Fifteen-year-old Albie Williams recently won a U.K. speaking competition for a personal, funny, and touching speech about his gay dad.
Williams won the regional final of the Jack Petchey Speak Out Competition, “the world’s biggest youth speaking event,” with this speech (sorry, no embeddable version), in which he describes finding out that his dad is gay by reading a text message on his dad’s phone. He missed winning the national finals, but ended up one of 15 “Grand Finalists” out of 18,000 entrants.
Although it took him some time to come to terms with his father being gay, he said, he ultimately realized that his dad was still his dad — gruff and rugby-loving. In fact, he says, people might be more likely to think that he, Albie, was gay, because he tap dances, does ballet, and figure skates — but he “loves the ladies.”
Williams speech reminds me of another award-winning speech — in 2012, teen Noah St. John won NPR’s Snap Judgment “Performance of the Year,” for a speech about his two moms.
And while we’re on the subject of sons speaking about their LGBT parents, go read Joshua Gunn’s recent piece at The Atlantic about his mom coming out in the 1970s and his dad trying to take him away from her.
Three different sons of LGBT parents; three different experiences. Thanks to all of them for sharing.
