How to Tell If Your Kid Is Gay

Contents:

• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• 'THAT '90S SHOW' VIEWERS TORN OVER GAY REPRENTATN NETFLIX SPOFF
• CHILD STAR STGGLED TO E OUT AFTER PLAYG ‘THE GAY KID’ ‘SCHOOL OF ROCK’
• HOW TO TELL IF YOUR KID IS GAY
• WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

As a 30-year-old gay man, I’ve met a lot of other queer people who also hid parts of themselv childhood.

Experimentg wh femy the safety of the home — even somethg as mcule as selectg girl characters vio gam and livg virly through her abily to kick ass — seems to be a shared gay experience for many of .

'THAT '90S SHOW' VIEWERS TORN OVER GAY REPRENTATN NETFLIX SPOFF

None of this mak a person gay, of urse. It feels remiscent of the adoratn that gay fans hold toward old Hollywood beti like Joan Crawford and Judy Garland, or the pageant-style exaggeratns of femy that unrpned so much of early drag culture. Barbie has been the subject of the same gay diva worship over the years, and Gerwig’s film promently featurg LGBTQ+ actors feels like a nod to that history.

Part of Barbie’s gay appeal might be that, spe beg plastic and unmalleable, she n transform herself to anythg: doctor, lawyer, judge, journalist, and vet, or whatever Mattel thks will sell the most dolls. ) As the world’s most famo doll, she has been st as both an aspiratnal hero and a rctive villa — the gay world, this polarizg dualy often turns women to ins. After I me out as gay, I spent a lot of my younger adult life reilg when people said that they “already knew.

Now, I feel proud of my ltle gay self for havg the urage to play wh those fabulo dolls — and of my parents for buyg me the toys I wanted, not the on I was supposed to like. Over the years, Magic and Cookie have been open about their rponsibili as parents — like when Magic told Ellen DeGener that he was "so happy" when their son EJ me out as gay.

CHILD STAR STGGLED TO E OUT AFTER PLAYG ‘THE GAY KID’ ‘SCHOOL OF ROCK’

EJ publicly me out as gay 2013, though he me out to his fay several years earlier.

In 2014, EJ told PEOPLE that, although his parents "pretty much already knew" that he was gay, they were worried about the public's reactn. 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.

HOW TO TELL IF YOUR KID IS GAY

In lookg refully at the childhoods of gay adults, rearchers are fdg an trigug set of behavral ditors that homosexuals seem to have mon.

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.

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

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.