Queer Eye star Karamo Brown, 38, says he was taken aback by the mixed feelings he experienced when his son, Jason ‘Rachel’ Brown, 22, recently came out to him as pansexual.
Karamo and Jason gave a joint interview to The Advocate. Father and son have collaborated on a soon-to-be-published children’s book, I Am Perfectly Designed.
Brown Snr has previously admitted his first, brief experience of fame – appearing in 2004’s The Real World: Philadelphia – led to him throwing himself into partying and drug-taking.
It was only in 2007 that he learned he was the father of a 10-year-old boy, Jason. Before Karamo came out as gay aged 16, his last girlfriend at high school had become pregnant but not told him at the time.
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Learning of the boy’s existence encouraged Karamo to clean up his act and dedicate himself to working as a social worker for ten years.
He took on full custody of Jason and then, in 2010, adopted his son’s younger half-brother, Christian. The family is completed by Karamo’s fiancé, Ian Jordan. The two men have been together for the past decade and got engaged last year.
Related: Karamo Brown returns to Instagram after calling Sean Spicer ‘a good guy’
Earlier this year, Jason, came out to his father as pansexual. The younger man says despite his father being known for Queer Eye, coming out to him proved surprisingly hard.
“We have such a good connection of communication and I never hide anything from my dad, so when he heard this — and he was not the first person to hear this — I could sense that it kind of hurt him, and that’s why it transferred to a little bit of frustration,” recalls Jason.
Fortunately, after taking a few hours to process his feelings. Karamo called his son back and assured him he loved him and all was fine.
The older man admits Jason’s revelation provoked a mixture of emotions. In part, he was hurt his son hadn’t said anything sooner.
“I believe that the term ‘coming out’ is a bit antiquated and outdated in the sense [that] it gives the power to someone else to accept or deny you when, in actuality, what the process is, is that we’re letting people into our lives,’ says Karamo.
“So when Jason let me into his life regarding him identifying as pansexual there was a myriad of feelings that I had. First, he didn’t let me into his life regarding being pansexual until he was 21.
“This is a young man who grew up in a household where his father is a career gay … yet there was still a fear in his mind of sharing with me. When he shared with me that he identified as pan, I was, first of all, disappointed … I was a little hurt.”
Related: Gay men need to zip up their pants and be better role models, Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown says
Karamo says that not everyone in his extended family is accepting of LGBTQ people, and he worried over how they might react to Jason’s news.
He was also conscious some bigots believe the myth that allowing gay people to raise kids will increase the chances of them being gay as adults.
“When I got custody of Jason, people said, ‘Don’t have your son be raised with a gay man, because it’s going to turn him gay. And obviously, I know that’s ignorant, I know that’s not true. Someone’s sexuality cannot be determined by their environment, it’s who they are.
“But when he let me into his life [about his pansexuality], I immediately thought, Oh, here we go. Now I’m going to have to defend this. Here’s another fight. It was hard … I understood to some small degree what parents go through from a different lens — because my initial reaction for the first hour was not as positive as you’d think.”
Related: Karamo Brown reveals major drama with ‘Queer Eye’ castmate Antoni: ‘Girl, don’t come near me’
Fortunately, after some time to think about his son’s words, Karamo was able to put his feelings of hurt aside. He says he wasn’t very educated around what pansexuality means and set about learning.
The two men now say their conversations around sexuality have only brought them closer and strengthened their bond.
“I felt betrayed by him lying to me and I had to go on this journey quickly, really quickly, to educate myself and then to remember this is his journey,” says Karamo.
This closer bond helped them when working together on their children’s book, I Am Perfectly Designed, which is published in November. Publisher Macmillan describes the book, which features illustrations by Anoosha Syed, as, “An empowering ode to modern families.”
Karamo – currently also to be seen on ABC’s Dancing With The Stars – and Jason will be embarking on a US tour of bookstores together in early November.
Ricanthony
::Sits quietly as I wait for the judgmental gays start to bash him::
EmmanuelGarcia1207
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Ricanthony
:: to start to bash him:: (error corrected)
Bob LaBlah
So that you don’t leave disappointed what would you like for me to say?
Cam
““I believe that the term ‘coming out’ is a bit antiquated and outdated in the sense [that] it gives the power to someone else to accept or deny you when, in actuality, what the process is, is that we’re letting people into our lives,’ says Karamo.”
————————
No, coming out means simply living your honest life. Putting pictures of who you are dating on your desk, bringing an actual date to events. Claiming that you shouldn’t have to come out and then hiding who you are is just a longer way to say “Closet”
Donston
I can understand feeling that “coming out” is a term that places too much pressure on individuals, is too proactive of a term and makes the process appear more dramatic and dire than it has to be. I’m fine with people not attaching “coming out” to simply being honest, living your life freely, and loving/being with who want to love/be with. How groups of people view certain terminologies is different, and how each person views terminologies is different. That’s something folks have got to start being okay with. Younger people almost never say things like “coming out” or “closet”. It is what it is. You have to learn how to adjust in order to maintain communication and honesty, especially as a parent.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
“coming out means simply living your honest life”. Perfect definition!
