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

Contents:

• MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI
• DAD AND DAD: A JOURNEY TO GAY FATHERHOOD – PICTUR
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• ARE YOUNGER BROTHERS MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY?
• WE MAY KNOW WHY YOUNGER BROTHERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY
• WALL STREET CEOS OPEN UP ABOUT THEIR GAY SONS
• GAY DADS AND A SON WHO THOUGHT HE WAS GAY
• YOUR CHILD JT TOLD YOU HE'S GAY. NOW WHAT?
• GAY MEN AND THEIR MOTHERS: IS THERE A SPECIAL CLOSENS?
• GAY MEN AND THEIR FATHERS: HURT AND HEALG
• ‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD
• MY SON MIGHT BE GAY. WHAT SHOULD I SAY TO HIM?
• MOM'S GEICS COULD PRODUCE GAY SONS
• A GAY COUPLE'S FIGHT FOR THEIR TW SON'S CIZENSHIP INSPIR

MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI

Such a photograph would have been extraordarily rare jt s ago, but now is one of many published the book “Dads, ” a four-year visual archive of gay fatherhood across Ameri that began 2016. “I felt a ltle b lonely as a gay dad – although there are two of – but lonely the sense that all the other fai I knew were straight parents, ” Heynen said a vio ll, explag why he began photographg the seri.

DAD AND DAD: A JOURNEY TO GAY FATHERHOOD – PICTUR

For Heynen, they reprent addnal love and re and help illtrate some of the cisn-makg that, though not exclive to them, all gay fathers mt ntend wh. Heynen, as well as the fathers he photographed, hope that the photographs “Dads” will dispel some of the hurtful stereotyp that still lger around gay fatherhood. Hosted by Wt Hollywood uple Yan and Alex, the dads e each episo to chat parentg and relatnships, and lately have been focg each episo on the gay rights and fatherhood pathways by untry, and vg a gay father om each lotn on as a gut.

This YA g-of-age novel follows high schooler Sal, who was adopted to a lovg Mexin Amerin fay by his gay father, when he begs to qutn his inty and place the world durg his senr year.

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

Tom and Mike wh their son Jack at a lacrosse practice at Horace Mann School, Bronx, New YorkThroughout the book the children of gay dads grow olr. Although the school and Jack’s iends know that Jack has two gay dads there was some tensn the air while posg for this photo the middle of a sports field wh all the other players around. 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.

ARE YOUNGER BROTHERS MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY?

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. It is only relatively recently, however, that velopmental scientists have nducted ntrolled studi to intify the earlit and most reliable signs of adult homosexualy. 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.

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. 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.

WE MAY KNOW WHY YOUNGER BROTHERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO 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 or bisexual orientatn will be prent adulthood.

Cross-cultural data show that prehomosexual boys are more attracted to solary sports such as swimmg, cyclg and tennis than they are to rougher ntact sports such as football and soccer; they are also ls likely to be childhood bulli.

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. Lang, Elton John and Rachel Maddow's close relativ, but I n only image that the straight k are far better off terms of their own reproductive opportuni than they would be whout a homosexual danglg so magnificently on their fay tre. So 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 be if 10 medcre straight offsprg leaped om your los.

WALL STREET CEOS OPEN UP ABOUT THEIR GAY SONS

I n say as a once prehomosexual pipsqueak that some preparatn on the part of others would have ma easier on me, rather than nstantly fearg rejectn or worryg about some rels slipup leadg to my “exposure. And another thg: mt be pretty hard to look to your prehomosexual toddler's limpid ey, bsh away the okie cmbs om her cheek and toss her out on the streets for beg article was origally published wh the tle "Is Your Child Gay?

How Olr Brothers Influence HomosexualyHomosexualy might be partly driven by a mother’s immune rponse to her male fet—which creas wh each son she MacGregor / RtersHere’s what we know: Homosexualy is normal. Female Japane maqu will even pete tersexually wh mal for exclive accs to female sexual ’s what we don’t know: What, specifilly, someone to bee gay, straight, or somethg between. Part of the explanatn is geic, but bee most intil tws of gay people are straight, heredy don’t expla “why” qutn is important bee “there is a strong rrelatn between beliefs about the origs of sexual orientatn and tolerance of non-heterosexualy, ” acrdg to the report thors, who are om seven universi spanng the globe.

