Dawson’s Creek and Cougar Town actor Busy Philipps just said that her 12-year-old child Birdie is gay and uses they pronouns.
“I feel like I won all of it because OH MY GOD I get to know this person and THAT is the magic of being a parent,” Philipps said.
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Speaking on her podcast Busy Philipps is Doing Her Best on December 30, she said that Birdie is her “out kid” who “prefers they/them,” adding that she feels “like I finally just really understand a lot of bigger things, life-wise.”
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Philipps said that she was previously using incorrect pronouns to refer to Birdie when talking about them in public, which led to an “intense conversation.”
“I said, ‘You know Bird, I’ve been doing a bad job with the pronouns,’ because Birdie said that they would like their pronouns to be they/them and I haven’t been doing it, I said, because I have this public persona and I want Birdie to be in control of their own narrative and not have to answer to anybody outside of our friends and family if they don’t want to,” she said.
“And then Bird was like… ‘You can talk about that I’m gay and out. You can talk about my pronouns. That would be cool with me. That’s great.’ ”
Philipps said that she told Birdie that they can live their life how they choose in order to feel “fulfilled and happy.”
“It doesn’t have to look like anything anybody has ever seen or anything that’s ever been modeled for you, because maybe it doesn’t exist,” she said. “You get to choose what will make you feel fulfilled and happy.”
In a picture she recently posted to her Instagram account of Birdie in a blue suit, Philipps wrote about how much she loves her child who just got the suit for Christmas.