Gov. Deval
Patrick’s Daughter: I'm a Lesbian

Eighteen-year-old Katherine Patrick, daughter of Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, came out as lesbian during an interview she conducted with her father by her side. "I'll always remember the first thing my dad did was, [he] wrapped me in a bear hug and said, 'Well, we love you no matter what,'" Katherine Patrick told Bay Windows, an LGBT publication that covers New England.

Governor Patrick and first lady Diane Patrick fully supported Katherine's decision to come out publicly, despite acknowledging that if their daughter were straight, she would not have had to make a formal announcement about the matter. "But the world is such and my job is such that rather than have someone do a 'gotcha' [story about Katherine's sexuality] and our giving the misimpression that this wasn't completely natural in our family, then we thought, All right, let's just say it and move on," the governor said.

Diane Patrick, who was caught in traffic and conferenced into the interview via phone, said she was initially trepidatious when Katherine asked to speak with her parents privately: "I often think the worst when I get that kind of buildup. And so I was thinking, Oh, my goodness, she failed something or she did something really bad -- not that she has a habit of doing those things -- but I worried." Bay Windows reports that Diane Patrick nearly laughed with relief after her daughter turned to them and said, "I'm a lesbian."

"I thought, Well, what did she think we were going to say about this? Because I really hoped that she didn't harbor any concern that we were going to be worried or upset or scandalized in any way," the first lady said.

Katherine, who will be a freshman at Smith College this fall, expressed pride in her father's recent work for LGBT rights: Governor Patrick worked diligently to help defeat an anti-gay marriage amendment in Massachusetts last summer. "Because, of course, he didn't know that I was gay then," she said. "So for someone so publicly to fight for something that doesn't even affect him was just like, 'That's my dad,' you know?" (The Advocate)