Camryn Manheim took the stage at the 2026 Human Rights Campaign National Dinner on Sunday night, looked out at the crowd, and delivered this line about her 25-year-old son Milo: "I always wanted a gay son. I did."
She wasn't joking.
Manheim was presenting the Ally for Equality award to actress Marcia Gay Harden when she launched into what can only be described as a public airing of maternal disappointment that her kid turned out heterosexual. "Gay sons are the best, right?" she asked the audience, according to the Daily Wire. She went on to describe the lengths she'd gone to. "I have photographs of my son in high heels, in full drag."
Milo Manheim, for the uninitiated, is a 25-year-old actor and dancer whose biological father is Jeffrey Brezovar, a gay friend of Manheim's. He grew up in the entertainment world, knows "every word to every musical ever written" by his mother's own account, and works in a musical theater company where he is, per Manheim, "the only straight guy in his entire musical theater company."
When Harden revealed during the event that her own son is gay, Manheim's response was immediate: "You are so lucky." She reportedly expressed jealousy when Harden mentioned her son had purchased leather boots. The woman stood on a stage in front of hundreds of people and told them she envied another mother because that mother's child has the sexual orientation she wanted for her own.
There's a word for treating your child's identity as a personal accessory. Several words, actually, but none of them are "ally."
The photographs in high heels and full drag weren't mentioned as a funny childhood memory. They were presented as evidence of effort — things Manheim did to nudge the outcome she wanted. She dressed her son in drag. She wanted him to be gay. He isn't. And she's publicly, at a nationally covered gala, expressing disappointment about it.
Imagine for one second a parent standing at a microphone and saying they'd always wanted a straight son, had dressed their child in ways meant to encourage that outcome, and were upset it didn't work. The Human Rights Campaign wouldn't be handing that person an award. They'd be writing the press release demanding their cancellation.
Social media didn't miss the irony. Commenters pointed out what should be obvious: children are not props for their parents' social positioning. A mother publicly lamenting that her son's sexual orientation doesn't match her preference isn't progressive. It's the same pressure dressed in different clothes.
Manheim has built a career partly on advocacy — she won an Emmy, she's been outspoken on body image and social causes, she has the progressive credentials. None of that changes what happened Sunday night. She stood in front of a room full of people who believe sexual orientation isn't a choice and told them she tried to choose her son's.
Milo Manheim is 25 years old. He's a working actor. He's straight. His mother told a ballroom full of strangers she wished he weren't.
