Michael Genhart, John Stiehler, and Gabrielle Genhart-Stiehler

00:04 My name is Gabby. I'm 19 years old. It is August 22nd, 2015 and in San Francisco and my relationship to the interviewers, are there my fathers and on Michael again hearts and I'll 53. It is August 22nd 2015. We are in the San Francisco Public Library in San Francisco, and I am John's husband and gabi's Dad.

00:33 Hi, and I'm John Steeler. I'm 61 and its August 22nd 2015. I'm here in San Francisco with my husband Michael and our daughter Gabby.

00:49 And can you guys tell me how you guys met again?

00:53 We actually met in a gay bar in Saint in Washington DC. Daddy was Michael was there with his good friend Curtis and they just happened Curtis happened to start talking to me and Michael was ready to go home and it was late and Curtis saw Papi and made a beeline for Poppy and said I want to talk to this guy. So I sweat a rolled my eyes and said, okay, whatever and I'll be back in a half hour.

01:36 So that's exactly what happened happy hour later. We were still talking and Michael is very impatient ready to go and I wasn't all that interested in Curtis, but I was interested in Michael. So I asked for both of their phone numbers Curtis Avis came up to me and said he wants both of our phone numbers and I thought I told him okay, that's super weird, but do what you need to do because I want to go home now and so he did but when I tried to call Michael Curtis had transposed

02:12 Two of the digits of a Bentley or intentionally who knows two of the digits in my phone number. We were roommates have been roommates. He had recently moved out. So he knew our telephone number anyway, cuz it was a landline so I can call this number and they had no idea who Daddy was so I I had Fortune I had remembered that. He was a graduate student at the University of Maryland in Psychology. So I called the I called to the university to see if I could get get in touch with him and they said I said he was in the department of psychology in the response was which department of psychology who knew they were multiple doesn't have Department of psychology.

03:00 Persistent and I got a note in my box one day saying please call me nuts guy John Steeler. This is a month later.

03:12 By the way, Mike V heck is this and then I thought maybe the guy from that bar lost and found.

03:25 And it works.

03:28 And we will poppy ask me out.

03:32 To a theater performance at Arena Stage, which is the theater company in DC and I thought at 24 fisticated. I thought that was cool.

03:54 So that was the plan and then Papi called I think the couple days before and said, you know what? I wonder if maybe we should try to have dinner before like the night before I set the day before. Yeah, because you have theater tickets in your kind of quiet. You're not really engaging.

04:14 And I thought okay, so we sort of these relational to that other flies. So restaurant DC Austria right now. Are you mean I remember particularly there when you were

04:39 Maybe 12:10 on 12th and like that cuz it was still there. I think it's still there. So that's how we met and Curtis.

04:52 The guy that old roommate

04:56 Actually lived in various places over the years. He sadly died of AIDS in 1990.

05:06 1998 yeah, you're about three years old. And so that of course is very sad, and we're forever grateful for

05:17 What he did that night because we would not have met had it not been for his interest in coffee.

05:28 So when you were dating, when did you really start wanting children, or when did you know that you wanted to start a family?

05:38 I guess I didn't.

05:42 It never dawned on me that it was going to be you know, that that was a feasible thing for two guys to have kids. I hadn't been thinking about it. But Daddy's the one that kind of push the envelope on that and pushed Us in that direction. I would never

06:01 It was never that I didn't want to have kids. It was that I didn't think of it as feasible at the time. It wasn't really on.

06:11 So the national radar at the time that two.

06:15 Gay men openly gay men would have kids and pursue it.

06:21 Thread option most gay folks that we knew who had kids had kids through previous marriages.

06:32 So it was the new territory different have custody of the kids. They were their ex wives usually but mostly me from a large family seven kids and Latina mother no family children or

06:55 Always very important. In fact when I came out to Grandma as a gay man in my early twenties

07:07 She wept and wept a lot not because of me being gay. Her comment was won't have children. And how sad is that and that sort of stuck with me? And of course she was not she was wrong and I we didn't obviously have kids in the traditional way. And so we start exploring. How do we do this? And that's a lot of kind of missteps or her took us a while to understand. What are the different options? And what was the best option for us? We knew we wanted to adopt and so we posted having a surrogate or yeah, we talked to different people and did some research and where you located in the Bay Area

