Alicia Abbott

I think I was also surprised by my father's reaction.

The fact that he didn't want to have a child didn't jive with my experience of him as a father, which he was always a very attentive and loving father.

And so that was a surprise.

For one thing, my father wrote about in his journals, feeling this connection with me after I was born.

So before I was born, he wasn't necessarily very enthusiastic about having a child.

But after I was born, he really enjoyed spending time with me.

And actually for a short period, he was a sort of house husband before even John Lennon was a house husband, working from home trying to sell his work while my mother was working a 9-to-5 job.

And so after my mother's death, I think my father felt like he didn't have very much.

His relationship with a young man that he had while he was with my mother had dissolved.

And he, in a sense, felt that I was all that he had in the world and he was all that I had in the world.

So I don't think he could have imagined letting my aunt or anyone else take over raising me.

Well, I mean, my father had already been sometimes wearing dresses in Atlanta.

I think for my father, wearing a dress was a political statement.

When we were in San Francisco and we were living with two men, one of whom was a drag queen full time and another one who would sort of dress up to go out.

I really saw it as play.

At the time, I would have been about four years old.

And I like to dress up.

I like to put on fancy scarves and the makeup.

And it was all something that we could do together.

I never sensed that what my father or anyone of his friends were doing was weird until I became older and became more aware of what normal families look like and what normal men and normal women did.