Is Your Child Gay? - Scientific Amerin

Contents:

• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• HOW TO TELL IF YOUR SON IS GAY
• PARENT SPECTS THAT CHILD MIGHT BE GAY
• I NNOT AL WH FACT MY SON IS GAY
• WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"
• MY SON MIGHT BE GAY. WHAT SHOULD I SAY TO HIM?
• IS MY SON GAY OR IS A PHASE?
• MANY PARENTS STGGLE TO ADJT AFTER LEARNG CHILD IS GAY, STUDY FDS
• SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

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 SON 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.

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.

PARENT SPECTS THAT CHILD MIGHT BE GAY

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. 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.

Not all ltle boys who like to wear drs grow up to be gay, nor do all ltle girls who spise drs bee lbians. I took to middle school wrtlg as a rather scrawny 80-pound eighth grar, and so dog, ironilly beme all too nsc of my homosexual orientatn. 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.

I NNOT AL WH FACT MY SON IS GAY

Rearchers readily nce that there are que likely multiple—and no doubt extremely plited—velopmental rout to adult homosexualy.

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. All else beg equal, I spect we would be hard-prsed to fd parents who would actually prefer their offsprg to be homosexual.

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

Evolutnarily, parental homophobia is a no-braer: gay sons and lbian dghters are not likely to reproduce (unls they get creative). 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.

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?

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

As I relayed When Your Child Is Gay: What You Need To Know (Sterlg, 2016), I found out that my son was gay om a note wh our son's name entwed wh another boy's, surround by a heart.

Had I asked him if he were gay when he was 13, he probably would have fensively said "No! San Berland, the mother of a gay son who ach parents of LGBTQ kids, utn, "It's not a good ia to ask.

Acrdg to my -thor, psychiatrist Jonathan Tobk, "Gay children feel credibly vulnerable when g out to their parents, and tak time to work up the urage to do this.

IS MY SON GAY OR IS A PHASE?

In a way, you have an advantage by not knowg; giv you more time to prepare for the day (if ever) when he do reveal he's gay.

MANY PARENTS STGGLE TO ADJT AFTER LEARNG CHILD IS GAY, STUDY FDS

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. Between 2 and 11 percent of human adults report experiencg some homosexual feelgs, though the figure vari wily pendg on the survey. Homosexualy exists across cultur and even throughout the animal kgdom, as the thors of a mammoth new review paper on homosexualy wre.

SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

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. (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. ” Essentially, the more olr brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be gay.

Studi have found that a man whout olr brothers has about a 2 percent chance of beg gay, but one wh four olr brothers has a 6 percent chance. 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. If proved out, fetal birth orr uld do a lot to fill the missg explanatns for homosexualy.