08:04 Ellen Ellen Roseman who is now dead, but she was really the sort of queen of what's called Cooperative open adoption, which means you're very open about who you are. You meet the birth mother and her father if he's that's the open part and a Cooperative part is you have an understanding between each other that you'll be communication over the years as a desired and it's not mandatory and that's in the side. She was a real queen in the she was a former Miss Nevada. You haven't even got her Tiara at once to check that. Yeah, but she was also no bulshit. She was she was warm and

08:51 And straightforward, right? Cuz her job was to kind of that birth mothers. She she would be the bad cop so that we wouldn't have to be that we wouldn't have to be in a bad position with potential birth mother but she also had a warm about her too. So she could engage with others in a very maternal sweet way anyway, so we first decided we wanted to do this ourselves not go through an attorney. We wanted to be in charge of as much of the process as we could. So we decided to place ads in paper paper free papers, cuz we figgered birth mothers weren't going to buy a newspaper at the time. The newspapers is it wasn't internet right? So we placed ads in free papers in different cities in the

09:51 Countries that were easily accessible to us a short flight away like Phoenix, Arizona, Portland, Oregon to Seattle Washington stuff like that the back pages of these free local papers.

10:07 How do you to play sad so we did initially our ads or disguised we were not we're not out as men was just we would say professional couple and so cuz we were afraid we didn't we thought would be rejected. Anyway, we then realize you had ran across the another gay male couple that gave you some if I see I said to not do it that way cuz we were essentially competing with

10:36 Lafayette and Barbie who are also trying to adopt and I could we sounded like that right? Anyways, yeah, these guys said don't do it that way. And so we switch gears and then we heard from a lot of birth mothers are they they basically said that for those women that would consider placing with a gay couple the fact that you're gay is a plus. Of minus and so it is and

11:04 The things that came became clear to us for the birth mothers ever interested in the gay couple more interested for three main reasons one. They had a connection to gay men in some way sometimes a father actually a sibling and whatever so they there was openness already. The second was they knew that place in their baby was going to be a hard thing for them and that a gay couple would have a harder time presumably.

11:39 Having a baby or getting a baby through adoption. So what they figure it is, I'm doing an extra special thing by placing with my baby with with a man and the third thing was

11:55 In placing their baby with two men. There was no other woman.

12:00 No other birth mother so they got to remain the only mother.

12:05 So that was I think important about to a lot of them seems obvious and in retrospect, but at the time it didn't we didn't think of it but in retrospect it's definitely I think there was something in there that they maybe they didn't even consciously know about it. But the fact that they were the only ones still going to be the only mother resonated with many of them. Another thing that we found among many of the women that had the they responded is that they tended to have been abused and not never had a positive relationship with men men in their lives. And that was the another thing. I think that that care they were having not just one but two positive relationships at once with a man. Yeah. They were seeking Aid

12:56 Solid relationship with

12:59 I'm an Our Father Figure. That was

13:03 Sweet, you know, I'm support of Nod not abusive.

13:07 Anyway, then we heard from you could not have written this we heard from Angel your birth mother.

13:15 17 year old girl unlike the first day Ariana Grande

13:20 And

13:22 And so I thought what are you serious or name is Angel. I'm going to pot. I didn't say that and as you know, you were born on Christmas Day.

13:35 So here's a birth mother Angel born on Christmas Day.

13:41 Your due date was not until January. She want to see a birth earlier if she already had a she was 17 already had a three year old.

13:55 And so we knew that, delivery day you would come quickly. Right? So we were in Washington DC visiting puppies family at the time cuz it was Christmas and had spoken to Angel that morning Pride. She was out carrying her family.

14:17 And we're just chatting and everything was normal and then popped and I went out to a movie later that day.

14:28 Do you want to tell the part about tracking and Market tracking his cell phone? So she we had given her the number in that we were my parents were my sister was looking as well in DC and my sister got the call and she didn't know where we were at the movies. We were actually staying at night with friends. Not not at the house at my parents house. So my sister got the call and didn't know how to get in touch with us. Didn't know the number of the house that we were staying at but she remembered

15:08 Michael's friend Barb that we had visited and she thought well, maybe he she knew where it was. So she went down and she kind of remembered roughly the house and she ended up going to the next door neighbor's house and they said oh psychologist lived next door. So she got paid directions her to the right door and she tracked us down. And so I jumped on the phone and talk to Angel who was in labor screaming so I could barely talk to her and epidural yet. Yeah. I mean we had every intention to be there at your birth. So it was sort of weird for us cuz

15:52 And we were there virtually but we really wanted to be there.

