When Your Child Is Gay | Psychology Today

Contents:

• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• WHEN YOUR CHILD IS GAY
• WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"
• WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?
• PARENT SPECTS THAT CHILD MIGHT BE GAY
• PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE
• RPONDG LOVE TO AN ADULT GAY CHILD
• CHILDREN OF LBIAN AND GAY PARENTS
• LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

Askg them about their experience and how you n help them feel supportedlisteng whout terptg or argugtellg them you love them and exprs affectnlearng together about issu LGBTQ youth face by jog an LGBTQ fay support anizatn, such as PFLAG, Genr Spectm, Genr Odyssey, or Strong Fay Allianctandg up for your child when they are mistreated, even by other fay membershelpg your child fd an LGBTQ role mol for your child among iends and fay members or through PFLAG or other support groupstalkg to your relig lears about helpg your place of worship bee more supportive of LGBTQ people, or fd a more supportive place of worship at, Q Christian Fellowship, Khet, or Mlims for Progrsive Valuenuragg fay and iends to check wh your child and show supportchallengg homophobic mentsgettg to know your child’s LGBTQ iends and romantic partnersupport your child’s genr exprsn... So on the basis of some earlier, shakier rearch, along wh a good dose of mon sense, Bailey and Zucker hypothized that homosexuals would show an verted pattern of sex-typed childhood behavrs—ltle boys preferrg girls as playmat and beg fatuated wh their mother's makp k; ltle girls strangely enamored of field hockey or profsnal wrtlg—that sort of thg.

WHEN YOUR CHILD IS GAY

Although only 12 percent of the women grew up to be genr dysphoric (the unfortable sense that your blogil sex do not match your genr), the odds of the women reportg a bisexual or homosexual orientatn were up to 23 tim higher than would occur a general sample of young women.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"

Bee the data often reveal very early emergg tras prehomosexuals, children who show pronounced sex-atypil behavrs may have more of a geic loadg to their homosexualy, whereas gay adults who were sex-typil as children might trace their homosexualy more directly to particular childhood experienc.

Well, my study of 65 fai of gay and lbian youth for the book, Comg Out, Comg Home: Helpg Fai Adjt to a Gay or Lbian Child, I found that some parents get to the pot where they believe that the experience of havg a gay child actually ma them a better person—more open-md and sensive to the needs of others, particularly those other mory groups. The mothers were then classified further to one of five groups: those wh gay male only-children (n = 8), those wh gay male offsprg that had no olr brothers (n = 23), those wh gay male offsprg wh olr brothers (n = 23), those wh heterosexual male only-children (n = 11), and those wh heterosexual male offsprg wh siblgs (n = 61). As birth weight tends to crease over succsive pregnanci, the parisons were limed to first live-born sons only (n = 63); this left 4 gay male only-children, 7 gay mal wh no olr brothers, 14 heterosexual mal wh gay younger brothers, 10 heterosexual male only-children, and 28 heterosexual mal wh siblgs.

WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?

Skorska et al (2016) pos that this might have somethg to do wh some mothers showg a greater immune rponse agast male offsprg, rultg more fetal loss, the rult beg that such mothers are both ls likely to have any children at all and more likely to have gay male children particular. If mothers of gay men do not tend to have a greater rat of female-to-male offsprg, this would st some doubt on the explanatn (and, sce the only data I've heard reports that gay men tend to have more olr brothers, seems they would have noticed the sister pot by now if existed).

On the other hand, if this is a more general immune reactn agast fetal bodi, regardls of their sex, we would not expect such a pattern ( might also predict that mothers takg immunosupprsants would be ls likely to have gay offsprg/misrry, but thgs are unlikely to be that simple owg to the fact that other effects would rult too).

Not surprisgly, therefore, boys naturally select other boys for playmat, and girls would much rather play wh other girls than wh on the basis of some earlier, shakier rearch, along wh a good dose of mon sense, Bailey and Zucker hypothized that homosexuals would show an verted pattern of sex-typed childhood behavrs (ltle boys preferrg girls as playmat and fatuated wh their mothers’ make-up ks; ltle girls strangely enamoured by field hockey or profsnal wrtlg…that sort of thg). In their 1995 report, Bailey and Kenh Zucker revealed that, retrospective studi (the send method ed to exame the relatn between childhood behavr and adult sexual orientatn, which adults simply answer qutns about their childhoods) 89 percent of randomly sampled gay men relled cross-sex-typed childhood behavrs exceedg the heterosexual median.