GAY DADS AND A SON WHO THOUGHT HE WAS GAY

(When Atlantic ntributor Chandler Burr proposed his 1996 book, A Separate Creatn, that people are born gay, Southern Baptists lled to boytt Disney films and parks prott agast the publisher, Disney subsidiary Hypern. ) It shouldn’t matter whether people “choose” to be gay, but polilly, do—at least for of the most nsistent environmental explanatns for homosexualy is lled the “aternal birth orr effect.

Average prevalence 2013 (Sav-Williams and Vrangalova)Acrdg to the report, Blanchard now plans to tt mothers of gay and straight men for the prence of the antibodi. But gaps will rema, such as why some firstborn sons are gay, why some intil tws of gay sons are straight, and why women are gay, to name jt a review-paper thors do le out one explanatn for homosexualy, however: That tolerance for gay people enurag more people to bee gay.

“Homosexual orientatn do not crease equency wh social tolerance, although s exprsn ( behavr and open intifitn) may do so, ” they reasong—that a tolerant society somehow enurag homosexualy to flourish—has been ed to support anti-gay legislatn Uganda, Rsia, and elsewhere. In 1996, the psychologists Ray Blanchard and Anthony Bogaert published a paper ntendg that homosexualy was more mon men who had olr brothers. "In [Wtern] societi, homosexual men are femized at var levels and they have more olr brothers than heterosexual men, " state the thors of the study.

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

"To evaluate whether femy and the aternal birth orr effect are universal featur of male homosexual preference or not, we llected origal data om homosexual men, heterosexual men, and heterosexual women om Java (Indonia). Consistent wh Blanchard and Bogaert's fdgs Wtern societi, they found that homosexual men were more likely to have olr brothers than heterosexual men. Intertgly, the rearchers also found that homosexual men were more likely to have olr sisters, although this difference was smaller than the olr brother difference.

Usg standardized photographs of heterosexual and homosexual Indonian men, the rearchers found that men wh olr brothers were perceived to have more feme facial featur than men whout olr brothers. The thors wre, "Taken together, the rults suggt the prence of a femizg factor associated wh male homosexualy that is partially termed by male birth orr. They found that the mothers of gay sons wh olr brothers had the hight levels of antibodi agast this prote, followed by the mothers of gay sons wh no olr brothers.

“Given that the prote is known to be important synapse formatn, you n see how maternal antibodi might affect the wirg of the fetal bra, and that might expla why each subsequent son is more likely to grow up gay. “The signifince of this prelimary observatn, if n be replited, is that intifi specific molecul the bra that may be important for heterosexual as well as homosexual velopment, ” says Dean Hamer, a pneer of rearchg the blogil termants of sexual orientatn.

GAY MEN AND THEIR MOTHERS: IS THERE A SPECIAL CLOSENS?

Eventually, one ntracts productn, box office & pany Vios1More like thisReview Well worth watchg unls you're homophobicI saw this nice ltle movie Luxembourg one week or so after 's premier here. When he was CEO of Man Stanley (MS) and Cred Suisse First Boston (CS), John Mack was known for his progrsive views on lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr equaly. "I had strong views of beg anti-gay, " Mack said this month at a nference hosted by Out on the Street, an anizatn that helps firms rec and reta LGBT talent.

After Lil Nas X me out publicly as gay and fully embraced his sexualy his Montero (Call Me By Your Name) mic vio, his father, gospel mician Robert Stafford, wrote on Instagram, “Very creative vio. Durg a film screeng of his movie My Fake Boyiend  June, McDermott posted an Instagram Story which said, part, “The thg I love about this movie is I got to share wh my 15-year-old, who intifi as trans, and my gay son.