15:56 Anyway, she was screaming waiting for epidural then 10 minutes later. She had had her epidural. So she was very calm and we chatted more and then 10 minutes later. I called and your crying in the background.

16:12 It was

16:15 Best Christmas we ever had it with jump on a plane from DC to Phoenix where you were born on this day and Angels propped up in her bed and her cry.

16:27 And you were and she presented at you to Daddy and talk in a stocking.

16:34 Accessories

16:39 It looks like now I couldn't stop crying.

16:43 And Grandma Phyllis toast with us.

16:49 Who you, you know came to know and she helped us a great deal. I got it took you home. We actually took you home from the hospital and took you to grab at phyllis's house and she helped helped us showed us how to paid you showed us how to change diapers showed us how to swaddle you do. She is very tricky time because in Arizona, I guess like no other states to a birth mother has 72 hours to 72 hours before they can they are able to make a decision on whether to place their baby or not. Right? So the first 72 hours we couldn't leave the state cuz you were still but Angel daughter and Angel have they had the decision to make and we have talked about this because I want to every

17:47 Doctor's appointment with Angel

17:50 Before you were born so we had developed quite a relationship. And we also encourage Angel to see counseling during her pregnancy what she did so that so that when you were born this big decisions weren't including when you're born when you were born. Do we bring you home or did she bring you home because of that stuff into our window and she wanted us to have you until we did your brought you home and we'd would nerissa during those 72 hours and and we did but it was awkward as pretentious seventeen-year-old girl right scared.

18:37 She's our family is not really around even though I had spoken to her mother and got to know her sister.

18:44 And we had okay. I hope this all works out and and we are trying to support her to you know, that she was younger than you are now and I remember the day we the morning where she signed the paperwork and we laughed we had met for breakfast and I can you couldn't have written this.

19:08 We were leaving the parking lot after having.

19:12 Breakfast and saying our goodbyes and there is no Nat King Cole singing forever young beautiful song.

19:23 Angel to

19:28 I'm in happy. So happy such a mix of of feelings.

19:35 Anyway, that's

19:38 How we started as a as a family?

19:42 So what what how has it been for you?

19:46 Ivy growing up with two dads and

19:51 Just being part of a I gave him away and well as I answer with everyone to ask me this question, you can imagine I get this question often. I asked them and I say he has it feel to have a straight family how to fill out of a heterosexual couple as your parents and Melissa will and I really thought of it was like, well, I never really think of it because it's all I've no it's not like my parents were married and then I had a couple had a mom and dad. It's not like they were married and I went with my dad and he became in this relationship with this other man. It's kind of how I feel. I've always my friend so you guys have always been open about it.

20:32 So I've never really

20:34 Thought there was anything different and back when I was little so that a nanny on a to basically like my second mom when I go to friends house, so I just thought that their nannies were their moms are their nannies and that they also had gay dads wasn't called like five or six that I realized that was not the case. So it's been your normal. Yeah.

21:09 And in choosing the schools that you went to wanted to make sure that there was an openness.

21:17 Well that I would never be questioned pride and that you'd be around other.

21:23 Gay Families 2 again at that time.

21:28 There weren't many we were the only

21:31 To Dad family that we knew we helped start the rainbow family as a Marine.

21:38 And for the longest time we were the only two dad family in it and when we would go to the larger group called our family in the Bay Area most there events were in the East Bay Easley 99% of the families were lesbians, maybe hire six seven years later. They were a number of gay male families, but kids your age there almost the end gay families there almost all lesbians.

22:15 Two dad families have come after us through form and their families through adoption surrogacy. So that's a very beautiful thing, but we were at the time very hungry for

22:30 The connection to the feather TDOT families arena for us but also to help normalize things.

22:38 You know for you, that's why when you came home from horseback riding and tell Daddy that about Haley we like no she couldn't have two dads cuz we know most of the families with two dads and Aunt Shannon older sister too. And I thought I thought you've got that wrong. That's a mistake go. Ask her ask her the next day and you sure you have your dad's and they are very dear friends of ours today. Michael and Frank. So that was very sweet.

