted to explore for myself. I grew up without a dad, but along the way, there were these male figures in my life — some who were explicit father figures, and others who just formed me into the person that I am today, good, bad, or indifferent. And I wanted to tell their stories.” 

From this inspiration comes a series of essays that carry the reader from childhood to parenthood, discussing all the ways that father figures have shown up in Steve’s life — from gym teachers to older brothers, and everyone in between. 

“I think sometimes we discount those people in our lives,” Steve adds. “In some places in the book, I honor them. And in some places, I point out where their influence on me may not have been positive in the moment. But they certainly shaped me…[and showed me] what not to do and what not to be.” 

In the early chapters of Steve’s book, he explores a number of traditional ideals of masculinity, and during our Q&A, we examined the way that those ideals have shaped his current gender expression. 

“I think if not for [these] figures in my life, if not for society at that time, I might be a different person,” he says. “My expression might be different than what it is today.” 

“I don’t call myself masculine. I don’t call myself feminine. I just call myself who I am,” he says, though he acknowledges the promise of who he could’ve been as a sort of loss, stating that there’s a burden of masculinity imposed on so many men. 

What he learned by reflecting on this for his book is that adults play a massive role in the development of children’s identities — even if they don’t know it. “I think we don’t think about the influence that we have on young boys in every exchange,” he says. “They take cues. They are watching us. They are watching how we receive them and perceive them. They are watching how we carry ourselves, how we treat others.” 

“Be mindful of the influence that [you] have,” he advises. “Not just on your own children, but on all the children around you.”

One of the places young Steve searched for father figures was in magazines and on television. These are also some of the only places he saw gay people. 

“I grew up in the seventies and eighties,” he explained. “It was a time when the gay characters on television were either victims of villains…and that does a bit of a number on your head…You can understand, for a boy who’s growing up to feel shame, if the world is telling me that person is bad or broken, I don’t want to be those things.” 

He also describes the sudden shift that popular culture made in the 1990s and early 2000s, as the LGBTQ+ community was more readily accepted by Hollywood. From Target commercials to Subaru ads, LGBTQ+ families were depicted as “idyllic sort of role models…shiny happy people with two kids and a picket fence…always very attractive and always very happy,” he says. 

But this hyper-positive representation comes with its own pressure, especially as Steve experienced the start of his own parenting journey. 

“Our path to parenthood was not difficult,” Steve says. “But our path within parenthood was rocky at times, and I only shared the sort of sanitized versions of those stories…By perpetuating those stereotypes, I don’t think I was benefiting other parents or the cause, and I was certainly not helping myself.” 

He highlights the unfair standard that many LGBTQ+ try to live up to, reminding readers of the importance of authentic representation. “I think as parents, we have an obligation to each other to be as honest as much as we can — even within our own friend groups. We at least owe it to the people that we love and trust to be honest about what it’s like being a parent.” 

To combat the pressures that LGBTQ+ parents might feel to be perfect, Steve says to remember that “there’s no invisible audience watching over you to see what your kids packed for lunch, how well they’re dressed, how fabulous their Halloween costume is. I think if we can take that invisible audience away, we can really have deeper relationships with the people around us, and be honest about our triumphs and sometimes our travails.”  

FOR MORE: Watch the complete interview on Youtube, and don’t forget to purchase Man Made: In Search of Dads, Daddies, Father Figures, and Fatherhood from your local bookstore today!