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
“pansexual” does that mean he will whip up an omelet for his partner as they engaged in sexual activity?
theafricanwiththemouth
LMAO!!
This is still one orientation i don’t fully get though. Just seems extremely blurry ….yikes.
Josh447
Oh really. I thought it meant he’d have sex with anything he could cook up in a pan. Pretty obvious to me what pan sexual is. How could anybody think otherwise? No wonder his dad had a hard time with it!
Donston
Why is it the same old queens attacking younger people and resisting any type of change, different perspective or open dialogue?
Bob LaBlah
Probably because the same now middle aged queens who have a problem with the older ones trying to get the younger ones to see reason or develop a sense of humor to prepare them for a world they know little about. The first place you should come out is in your mind. From there it is YOUR prerogative to continuously show your preferences if it includes dresses, panties and other forms of attire to make you feel good about yourself. The only thing that me, old queen, is attempting to remind them of is that no matter the suffix or prefix you attach to yourself the bills (mortgage, rent, food, utilities, $1k plus iPhone, toilet paper) have to be paid and never ever forget that unless you are the owner of the business you WILL conform to the standards of the business, not yours no matter how you chose to protest. I am willing to bet many of you have blown well paying jobs with benefits because you overestimated YOUR importance and discovered too late you were not the only one capable of doing said ex-job. Pansexual? Does it/will it ever end?
Donston
I have always argued that practicality needs to take precedence over an individual’s nuances and special sense of self. Believe me, outside of the entertainment industry, people know what it up and what they have to do to get jobs and maintain a place in the world. My argument is that disagreement or conversation is fine, but the “in community” dismissive tendencies and bitterness is not at all helpful to anyone.
The reality is that most “queers” aren’t both homosexual and feels entirely cis gender. And hell, even most people who have overall same-sex romantic, sexual, affection, relationship preferences and ambitions aren’t both truly homo and entirely cis gender feeling. For some reason these facts make folks uncomfortable. It’s okay to acknowledge your struggles, your journey and your nuances. Being outright dismissive towards these people is counter-intuitive and doesn’t do anything but create more division as well as support things like internalized homophobia, gay shame, and same-sex preference shame. There’s a lot of people are just flat-out Bitter Betty’s. You need to learn to live with it or learn how to engage with people with different perspectives. Furthermore, this is partly the fault of the “lgbtq community”. A decent percentage of the “community” places so much importance on identity and sense of self, and it has helped ignite a lot of what we see now. You can’t hype of the importance of identity and treat it as the be-all and focus so much on the definition of things and then bitch and moan when self-identity and self-expression has become a bit problematic and narcissistic. A certain percentage of the “lgbtq community” definitely takes some of the blame.
Bob LaBlah
Honey, maybe a cup of coffee and a donut in the morning would serve you better than getting online and going on Queerty. I wake up, let the dog out (I keep mine indoors at night to serve as an early warning and a buffer between the burglar, myself and my old reliable double-barrel), put on a pot of coffee to brew, heat up the two for a dollar discounted after 7pm apple turnovers and then go get the paper off the front yard and read it thru. You sound frustrated and dead pan serious in ALL of your posts. Its like you have had a life where no one has ever paid you any real attention at work and you are striving for some sort of recognition. Is there something I have said that makes you contradict yourself or makes you jealous because I said it before you? Your comments always sound middle of the road-ish and politically correct by intention, not accident, and it makes you come off as just down right bland. You must support everything gay, especially if it goes against the establishment. Its like you support a needless uprising not realizing that no matter the uprising’s cause its leader(s) will eventual turn it into THEIR ideas and care less who don’t like it including the very people they claim to be trying to help. Keep harping on victimhood and see where it gets you. You might already be there but still won’t accept why or what put you there.
Donston
So, basically, you just come on here to troll and tell younger people that they’re doing everything wrong? Yep, typical bitter old queer.
Bob LaBlah
Dear, you’re getting frustrated so once again why don’t I declare victory for you and leave it alone? Or lets just say thats how I am going to look at it. Clearly I’ve said something that must have you in tears and that was not my intentions. You read too much into the comments sections of every site you visit no doubt. I wish you luck in your one girl crusade.
Godabed
I am pansexual, and I never came out. I have always been who i am and made no apologies for it. I simply thought if people wanted to know they would ask, most people don’t, some do, and they get the honest answer. I’ve had gfs and bfs and brought them around family/friends and introduced them as such. I also identify and a cis black male. No one ever shamed me in my black community or family.