23:22 I meet them through you you're in your connection through hours for daily. Do you want to talk about getting married and all and all that? We obviously couldn't get married legally for a long time. There was May been too young to remember it. But in 2004, San Francisco's mayor Gavin Newsom now or lieutenant governor instructed the

23:56 Clerk who issues the marriage licenses in San Francisco county to do it. And there was a huge wave of couples 4000 or something like that couples who got married within a very short window we

24:17 Assumed correctly that those would not be allowed at the time. So we didn't rush to down to get married that they wouldn't be recognized. Although we did have friends like the to Greg's got married at that time and I think others but we unfortunately for those couples there mail marriages were essentially annulled and by the California Supreme Court then later on in 2008 California Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the California Supreme Court Constitution to Outlaw gay marriage. So for a very brief time between about June of 2008 and November at the election that was there was a short window you could get married and that's when Daddy and I decided hey,

25:18 So we're out here almost 13. We wanted you to be in it, and we wanted to be very

25:33 Intermittent and personal of course, so we thought it just get married at home.

25:40 Transformer in a garden into a

25:44 Garden wedding in we did and you know that cater and Deborah guitar teacher was very happy to be part of it. And so we had what's 7075 our closest friends and family eye, and it was really one of the most beautiful days ever and for that we could get married right how exciting is that and that you were part of it. Do you remember what that was like for you?

26:26 Wedding was like I was too young to kind of be like touched by it. I guess I just don't really understand when I understood how important it was to you guys. But I like staying in people cried. I'd kinda looks like confused cuz I never experienced that before. I just be there song for like you guys are I never had like such an emotional reaction to it. So I just wasn't old enough to kind of understand a deeper level how

26:58 Beautiful a like liberating it was I was just kind of I kind of like that people clap when I saying and people hug me and stuff. I don't I don't know but I think what was surprising to me, I think to all of us because we don't remember talking about it. Either that night or the next day is I don't think any of us thought that it was going to be a big deal a big difference for us and our relationship because we had been together that and I've been together for 22 years at that point and we've been a family for 13 years. So didn't expect the word marriage to be a big deal. But last night Mark Leno was saying how

27:53 He got transformed into realizing that the word does mean something important it is it's a word but it's not just a word and I think all three of us felt different after we were married. We were no longer different from other couples. We were the same as other difference I think for me and I think for you is you should you move into it.

28:21 A place of legitimacy where you didn't really feel that before with.

28:28 About the same rights, you know the right to marry. So I think this shift was a shift from kind of second-class citizenship to feeling more like a citizen with the same rights as a straight citizen.

28:48 That's what was bothering overwhelmingly emotional.

28:52 I think that's what kind of hit us Lightning Bolt & Nut and in that moment and while we were legally married in California until the Supreme Court ruled this year. We were not our marriage wasn't recognized in other states that didn't happen if they didn't also have same-sex marriage so we could go to Arizona and not be married. Just crossing the line when you became a married in the eyes of Arizona now anywhere in the United States were married. That's the first time I mean,

29:36 Preferred for most purposes we were as soon as we got married in 2008. We were legally married, but there were states that we kind of lost our rights when we cross the line.

29:52 Which is why from like my perspective when you did get married it kind of created a bunch more questions that

30:00 I don't really need to know it was like friends from friends in from if I went to summer camp and they were from different parts of the country and are they really married or is it just kind of like did you have a ceremony just like doesn't mean anything or what does this mean for you? Like I was just a lot of like doubting I guess because it was so like

30:22 Spread out. I guess that he wasn't allowed in the entire country. So I think that for me the biggest changes just that people ask me more questions, and I already was used to

30:33 I just kind of knew that and I think to be about

30:43 Is there real was it real you know, and it wasn't until the Supreme Court ruled in June?

30:52 You know what? I'm national-level that it really felt real no more doubt. No more questions. No more changes. If you cross state lines right has been huge now that you're in college just crazy to say that.

31:12 What do your peers? How do your peers?

