Profiles in LGBTQ+ Courage
Rick Koonce
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Joanne Hush: Mother
You might call Joanne Hush a social pioneer. It’s probably not a label she would ascribe to herself. But, Joanne is the mother of a gay son and a lesbian daughter, both of whom came out to her (and her husband Paul) decades ago –- in the 1980s and early 90s -- when having openly gay or lesbian children was far more controversial and uncommon than it is today. Joanne learned her son was gay in the late 1980s, at the peak of the AIDS epidemic. Back then, there wasn’t a good public understanding of how the disease was transmitted. There was, however, widespread fear and stigma associated with AIDS; factors that Joanne, her husband, and their two straight children had to deal with. There was also the challenge that Joanne and her husband faced in “coming out” themselves -- as the parents of gay children. As Joanne tells PFLAG’s Rick Koonce in this moving interview, it was through her involvement with PFLAG Cape Cod, beginning in the mid 1990s, that Joanne and her husband Paul found a community of support and encouragement among other parents of gays, lesbians, and transgender youth. For more information, visit the PFLAG Cape Cod website: https://www.pflagcapecod.org/podcasts.html © 2021 PFLAG Cape Cod
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