Your Child Jt Told You He's Gay. Now What? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE GAY, SON?
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• YOUR CHILD JT TOLD YOU HE'S GAY. NOW WHAT?
• YOU SAY GAY SON I SAY GODSON
• JT BEE HE BREATH: LEARNG TO TLY LOVE OUR GAY SON

ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE GAY, SON?

So, yterday morng, my olst son me down for breakfast and announced to the whole fay that he was gay. It’s not that we don’t like gay people; ’s jt that me as a shock to . I’ll adm that we didn’t react the right way – we were so shocked that we tripped over our words and I told him that if he was sayg he’s gay to stand out or to f that he didn’t have to bee someone he’s not and I gus he took the wrong way and he’s been his room all day and I even heard him cryg a ltle.

I have nothg agast gay people, but is strange sce my son never showed any signs of beg gay before and as far as my hband and I knew, he liked girls and even had a girliend when he was younger.

Last year my other son told me that there was a bunch of boys who beat up a gay kid at school and I keep thkg, “What if that were my son?

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

You were totally ught off guard, though; neher you nor your hband had any klg that your son might be gay, so the first thgs that me to md to say to him was he didn’t have to be someone he wasn’t orr to stand out or f . He had probably wanted to tell you that he was gay for a long time and had fally worked up the urage to do so.

As his mom, you might fd the fact that he is gay nfg or surprisg, and that’s fe.

” And even, “When did you first realize you were gay? Now that he’s tsted you and his dad enough to e out to you, you will be able to learn more about your son’s experience and how he me to unrstand that he was gay.

YOUR CHILD JT TOLD YOU HE'S GAY. NOW WHAT?

Especially sce you don’t thk he is old enough to be sure he is really gay (and not jt nfed), but I thk you would be wise at this pot to tst that he knows his own feelgs.

YOU SAY GAY SON I SAY GODSON

Beg gay means that a person feels some sort of attractn toward the same sex. Both lbians and gay men often have a history of cross-sex-typed behavrs: ltle boys beg fatuated wh their mother's makp k; ltle girls enamored of field hockey or profsnal wrtlg. Prehomosexual boys tend to be more attracted to solary sports such as swimmg, cyclg and tennis than they are to rougher ntact sports such as football and soccer.

Children who show pronounced sex-atypil behavrs may have more of a geic loadg to their homosexualy. The behavral patterns are feared, loathed and often spoken of directly as harbgers of adult homosexualy.

It is only relatively recently, however, that velopmental scientists have nducted ntrolled studi to intify the earlit and most reliable signs of adult homosexualy. In lookg refully at the childhoods of gay adults, rearchers are fdg an trigug set of behavral ditors that homosexuals seem to have mon.

JT BEE HE BREATH: LEARNG TO TLY LOVE OUR GAY SON

Curly enough, the age-old homophobic fears of many parents reflect some genue predictive currency. Zucker, both psychologists, published a semal paper on childhood markers of homosexualy 1995. 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.

Given that a small proportn of the populatn is homosexual, prospective studi require a large number of children. 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. And the same holds for gay men.

Bailey and Zucker, who nducted a retrospective study which adults answered qutns about their past, revealed that 89 percent of randomly sampled gay men relled cross-sex-typed childhood behavrs exceedg the heterosexual median. The thors found that “those targets who, as adults, intified themselv as homosexual were judged to be genr nonnformg as children.