PARENT SPECTS THAT CHILD MIGHT BE GAY

There is also evince of a “dosage effect”: the more genr nonnformg characteristics there are childhood, the more likely is that a homosexual/bisexual orientatn will be prent —and I know you’ve been wag for me to say this—there are several very important veats to this body of work.

But I also wasn’t an overly effemate child, was never bullied as a “sissy, ” and by the time I was ten I was distguishably as annoyg, unuth and wired as my close male fact, by thirteen, I was already eply socialized to mascule social norms; this se, I took to middle school wrtlg as a rather scrawny eighty-pound eighth grar, and so dog I ironilly beme all too nsc ed of my homosexual orientatn.

PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE

Intrigugly, cross-cultural data published by Fernando Luiz Cardoso of Santa Catara State Universy a 2008 issue of Archiv of Sexual Behavr showed that young prehomosexual mal are attracted to solary sports, such as swimmg, cyclg, or tennis, over rougher ntact sports, such as football or soccer—and also that they are ls likely to be childhood bulli. Sce the prospective and retrospective data discsed the foregog studi often reveal very early emergg tras prehomosexuals, however, those children who show pronounced sex-atypil behavrs may have “more” of a geic loadg to their homosexualy, whereas gay adults who were sex-typil as children might trace their homosexualy more directly to particular childhood experienc. For example, a rather stunng se of what I’ll ll “say--isn’t-so science”—science that produc data that rebel agast popular, polilly rrect, or emotnally appealg sentiments—ntroversial new fdgs published earlier this year the Archiv of Sexual Behavr ht trigugly that men—but not women—who were sexually abed as children are signifintly more likely than non-abed mal to have had homosexual relatnships as adults.

RPONDG LOVE TO AN ADULT GAY CHILD

In fact impli que the oppose, sce prepubertal erotic experienc n later nsolidate to irreversible sexual orientatns and preferenc, as I discsed a prev piece on the childhood origs of fetish and is fashnable the days to say that one is “born gay, ” of urse, but if we thk about a b more crilly, ’s a b odd, and probably nonsensil, to refer to a newborn fant, swaddled blankets and still sucklg on s mother’s teats, as beg homosexual. In any event, I thk ’s far better for parents to regnize the source of their ncerns about havg a gay child as beg motivated by unnsc geic terts than is to have them fibbg to themselv about beg entirely different to their son or dghter “turng out”, bear this md parents, ’s also important to strs that sce geic succs is weighed evolutnary blogil terms as the relative percentage of one’s gen that rry over to subsequent generatns—rather than simply number of offsprg per se—there are other, though typilly ls profable, ways for your child to ntribute to your overall geic succs than humdm sexual reproductn. So here’s my msage: Cultivate your ltle prehomosexual’s native talents and your ultimate geic payoff uld, strangely enough, be even larger wh one very special gay child than would if ten medcre straight offsprg leapt om your ’s one fal thg to note, and that’s reference to the future of this rearch and s real-world applitns.

CHILDREN OF LBIAN AND GAY PARENTS

The most important aspects of the qutnnaire alt wh six "childhood ditors" of later adult homosexualy: (1) tert dolls, (2) cross-drsg, (3) preference for pany of girls rather than boys childhood gam, (4) preference for pany of olr women rather than olr men, (5) beg regard by other boys as a sissy, (6) sexual tert other boys rather than girls childhood sex play. Unlike heterosexual parents and their children, however, lbian and gay parents and their children are often subject to prejudice bee of their sexual orientatn that n turn judg, legislators, profsnals, and the public agast them, sometim rultg negative out, such as loss of physil ctody, rtrictns on visatn, and prohibns agast adoptn (ACLU Lbian and Gay Rights Project, 2002; Appell, 2003; Patterson, Fulcher, & Waright, 2002).

LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG

The relevance of this cricism has been greatly rced as rearch has expand to explore life a wir array of lbian mother and gay father fai (many of which have never lived through the divorce of a heterosexual uple), and as newer studi beg to clu a wir array of ntrol groups.