I have never understood the concept of coming out personally it’s just never been my experience, no one “should have to” tell you who they are having sex with, or whom they are attracted to, they “should” be able to be themselves at all times. In a perfect world that would happen, but we don’t live in a perfect world and some of our LGBTQA+ family have to hide to make sure they live to see another day. Not long ago in the US a Gay Social worker was killed, a transwomen of color was killed set on fire in a car, in Britain Lesbian were assaulted riding public transit, these aren’t third world countries and the World outside the US/UK are no safer for people like us in some places. It’s automatic Death sentences.
So if some people need that closet, use it to stay safe, protect yourself first share yourself with those whom you can trust and will love you regardless, suicide is not the answer. It can and does get better. We have to stay strong and stay together as a community and support and uplift one another as much as possible. The agenda is to make sure we stay apart and divided to keep us weak.
I love this story.
Donston
The thing is, not everyone wants to constantly hear about “queer” being connected to death, harassment, depression, trauma, drug addictions, etc. Constantly reminding people of such doesn’t aid in folks being more freely themselves. I do understand defending the closet. It exist for a reason. What I’m not here for is supporting and hyping up the closet. There seems to be a lot of people (including many “queers”) who want people to stay closeted, want people to never feel self-comfortable, to never feel equal, never find their happiness. I never really “came out”. But being “out” became not at all a big deal once I gained genuine self-comfort and self-confidence and stopped caring so much about identity (though I’ll cop to “borderline non-binary gay-pansexual” if someone takes me there).
The whole “we need to stick together” thing is kind of a pipe dream. We need to face the reality that though hate, prejudice, homophobia, transphobia are still very prominent, perhaps half of the popular can be considered “queer”. It’s not special or unique, and it’s not going to equate to unity and understanding. People’s personalities, perspectives, politics, priorities, where they fit on the gender, romantic, sexual, affection, relationship- it’s all just too wide and diverse. Sometimes the best we can hope for is not being a-holes to one another. And even that sometimes feels like a stretch.
RIGay
Hey… say, before you post yet another video of you finally coming to terms with how we all should start addressing your newly invented sexual orientation so that you can feel good about yourself, I’d like to point out that there is just this incredibly LARGE population of people out there (of which you are also a member), that we, as a country, just refuse to go out of our way to make feel accepted.
How about this, pass on a goat yoga class for a morning, put down your therapy duck and smart phone and let’s have an honest conversation about overcoming racism in our society.
How does that sound?
Bob LaBlah
“How does that sound?”
1. Impossible
2. You must be on drugs
3. Sexuality be damned surely you are not truthfully asking people to not be themselves
4. It goes against human nature to not dislike what you don’t understand the first time you see it (scientist, doctors and astronomers-please note I said astronomers and not astrology- not included)
Huffman
This kid is out and proud as a black GAY man within 5 years….bet on it!
Bob LaBlah
He already is. His age is what makes him add that prefix to his sexuality in the hope it will take away the sting of preferring a man in his bed than a woman.
Donston
Saying stuff like that just adds to homophobia, internalized homophobia and gay shame. Besides, not every “queer” eventually becomes comfortable with being seen “gay”. And as I’ve gotten older I have actually gotten less conventionally “gay”. We don’t know why he identities as “pansexual”, where this dude is on the romantic, sexual, affection, relationship spectrum, what future identities he might embrace, or what type of fluidity he may experience. All you can do is accept what he presents now and keep it pushing. Stop assuming you know everything about everybody and stop making “gays” look like asshats.
Bob LaBlah
“And as I’ve gotten older I have actually gotten less conventionally “gay”.
Have you thought to call the local news station to see if they’d like to do a segment on you? Hey, you never know and it sounds like for you that would be the accomplishment of a lifetime.
Donston
It’s not really much of an accomplishment. At least half of the “queers” I know have experienced some type of fluidity (lessening/increasing) in the romantic, sexual, affection and/or relationship parts of their orientation at some point in their lives. It’s not some special or unique thing. If you actually had a decent amount of friends and family who still spoke to you, you probably wouldn’t constantly need people to keep educating you. You Bitter Betty’s show your ignorance repeatedly. None of this shit that’s going on is anything new or revolutionary. All you have to do is talk to people and actually have a social life.
Kangol2
I’m glad that the real story here is that Karamo accepts his son, but was disappointed that he didn’t hear first from Jr. about the pansexuality. I also understand Karamo’s concerns, especially around the tired old saw that gay parents will mean gay children. He and his husband will provide the kind of support many LGBTQIAP young people–and many older ones–crave, so that’s a very good thing. More power to both of them and the entire family unit.
Bob LaBlah
“LGBTQIAP?”
Why did you leave out the C for the cis crowd?
Kangol2
Cis is understood, Sis!
Cis-gay, cis-lesbian, cis-bi, etc. I’ll see if the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies can send some advanced undergrad or grad queer studies students down your way to conduct a workshop if you need. They’ll be cute too, though they might be nonbinary, so prepare yourself.