How do I know if my five-year-old is gay? - The Globe and Mail

Contents:

• HOW TO DISCREETLY FD OUT IF SOMEONE YOU KNOW IS GAY
• HOW TO TELL IF SOMEONE IS GAY: 10 SUBTLE CLU THAT MAKE IT LIKELY
• EARLY SIGNS TO TELL YOUR CHILD IS GAYTIMOFDIATHE DIFFICULT JOURNEYUNRSTANDG, ACKNOWLEDGG, AND SHARG ONE'S SEXUAL ORIENTATN WH THE WORLD, IS EASY FOR SOME, WHILE FOR OTHERS THE JOURNEY IS LONG AND DIFFICULT.GETTY-IMAGCOMG OUT ISN'T EASYGAY YOUTH OFTEN FACE THEIR SET OF CHALLENG AFTER G OUT ABOUT THEIR GENR PREFERENC.GETTY-IMAGTHE ROLE OF PARENTSAS PARENTS, ALL YOU N DO IS PROVI THEM WH LOVE AND SUPPORT. THIS N START OM AN EARLY AGE IF YOU N INTIFY THE SIGNS OF YOUR CHILD'S SEXUAL ORIENTATN.GETTY-IMAG​DRSG UPIT MAY SEEM STEREOTYPIL, BUT SOME REARCH SUGGTS THAT KIDS SHOW THEIR CLATN BY THE WAY THEY DRS UP. GETTY-IMAG​SPEECHAS PER A STUDY, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE SPEECH OF KIDS WHO ARE CLED TOWARDS THE SAME SEX. THE CHANGE THE TONE N EASILY BE TECTED EVEN WHEN THEY ARE FIVE YEARS OLD. GETTY-IMAG​TOYS PREFERENCEWHEN ROLE-PLAYG, IF A BOY OFTEN TAK THE FEME ROLE OR THE GIRL LIK TO PLAY ROUGH GAM, THEN YOU NEED TO PAY A LTLE ATTENTN. GETTY-IMAGYOU MAY ALSO LIKECOVID: WAYS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR KID'S IMM...
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• UNRSTANDG GAY & LBIAN INTI
• HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
• AM I GAY?
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?
• PARENT SPECTS THAT CHILD MIGHT BE GAY
• HOW TO TELL IF YOUR BOYIEND IS GAY
• AM I GAY? HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY?
• KEV SPACEY: I N’T TELL WHETHER MEN ARE GAY JT BY LOOKG AT THEM
• AM I GAY/STRAIGHT? ?️‍? (FEMALE EDN)
• ARE YOU GAY? (FOR GIRLS)
• HOW DO I KNOW IF MY FIVE-YEAR-OLD IS GAY?
• AT WHAT AGE DO KIDS INTIFY AS GAY?
• HOW TO TELL IF YOUR KID IS GAY
• AM I GAY QUIZ? (FOR THE GIRLS)
• GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
• YOUR 9-YEAR-OLD THKS SHE'S GAY

HOW TO DISCREETLY FD OUT IF SOMEONE YOU KNOW IS GAY

wh homosexual fantasi or dreams;when a person realiz she is attracted to someone of the same genr;wh a feelg that she is different om her iends and classmat; orwh a sexual feelgs n e uncertaty for a young person and uld be ma worse by:.

the social stigma that n e wh homosexualy;a lack of knowledge;a lack of homosexual role mols; orfew opportuni to socialize wh other teens who are havg siar n be very difficult for teens to ci to tell their parents about their homosexual inty. If there is a homosexual theme a ic strip or on a TV show, you n have a discsn about that, hopefully fdg a way to let your son or dghter know that they are loved no matter what their teens will tell a siblg or before they tell a parent, and often they will choose one parent to tell first.

HOW TO TELL IF SOMEONE IS GAY: 10 SUBTLE CLU THAT MAKE IT LIKELY

Many Canadian ci have a chapter of Parents and Friends of Lbians And Gays (PFLAG), an anizatn that has helped many parents whose children have ‘e out’ to more rmatnFootnotThis rmatn should not be ed as a substute for the medil re and advice of your may be variatns treatment that your physician may remend based on dividual facts and be reproduced whout permissn and shared wh patients and their available at <>. The difficult journeyUnrstandg, acknowledgg, and sharg one's sexual orientatn wh the world, is easy for some, while for others the journey is long and out isn't easyGay youth often face their set of challeng after g out about their genr role of parentsAs parents, all you n do is provi them wh love and support. 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.

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.

EARLY SIGNS TO TELL YOUR CHILD IS GAYTIMOFDIATHE DIFFICULT JOURNEYUNRSTANDG, ACKNOWLEDGG, AND SHARG ONE'S SEXUAL ORIENTATN WH THE WORLD, IS EASY FOR SOME, WHILE FOR OTHERS THE JOURNEY IS LONG AND DIFFICULT.GETTY-IMAGCOMG OUT ISN'T EASYGAY YOUTH OFTEN FACE THEIR SET OF CHALLENG AFTER G OUT ABOUT THEIR GENR PREFERENC.GETTY-IMAGTHE ROLE OF PARENTSAS PARENTS, ALL YOU N DO IS PROVI THEM WH LOVE AND SUPPORT. THIS N START OM AN EARLY AGE IF YOU N INTIFY THE SIGNS OF YOUR CHILD'S SEXUAL ORIENTATN.GETTY-IMAG​DRSG UPIT MAY SEEM STEREOTYPIL, BUT SOME REARCH SUGGTS THAT KIDS SHOW THEIR CLATN BY THE WAY THEY DRS UP. GETTY-IMAG​SPEECHAS PER A STUDY, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE SPEECH OF KIDS WHO ARE CLED TOWARDS THE SAME SEX. THE CHANGE THE TONE N EASILY BE TECTED EVEN WHEN THEY ARE FIVE YEARS OLD. GETTY-IMAG​TOYS PREFERENCEWHEN ROLE-PLAYG, IF A BOY OFTEN TAK THE FEME ROLE OR THE GIRL LIK TO PLAY ROUGH GAM, THEN YOU NEED TO PAY A LTLE ATTENTN. GETTY-IMAGYOU MAY ALSO LIKECOVID: WAYS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR KID'S IMM...

