I'm From Driftwood is a 501(c)(3) non-profit forum for true lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer stories. Earlier this year, founder and Executive Director Nathan Manske and two companions successfully completed a four-month, 50-state Story Tour collecting LGBTQ stories from towns and cities across the country. They're pulling some of the most relevant, important, and sometimes just enjoyable stories from their archives and sharing them with HuffPost Gay Voices.
Dix is very proud and supportive of her adult daughter, Piper. The circumstances of her conception and upbringing are certainly not of the norm.
I was a budding feminist at the time -- you know, early 20s -- and really coming to on a socially conscious level. I was still sort of coming out, more and more... So I've always said, you know -- kind of started identifying loosely as bisexual.
Around this time, Dix met Piper's dad, Matt, and they hit it off right away. She went from not really knowing whether or not she wanted to get married and have a family to seriously considering those notions. She had a lot of concerns, especially regarding her growing attraction to women.
So we went and had a beer at Checkpoint Charlie's... pint of Guinness, talking about it, and he's like, "Well, what about getting married?" And I looked right at him, and I'm like, "But what if I'm a lesbian?" And he said, "We'll deal with it." We're sitting at the bar, he says that, it was like "all right," and we got excited... My daughter was almost conceived in the bushes, actually, before we got in the car, but we managed to restrain ourselves. And then, like a couple of crazy, horny teenagers, we jumped in the car, and the rest is history, and it's been -- what a blessing. It's been an amazing ride.
When Piper was barely 2 years old, Dix broke the news to Matt that she wanted to leave because she was in love with a woman.
He sat down with me, and we cried, and he said, "How can I blame you for loving women? I love women."
The arrangement ended up working out nicely, much to the happiness of everyone involved.
I just see the grace and the beauty that she walks through the world with, and I know that even though I can claim some part of that, I owe that to my community. I owe that to her father. I owe that to my partners. I owe that to the women that literally helped catch her and bring her forth... I'm a proud mom.
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