Jason Om, 30s
Broadcast journalist
Cis male, Gay
He/him
Gripping tightly onto a chair in the kitchen, Jason’s father was perplexed at the revelation.
“But we sent you to Catholic school… Are you sure?” he quipped, not being able to comprehend how Jason could be gay.
Jason was in his second year at university, living in a share house in North Melbourne. His father was dropping him back after spending the weekend at home in the burbs when he decided it was a good time to tell him he was gay.
“I didn’t know what his reaction would be. When I was a teenager, he threatened to disown me if I disobeyed him so I was expecting him to get really angry, but he didn’t get angry. I was kind of expecting him to fly of the handle and disown me. I’d already moved out of home by then, so that’s probably why I had the courage to tell him. But he was very calm and quiet about it,” recounts Jason of his coming out.
For over 15 years since his coming out, Jason’s sexuality was rarely discussed or acknowledged; his father even proposing an arranged marriage to a successful Cambodian woman, much to Jason’s frustration.
But in the spring of 2017 during the Marriage Equality plebiscite, Jason was moved to tears when he received an email from his father letting him know that he has voted “Yes”, prompting him to write an article about the experience and doing a special TV news report that aired nationally.
When Jason came out, he expected his relationship with his father to change, but looking back, he realises it hasn’t.
“As a child, my dad, my Australian cousins and I would go down to the fish and chip shop the Greek family ran, ordering the same order that we still order now – fried grenadier and potato cakes. And that’s sort of morphed these days into a ritual before he takes me to the airport to go home to Sydney. So really, some things don’t change. But really, all things don’t change in a relationship… certainly in our relationship, and that’s the way it should be.”
While the Greek family from Jason’s childhood no longer runs the fish and shop on Old Dandenong Road, little has changed in the shop, much like Jason and his father’s special bond over deep fried treats.