After Jessi Hempel came out as gay, so did nearly everyone else in her family – New York Post
For nearly two decades, technology reporter Jessi Hempel had a unique cocktail party anecdote in her back pocket: All of the members of her immediate family, with the exception of her mom, were queer. “I would say, ‘My whole family is gay. And with four out of five of us identifying as queer, it’s not that much of an exaggeration,” Hempel, now 47, tells The Post. She explores this dynamic in her memoir, “The Family Outing” (HarperOne).
Hempel, who came out as gay in college and is now married with two toddlers, learned of her dad’s bisexuality when her dad was in his 50s and she was in her early 20s; her younger sister Katje found emails between her dad and other men. For several years, Hempel’s mother and dad tried being separated but living under one roof, until they finally divorced. Hempel’s brother and sister also came out during college, with everyone in the family coming out within a five-year-span.
“It’s a pretty cool thing to have my brother and sister share my queer identity,” says Hempel. “But one thing I think that is really important to point out is how different queer identity can be for different people. So you get me, and I like to call myself the boring gay in the family. I’m very heteronormative. Then you get my sister who is bisexual and truly has a capacity to love a lot of different type of people. Then you get my brother who did not identify with my version of being queer at all, and for whom gender was really up for reconsideration at the same time. Then you get my dad and he comes steaming out of the closet with his rainbow towels and his rainbow candles and his rainbow ring.”
But a shared identity also led to strained relationships.
“My dad couldn’t understand at first why we [his adult children] weren’t like, ‘Welcome to the club, we’re so glad you’re here.’ It took him a while to realize he actually needed to still build relationships with his children,” says Hempel. Growing up, Hempel often felt alone. Her mother was depressed and often verbally lashed out in anger. Her father was emotionally absent. Even as the family began sharing secrets, there were still distances in her family. Sometimes, one member of the family wouldn’t reach out for months at a time. And yet, throughout the decades, no one ever estranged or permanently alienated themselves.
“At the end of the day, we needed each other,” explains Hempel. “We needed things from each other. We needed a bed to stay on or money to borrow or the things that the families in their best moments can provide for each other, even if their feelings about each other are complex. So that ended up keeping us tied together in gentle ways.”
In 2016, Hempel had the opportunity to interview her brother about his process toward becoming pregnant as a trans man for a profile in Time magazine. The result brought the pair closer together. Six years apart in age, Hempel and her brother, Evan, were close, but Hempel found she was surprised about how much more she learned about him when approaching his experiences as a journalist. And as the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine hit, she thought about applying that perspective to dig deeper into the individual stories of each of her family members.
The ask was charged, and Hempel’s sister, in particular, had qualms. “I wasn’t asking to just tell my story. I was asking to tell her story as I interpreted it, and that is a huge ask,” Hempel recalls.
And while the memoir is anchored in queer identity, Hempel says that the story arc can be seen as universal. “I take a broad view of coming out. Our parents think they know who they want us to be, our communities do, our religious communities do. Then we begin to grow in our lives and our bodies. And inevitably, there is a distance between what the world wants from us and who we know ourselves to be.”
Now, as a parent herself — her son is 4 and her daughter is 1 — Hempel feels like the project not only has made her closer to her own family of origin, but it’s made her a stronger parent. “I’d love for this book to be the assurance that it is a beautiful thing to pursue the most authentic version of yourself,” Hempel says. “At the same time, I hope that the book is an invitation for you to make room for the people closest to you to do the same.”