31:17 What did they ask? You know, does it seem like it's especially now that all that gay marriage is more common and and get up the back to school since the Supreme Court rule, but now that it's everywhere. What do you what do you feel from your peers say that how many Bay Area and wait because there are so many Berry kids but also because it's so open and we have a very strong lgbtq community at our school, but I have found with my boyfriend sometimes just some topics and I'm so used to talking so openly about like drag queens or just the idea of just having a gay couple of being so open, just he is very conservative about that kind of conversation. So it kind of it. It depends on who you're talking to it's cool. So it's sometimes

32:15 I'll say like I have to two dads and they're married and my purse Aquarius like oh my gosh, that's awesome. And she's like super

32:23 Open about that conversation and then I'll talk to someone for like another part of the country and they'll be like, okay and you can kind of tell that they just kind of shut down and they don't really.

32:35 That's kind of switches back until like what happened when I was younger is all the questions are to come.

32:42 So do you find that you're kind of in a teaching role just by virtue of being interviews last year being a daughter of a gay couple cuz at my school, I'm one of like two families. I think that has a gay couple of parenting and he's not doing so well. So I think a lot of people assume that I would be like him because that's kind of sometimes in the media. Sometimes they portray

33:17 I guess kids that's like not doing so well when they have gay parents especially years ago when it wasn't the open so I found myself doing a lot of interviews for people in psychology classes for social sciences. Just being like interviewing me like hey ya like I'm fine. I'm normal. I'm not not trouble a normal student. I just happen to have gay parents. I haven't The Kids Are Alright.

33:50 I meant a little strange to say but Papa and I had always thought. Oh, I wonder if she's straight. What if it turns out she's she's gay and though the there's sort of a worried that you would not be straight and they're worried was how would we be perceived in other words? What do we perceive as somehow doing parenting wrong if our child was gay thing to admit? Right? Cuz we don't think there's any right or wrong, but I worry was that in the eyes of society who had not I am not necessarily supported two men or two women being parents.

34:39 Would we also be perceived as indoctrinating right and criticized like there they go and like a lot of kids when I have friendships and very close to my really good friends who are going to be girls. And so I think because I have gay dads kids sometimes tend to assume more that I would be in a relationship with that other girl instead of just being really good friends because of that the people who really care about me know that that wouldn't be the case. Even if it was though. They would be accepting of it as well.

35:23 And I guess it sort of I get if it's totally ridiculous the same time that they would assume that don't you think, you know gay people but I think it's it's true that if familiarity changes things if you're in the absence of knowing a person you can make all kinds of assumptions to tell me when you know somebody when you have friends that get to know you as an individual. Oh, that's like if you go to a school that doesn't have any minorities in it. You could easily become more

36:04 In your mind assume stare at things about stereotypes, but you get to know people in a break down stereotypes change how you see them versus I just been getting to know someone and knowing them for more facts that that one fact that you originally knew them for kind of just stays or it gets set of assimilated into knowing the whole person. I would never get mad at someone who would ask me if I was gay with my best friend because I would just assume that they didn't know much about me and I would take that opportunity to

36:43 Talk to them or become better friends with them and that's why I started writing.

36:54 Yes, we are which is really the story of.

36:59 I could have two dads but most of the story of connecting.

37:04 What a family is gay or straight by its.

37:12 Now watch, and which is hopefully a Loving Feeling by between everyone. Just trying to you know, build a bridge between gay and straight families through

37:25 So I know you're coming to an end. I just wanted to say how much you got me had brought.

37:35 Right to my life and I think I speak for both of you and I me and Poppy brought so much. We would never Dimension to our allies. We would have never ever experienced.

37:50 And that includes in that place is I would travel to as a family all over the world and people that we've met on the way so many things through your eyes. Yeah. I've been to places that I've got by my myself or with Daddy come back and seen them again. Totally differently by seeing them through your eyes. Yeah, so

38:16 I know that our are we have ups and downs like every and I'll parent kid voice and chip.

38:25 But I do want to say how much we appreciate what you have given to us and I hope it's

38:34 Well, I hope you feel the same way as far as what we've given to you, but I think it's not something to talk about everyday how much are license and I can't I said it started out. I didn't ever think about being a parent that it was even a feasibility not feasible thing.

38:55 But now I can't imagine not ya can't imagine what it would our life would be without you.

39:02 We're very grateful.

39:11 Anything else you wanted to to say? All right.

39:18 Thank you for doing this interview with me and helping us share our story.

39:25 And thank you for being good parents.

39:38 Love you both.