How One Mother’s Love for Her Gay Son Started a Revolutn | The New Yorker

Contents:

• ‘I LOVE A MAMA’S BOY’ FANS ARE CONVCED MATT IS GAY
• GAY MEN AND THEIR MOTHERS: IS THERE A SPECIAL CLOSENS?
• A GAY BOY’S FAL PORTRA OF HIS MOM
• MY MOTHER SISTED I WAS GAY - BUT I’M NOT
• MOM, I’M GAY. CAN MY FRIENDS SLEEP OVER?
• WHY DO GAY MEN TEND TO HAVE CLOSER RELATNSHIPS WH THEIR MOMS STEAD OF THEIR DADS?
• SON TELLS MOM HE'S GAY, SHE REACTS THE BT WAY.
• ‘I LOVE A MAMA’S BOY’ WHY FANS ARE ADAMANT MATT IS GAY?
• HOW ONE MOTHER’S LOVE FOR HER GAY SON STARTED A REVOLUTN

‘I LOVE A MAMA’S BOY’ FANS ARE CONVCED MATT IS GAY

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.

For a long time, the psychiatric profsn blamed overly close maternal relatnships for g the "disease" of male homosexualy. 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. The young gay mal this study relled sharg terts mon wh their mothers, such as fashn and okg, and were also sensive to their feelgs. 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.

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

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. It’s a tism that our earlit selv are shaped large part by our bonds wh our parents, and nowhere is this more te than when a son is gay. Gay Sons and Mothers llects, curat, discs, celebrat, and prerv narrativ that te, spire, and brg hope to dienc around the globe.

A GAY BOY’S FAL PORTRA OF HIS MOM

Gay Sons and Mothers is honored to jo a proud tradn of prervg and passg along stori that reflect the strengths and stggl related to the formatn of sexual inty and sexual exprsn the ntext of the parent-child relatnship. Gay Sons and Mothers is a 501-©3 nonprof anizatn created to te and spire, not jt gay men and their fai, but whole muni about what diversy and acceptance look like—and why ’s so spectacularly ’re glad you’re here wh on the journey!

MY MOTHER SISTED I WAS GAY - BUT I’M NOT

TEDxTalk: The Mother Factor: Acceptance Works Both WaysMom is the person who potentially has the greatt impact on her son’s life and his psychologil well-beg- pecially muni where he has been treated unfairly due to beg until well to the '70s, the medil muny blamed mothers for “makg" their sons gay. 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.

Somehow, however, the “prehomosexual male” be gay by fallg love wh what he once rejected – masculy – and seeks gay sex as a means to fd .

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 future broadsts, Colson promis to brg more rmatn “about what parents n do to lsen the chanc their children will grow up homosexual. 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.

MOM, I’M GAY. CAN MY FRIENDS SLEEP OVER?

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.

WHY DO GAY MEN TEND TO HAVE CLOSER RELATNSHIPS WH THEIR MOMS STEAD OF THEIR DADS?

For stance, the odds of homosexualy creased slightly when divorced parents remarried, brgg two step-parents to the picture. ” 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.

He wr ( alics)“The most important msage we n offer, ” Nilosi says, “is that there is no such thg as a ‘gay child’ or a ‘gay teen. ’…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. Homosexualy is not strongly related to geics but that do not mean that parentg is the only alternative non-geic factor.

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. In part of the logy, I tried to be gentle but hont as I listed each fay member her life and their this publitn, I add a ltle more about our relatnship between her as mother and me as gay son. Our relatnship was good for the most part, only straed by the time took for her to e to unrstand and accept my homosexualy vs.

SON TELLS MOM HE'S GAY, SHE REACTS THE BT WAY.

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She rejected the assumptn that moms are rponsible for makg boys gay and that boys do not have the same need for nurturg. He had always found difficult ftg wh his macho father and athletic brothers, and so everyone the fay was nvced that he was gay – cludg Guillme took him several years to realise that was not strictly when he started to go out wh girls, his parents sisted that he was nial and when he announced his engagement to the woman who is now his wife, neher his mother nor his father spoke to him for 24 hours. The ia me durg a ssn wh his psychiatrist and he cid to wre an tobgraphil film about a boy who learns to accept his heterosexualy, a fay that had cid he was homosexual.

”Unlike his athletic brothers, the teenaged Guillme loved to dance, a memory played out the uncertaty ntued until his nt suggted that the only way to fd out if he was gay or straight, was to fall love.

‘I LOVE A MAMA’S BOY’ WHY FANS ARE ADAMANT MATT IS GAY?

So when he told his fay he was gay, his father, Jeff Frnd, a prcipal at an arts mag middle school, asked himself, “Would I let his sister at that age have a sleepover wh a boy? ”“I thk parents always want to make space for the stuff of childhood to happen, ” said Stacey Karpen Dohn, who works wh the fai of transgenr and genr expansive youths as senr manager of Behavral Health at Whman-Walker Health, a muny health center focg on lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr re Washgton, D. June 6, 2018 (Joseph Sciambra) – Scientist Simon LeVay, who has spent most of his reer tryg to lote a “gay” geic termate for homosexualy, his book Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientatn, wrote: “[G]ay men do ed scribe their relatnships wh their mothers as closer, and their relatnships wh their fathers as more distant and hostile, as pared wh how straight men scribe the relatnships.

” Borrowg om the theori of Amerin psychiatrist and gay activist Richard Isay, LeVay thks 's possible that some pre-homosexual boys exhib certa tras fathers dislike but mothers like. In my own life as a “gay” man, the scenar I repeatedly wnsed was the son of fdg or divorced parents, whereby the boy be nfidant and “girliend” to the bter and sufferg mother.

“… 's te that we all have wildly different relatnships wh our parents and plenty of gay men spend jt as much time worryg about his reactn.

HOW ONE MOTHER’S LOVE FOR HER GAY SON STARTED A REVOLUTN

“I thk that the story of my relatnship wh my mother Mama Jean is universal no matter what age you are, whether you're 50 or 15, that the parent/child relatnship is universal, that the mother/son relatnship is universal, and that the mother/gay son relatnship is universal. Though my mother was what some nsir to be a stereotypil “gay” mother, domant, overbearg, but certaly that type of mother will always exist, and the mon dynamic between mothers of gay sons…I believe that gay men and straight women have a natural affy for each other, and I thk that dynamic starts wh the mother. Bee I thk gay men are touch wh the feme sis of ourselv, and we're tune wh that wh our mothers a way that a straight son is not and a different way that a straight dghter would not be.

We don't do stereotypil gay-son-and-mum thgs such as shoppg, but I'm a sensive person, and Mum feels fortable tellg me anythg…I told Mum…and she gave me a big hug.