6 reasons why “don’t say gay” bills are wrong.
Contents:
- GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
- IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
- SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
- THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
- EARLY SIGNS TO TELL YOUR CHILD IS GAY
- IF THEY 'SAY GAY,' WILL MY CHILD BE SAFE? PARENTS OF LGBTQ KIDS ARE SRED OF PYT LAWS
- GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?
GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
Gay kids are g out earlier — sometim middle school — and many are fdg acceptance. But some parents and teachers wonr if the kids are too young to really know their sexual orientatn. * are these kids gay *
Denizet-Lewis wr that when he started workg for the gay men's magaze XY 1998, "we received dozens of letters each week om teenagers the pths of spair. " Three years later, he says, "a new kd of gay adolcent was appearg on the page - proud, rilient, sometim even happy. " He explas, That's not to say that gay teenagers didn't still suffer harassment at school or rejectn at home, but many seemed ls burned wh shame and self-loathg than their olr gay peers.
Not only were there creasgly accurate and posive portrayals of gays and lbians popular culture, but most teenagers were by then regular Inter ers. Gog onle broke through the isolatn that had been a hallmark of beg young and gay, and allowed gay teenagers to fd rmatn to refute what their fai or church sometim still told them - namely, that they would never fd happs and to the Inter and to creasg cultural acceptance of homosexualy (an crease marred, we should note, by measur like Proposn 8), kids who might once have waed until high school or even llege to e out are now dog so earlier. At least 120 middle schools the untry have gay-straight alliance groups, and others let stunts observe the natnal Day of Silence prott agast anti-gay harassment.
IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
Theory: Lbians get om their fathers, gay men om their mothers. * are these kids gay *
" They were not, however, silent: "Good luck gettg middle-schoolers not to talk, " the school unselor youth of the Webster kids and other gay middle-schoolers is a sign of how far gay rights have e — but 's also the kids' biggt obstacle to acceptance.
SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
Is really more challengg to talk to kids about sexualy and genr the days, as more people openly intify as lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, queer, non-bary or any other sha of the rabow? * are these kids gay *
The irony of a parent spectg her kid is gay and then refg to believe he uld know his own orientatn highlights how much more difficulty some parents have wh burgeong gay sexualy than they would wh a straight kid's of this may have to do wh the misnceptn that you have to have gay terurse to be gay, or that homosexualy is somehow a more "sexual" orientatn than heterosexualy. 'Eileen Ross, director of a Mounta View, CA program for gay youth, says that when a 12-year-old boy says he lik girls, "No one says to them: 'Are you sure? A lawyer Florida argued that gay-straight allianc promote the "premature sexualizatn of the stunts, " and when At started a gay-straight alliance, his Michigan school ma him ll somethg "ls ntroversial" (he chose "Peace Alliance").
Denizet-Lewis reports the hopeful words of velopmental psychologist Rch Sav-Williams: "This is the first generatn of gay kids who have the great joy of beg able to argue wh their parents about datg, jt like their straight peers do. 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.
THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
* are these kids 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.
EARLY SIGNS TO TELL YOUR CHILD IS GAY
Many gay preteens know early on that they are somehow different, but lack the parental and social support that heterosexuals take for granted. * are these kids gay *
It is only relatively recently, however, that velopmental scientists have nducted ntrolled studi to intify the earlit and most reliable signs of adult homosexualy.
IF THEY 'SAY GAY,' WILL MY CHILD BE SAFE? PARENTS OF LGBTQ KIDS ARE SRED OF PYT LAWS
Gay youth often face their set of challeng after g out about their genr preferenc. * are these kids 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. 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. 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. 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.
GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?
Advice for parents wh LGBTQ kids to help support and show them love. What to do when your kids e out to you as lbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer. * are these kids gay *
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. 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.