GAY MEN AND THEIR FATHERS: HURT AND HEALG

“As a parent, I wanted EJ to know that we loved him and would always love him, ” Magic Johnson told the New York Tim of his reactn when his son, makp artist EJ Johnson, me out to him as gay when he was a teenager. “As long as I am upright, I will fight [so] that Sam and everyone’s children and grandchildren and sisters and brothers will be protected every state of the Uned Stat, ” Sally Field said of her son, Sam Greisman, who is gay — and why she’s a part of the Human Rights Campaign’s work towards the Equaly Act.

‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD

I jt want to make sure he gets to have a fay when he wants one, ” Marcia Gay Harn said of son Hudson at the Fay Equaly Council’s Impact Awards. Colson quoted extensively om Joseph and Lda Nilosi’s book, A Parent’s Gui to Preventg Homosexualy as support for the view that weak or distant fathers and smotherg mothers create gay mal.

MY SON MIGHT BE GAY. WHAT SHOULD I SAY TO HIM?

Instead of rporatg a mascule sense of self, the prehomosexual boy is dog jt the oppose -- rejectg his emergg malens and th velopg a fensive posn agast . In practice, if you believe the reports of men who say they are gay bee their fathers were distant, then you are bound to believe the reports of gay men who say they had close relatnships wh their fathers. In that se, the theory fails as a general explanatn for homosexualy bee, as I illtrate below, there are numero gay men and their fathers who report histori of close bondg and mutual love.

” In that particular se, the father had actually spent more time nurturg his son durg the growg up years bee his job allowed him to work at my experience, many fathers and gay sons scribe close, lovg relatnships.

For stance, one man scribed his relatnship wh his gay son this way ( alics):When my son was 18 months to 3 years old (and on to childhood), we enjoyed a wonrfully close relatnship. ’…That is exactly the oppose msage we hear om gay activists who claim that people are “born gay” and that nfed teens ought to be enuraged to embrace homosexualy. The jury is out wh much more rearch to be done, but what has been done on parentg do not spire nfince the claim that distant fathers and smotherg mothers create gay Throckmorton, PhD is an associate profsor of psychology at Grove Cy College and fellow for psychology and public policy wh the Center for Visn & Valu.

MOM'S GEICS COULD PRODUCE GAY SONS

This was found to be te for many of the mothers and sons I terviewed for the study scribed the book: Comg Out, Comg Home: Helpg Fai Adjt to a Gay or Lbian Child (). Neverthels, this closens uld have a downsi, at least temporarily, as many mothers ially blame themselv and the close relatnships for their sons' homosexualy.

So, perhaps is not pletely surprisg that once they learned their sons were gay, some of the mothers I terviewed felt that they had done somethg to damage them. Even though rearch sce the 1950's has bunked , this theory persists people's mds and rears s ugly head for mothers when they ially learn their sons are gay. Fortunately, for many mothers of gay son—wh time and tn, they learn that the ia that they had somehow ma their son gay is ad wrong This was te of the mothers my study who also me to see the benefs havg a gay son as will be scribed later this post.

My rearch, clil and personal experienc suggt that there is ed a al lk between male homosexualy and a close maternal relatnship but flows the oppose directn than what was prevly thought.

A GAY COUPLE'S FIGHT FOR THEIR TW SON'S CIZENSHIP INSPIR

I thk personally [beg gay] ma me a more emotnal person, more sensive, more touch wh both the male and female sis of myself, but allowg me to even acknowledge that other si ma me closer to my mother. Once mothers this study got over their feelgs of guilt and got ed to the ia that their sons were gay, they were able to regnize the benefs of havg a gay son.

However, we get to hot water when we allow stereotyp to get the way of unrstandg the uniquens of dividuals and their circumstanc—so is important to remember that not all mothers and gay sons are close. Sadly, some mothers simply nnot adjt to their sons' homosexualy, due to their guilt, relig ncerns, or abily to "let go" and accept the ways they live their liv. They immediately clocked as gay, while we immediately clocked them as we warmed up to another, one mom anxly said: "I have a qutn: I am pretty sure my son is gay, but I don't know what to do.