Is Your Child Gay? - Scientific Amerin

Contents:

• COMG OUT AS GAY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• MY HBAND IS GAY BUT WE’RE MARRIED WH TWO KIDS AND HAVE GREAT SEX
• DAD AND DAD: A JOURNEY TO GAY FATHERHOOD – PICTUR
• MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI
• WHEN YOUR CHILD IS GAY
• FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED
• WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"
• ROXANE GAY’S COMPLITED “HUNGER”

COMG OUT AS GAY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

”Dannielle Owens-Reid and Krist Rso, -founrs of Everyone Is Gay and -thors of This Is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids, attribute lower g-out ag to the power of reprentatn. The next generatn is growg up wh gay characters on their televisns, pansexual rappers on their playlists, and queer micro-muni on their Tumblr the change also means that there is a new generatn of fai scramblg to raise LGBT kids who have specific needs and challeng — kids who are growg up a society that, while creasgly LGBT-tolerant, is still plagued by hate crim, job discrimatn, and the more banal, everyday sort of homophobia borne by sual ignorance.

“Beg gay was somethg I never really qutned, ” said Chloe Charbonne, a 12-year-old om Stockbridge, Massachetts. ”Like Kate Ree, Chloe spent early childhood sred and nfed about cshg on girls, pecially after beg lled an anti-gay slur for the first time the fourth gra.

They first intified as gay, then, a few months later, also began intifyg as genrls (as a rult, Chloe now prefers “they” and “them” pronouns).

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

Amelia, a Midwtern mother of a 10-year-old boy who first began intifyg as gay when he was 7, said that her son’s unabashed outns tends to startle many adults who would rather not thk about children havg sexual sir. ”Amelia, through her blog and teractns wh the adults her gay son’s life, tri to battle this stigma. “As a society, if we n open up our ia to what gay means, we n be a lot ls unfortable wh the ia of children intifyg, ” she said.

“Maybe he’s not really gay, ” adults have said to Amelia about her hears all the time too. “Before this current generatn of kids, children weren’t raised wh gay people, ” Amelia said.

A lot of gay adults say, ‘I knew I was gay when I was krgarten, but I didn’t have the vobulary to scribe what I was. "A lot of gay adults say, ‘I knew I was gay when I was krgarten, but I didn’t have the vobulary to scribe what I was.

MY HBAND IS GAY BUT WE’RE MARRIED WH TWO KIDS AND HAVE GREAT SEX

”A uple of years ago, when she was 11, Kate cycled through the non-straight possibili before g out to her fay — was she gay?

“Consirg how much more fluid the younger generatn is about sexualy, ” she said, “[Informatn about and accs to queer culture] shouldn’t only be ma available to gay intified children — should be [available] to all children. ” Kate’s mother, Ey, driv her to a LGBT youth group town, sce there’s no straight or gay alliance at her is proud of Kate for beg vol about her inty and passnate about LGBT issu. ”In Febary, Amelia blogged about the first time her son was met wh anti-gay sentiment: A boy his class told him that beg gay was illegal (somethg that boy picked up om his parents).

” In nversatn wh the Uned Stat Interagency Council on Homelsns, Krehely said that “ some ways, this is a good thg — means they are gettg societal cu that is OK to be gay — but they are not old enough to be able to live penntly yet, and they face rejectn by parents and fai, and emotnal and/or physil abe at school. ”Kate’s father me out as gay while Kate was still growg up; he and Ey, Kate’s mother, nsequently divorced.

DAD AND DAD: A JOURNEY TO GAY FATHERHOOD – PICTUR

Ey, who wrote about beg the straight spoe of a recently out gay man, creds the experience wh her abily to be a better mother to Kate now than she otherwise might have been.

Wh the World Wi Web at their disposal, many LGBT kids go beyond googlg gay search terms — some are also g technology to nnect wh, and support, queer youth om around the don’t have many queer iends at home Reno, Nevada, but she has plenty on the ter. My son is gay, but he is also 9, so he is not the "ltful ckmonster" (thank you for that turn of phrase, Chris Kluwe) that so many homophob try to pat all gay people as.

MOVG PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERS WH THEIR FAI ACROSS AMERI

But as much as I thought was adorable, I also dread moments like the, bee as the father of a gay child, the only thg that really worri me is other people's potential reactns to him: Will he say or do the wrong thg to the wrong person? He will be enterg the highly macho world of high school soon enough, and that is not always a safe place for gay kids to be.

But luckily, I didn't have to worry what this high-school boy might thk, sce I know that my -laws and niec have a "no homophob allowed" policy when to their iends.

WHEN YOUR CHILD IS GAY

For my son, unlike how 's been for so many who have e before him, beg gay is not somethg to al wh but somethg that is, like his beg tall or havg giant feet. Too many gay kids n't act on their feelgs until they move away om home and to real life, or at least to llege.

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.

FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED

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.

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

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.

ROXANE GAY’S COMPLITED “HUNGER”

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.

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.