Pride Profiles | Jay Whymark

Jay Whymark is a father of two sons who lives in Wilkes-Barre with his fiancé, works as an art teacher at Bear Creek Community Charter School, and participates in community theatre. He’s an optimistic, friendly, affirming person whose life looks pretty good, despite two years of a worldwide pandemic. But this life he lives would not be possible if he had not committed, fifteen years ago, to coming out to himself and everyone else, including his now ex-wife. This time was difficult, of course, but according to Jay, “Being your authentic self is the best thing you can do as a parent, because it allows you to be fully present in your children’s lives.” This is wonderful advice for all parents. Parenting is a lifelong, rewarding, challenging journey. To not be able to be your complete self on that journey is akin to trying to cook a meal with one hand tied behind your back.

Throughout their lives, Jay’s paramount concern is always what is best for his sons and how they will be affected by his decisions. From the beginning, he and his ex-wife have shared custody of the boys. They are teenagers now. Wyatt, 18, just graduated from high school and will be continuing his education at Bloomsburg University, and Andrew, 17, is a rising senior in high school. As the parents of any teenager know, frequent “check ins” to see how they feel about the issues in their lives and in the lives of their loved ones are important. Since they were young, he and his sons have spent a lot of quality time together, exploring shared interests such as science fiction, comic books, and Dungeons and Dragons. The last interest is one Jay himself picked up in college and has passed down to Wyatt and Andrew. It needs a minimal amount of equipment and encourages imagination and storytelling—a perfect outlet for all three of them.

When Jay came out he was living in the Lehigh Valley. He had a great support system in his family, but the added support of an organization called Rainbow Families was crucial. Being able to do activities with other families, which were sometimes as simple as a picnic, showed Jay and his sons that they were not alone. As LGBTQ+ parenting becomes more common, resources such as the one Jay describes will hopefully become more plentiful; for anyone, there are a number of great books and podcasts with the stories of queer parenting, advice on subjects from surrogacy and adoption to co-parenting with biological ex-partners and stepparents. A comprehensive sampling of these resources can be found here.

While most people in Jay’s life have been and continue to be supportive, even all these years later, there can still be questions and judgements that need to be addressed. On this subject, Jay references Harvey Milk, who said “Unless you have dialogue, unless you open the walls of dialogue, you can never reach to change people’s opinion.” In the true spirit of what Harvey Milk fought for, Jay Whymark embodies that ethos. He is patient, he is kind, and he is always his authentic self. What the world sees then is a gay dad, doing a wonderful job, living his truth and living for his children.