Fatherhood was never supposed to fit inside a Hallmark card.

It was never supposed to be neat, or easy, or reserved for bloodlines drawn in ink and expectation.

Some of us had to claw our way into fatherhood—through systems that said we didn’t belong, through histories that erased us, through silences thick enough to drown in.

And still, we chose it. Still, we built it.

This feature honours the queer fathers, the trans dads, the non-binary parents, and the chosen family caregivers who are ripping the definition of "father" away from tradition and planting it somewhere new—in fierce love, in defiant care, in futures shaped by our own hands.

Through roundtables, snapshots, and unflinching first-person stories, we’re telling the real story: that fatherhood beyond bloodlines isn't a backup plan. It's an act of resistance.

Part 1: The Day I Knew I Was a Father—And the World Tried to Tell Me I Wasn't

I didn’t know I was a father the first time I changed a diaper.

I didn’t know when I spent nights pacing hallways with a crying baby pressed against my chest, whispering promises into the dark that everything would be okay.

I didn't even know the first time a little hand reached for mine without hesitation.

I knew—really knew—the day someone else tried to tell me I wasn’t.

It was a daycare form.

"Mother's Name:." "Father's Name (if applicable):."

I crossed out "if applicable" with my pen. Wrote my name in big, stubborn letters. Marcel Cruz.

The receptionist looked at me like I'd stolen something. Looked at the child clutching my leg like I was an impostor.

"Are you… authorized?" she asked, voice thin, sharp.

I thought about bloodlines. About paperwork. About all the ways this world tries to erase families that don't look like their neat little forms.

"I'm their parent," I said.

And I realized then: being a father isn’t about DNA. It’s about who stands there when the world tries to unwrite you.

It’s about showing up, day after day, when it would be easier—safer—to disappear.

It's about refusing to be erased.

No ceremony. No parade. Just a pen, a line crossed out, a name written bigger than the space they left for me.

I became a father in that moment.

I become a father again every time I say: I am here. You are mine. We are enough.

No apologies. No footnotes.

Happy Father's Day to all of us building families they said couldn't exist—and loving them anyway.

Part 2: Snapshots of Fatherhood: In Their Own Words