Writer and doctor in Toulouse, Baptiste Beaulieu was born in 1985, “three years after the decriminalization of homosexuality”he specifies. He was 9 years old when, sitting in front of the Sunday evening movie with his whole loving family, he passed The Crazy Cage. “Ugh! It disgusts me! »he says of the homosexual couple, waiting to be contradicted by his parents, who let him say it. Parents also raise their children by what they don't say.
In his new book, precisely titled Not all silences make the same noise (L'Iconoclaste, 376 pages, 20.90 euros), the doctor known for his online presence (first a blog, an Instagram account with 400,000 subscribers) and for his columns on France Inter (until June) reacts to the seemingly benevolent questions that homosexuals often hear, especially when they are starting a family. Today, Baptiste Beaulieu is married, he has a 15-month-old son and he was a donor in the context of assisted medical procreation (MAP) for a couple of friends, today mothers of a little girl of 3 years.
The first time you felt like a father?
One night, my son was crying. He must have been a little over 1 month old. I felt that he was cold, I held him against me and he went back to sleep. What made me feel like a father was understanding his need and being there to fill it. It's very powerful, this moment when you start to take care of someone other than yourself: it's an overwhelming responsibility, but it also feels good to decenter yourself, to stop being the character main part of its history.
You write that the desire for parenthood among men, homosexual or heterosexual, remains a non-subject…
Yes, I see men in need of children from time to time in the office. It's something very visceral, very intimate. For my part, I had never planned for parenthood, and I don't know how it happened. I think it came from taking a baby in my arms, to my office, to examine it.
As a doctor, I saw kids who didn't seem loved, let's say celebrated the way they should be, and I said to myself about the parents, “It seems so easy for them to have a child.” , and they're ruining this chance…” I started to look for where these feelings came from, before recognizing my desire to be around a child.
In your book, you note that no one questions the dispositions of straight people to be good parents…
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