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. 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.

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

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.

UNRSTANDG GAY & LBIAN INTI

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?

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY

Although n sometim seem like one type of gay person is shown over and over aga the media or on TV, gay people aren’t tomatilly effemate, and lbian women aren’t tomatilly mascule – fact, those stereotyp leave out a lot of other personali and characteristics. However, is only relatively recently that velopmental scientists have nducted ntrolled studi wh one clear aim md, which is to go beyond mere stereotyp and accurately inty the most reliable signs of later homosexualy.

AM I GAY?

Michael Bailey, a psychologist om Northwtern Universy, and Canadian psychiatrist Kenh Zucker published the semal paper on childhood markers of homosexualy wh their ntroversial 1995 review article Developmental Psychology. Not surprisgly, therefore, boys naturally select other boys for playmat, and girls would much rather play wh other girls than wh 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 fatuated wh their mothers’ make-up ks; ltle girls strangely enamoured by field hockey or profsnal wrtlg…that sort of thg). Usually this is done by g somethg like the famo Ksey Sle, which volv a semistctured clil terview about sexual behavr and sexual fantasi to rate people on a sle of 0 (exclively heterosexual) to 6 (exclively homosexual).

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

First, given that only about 10 percent of the populatn is homosexual, a rather large number of prehomosexuals are need to obta a sufficient sample size of eventually gay adults, and this would require a huge oversamplg of children jt se some turn out gay. In their 1995 report, Bailey and Kenh Zucker revealed that, retrospective studi (the send method ed to exame the relatn between childhood behavr and adult sexual orientatn, which adults simply answer qutns about their childhoods) 89 percent of randomly sampled gay men relled cross-sex-typed childhood behavrs exceedg the heterosexual median.

Some crics have qutned the general retrospective approach, argug that participants’ memori (both those of gay and straight dividuals) may be distorted to f wh societal expectatns and stereotyp about what gays and straights are like 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/bisexual orientatn will be prent —and I know you’ve been wag for me to say this—there are several very important veats to this body of work.

But I also wasn’t an overly effemate child, was never bullied as a “sissy, ” and by the time I was ten I was distguishably as annoyg, unuth and wired as my close male fact, by thirteen, I was already eply socialized to mascule social norms; this se, I took to middle school wrtlg as a rather scrawny eighty-pound eighth grar, and so dog I ironilly beme all too nsc ed of my homosexual orientatn. Intrigugly, cross-cultural data published by Fernando Luiz Cardoso of Santa Catara State Universy a 2008 issue of Archiv of Sexual Behavr showed that young prehomosexual mal are attracted to solary sports, such as swimmg, cyclg, or tennis, over rougher ntact sports, such as football or soccer—and also that they are ls likely to be childhood bulli. Sce the prospective and retrospective data discsed the foregog studi often reveal very early emergg tras prehomosexuals, however, those 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.

PARENT SPECTS THAT CHILD MIGHT BE GAY

For example, a rather stunng se of what I’ll ll “say--isn’t-so science”—science that produc data that rebel agast popular, polilly rrect, or emotnally appealg sentiments—ntroversial new fdgs published earlier this year the Archiv of Sexual Behavr ht trigugly that men—but not women—who were sexually abed as children are signifintly more likely than non-abed mal to have had homosexual relatnships as adults. In fact impli que the oppose, sce prepubertal erotic experienc n later nsolidate to irreversible sexual orientatns and preferenc, as I discsed a prev piece on the childhood origs of fetish and is fashnable the days to say that one is “born gay, ” of urse, but if we thk about a b more crilly, ’s a b odd, and probably nonsensil, to refer to a newborn fant, swaddled blankets and still sucklg on s mother’s teats, as beg homosexual.

HOW TO TELL IF YOUR BOYIEND IS GAY

And I would image, on a viable hunch, that even today’s most liberally-md muni, g out of the closet to parents is a much easier thg to do for gay dividuals who have the luxury of monstrably straight siblgs who n rry their own reproductive weight. In any event, I thk ’s far better for parents to regnize the source of their ncerns about havg a gay child as beg motivated by unnsc geic terts than is to have them fibbg to themselv about beg entirely different to their son or dghter “turng out”, bear this md parents, ’s also important to strs that sce geic succs is weighed evolutnary blogil terms as the relative percentage of one’s gen that rry over to subsequent generatns—rather than simply number of offsprg per se—there are other, though typilly ls profable, ways for your child to ntribute to your overall geic succs than humdm sexual reproductn. 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.

AM I GAY? HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY?

So here’s my msage: 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 if ten medcre straight offsprg leapt om your ’s one fal thg to note, and that’s reference to the future of this rearch and s real-world applitns. I’m not a parent, but I n say as a once-prehomosexual that perhaps some preparatn on the part of others would have ma easier on me, rather than nstantly fearg rejectn or worryg about some sloppy slip-up leadg to my “exposure.

KEV SPACEY: I N’T TELL WHETHER MEN ARE GAY JT BY LOOKG AT THEM

Osr-wng actor Kev Spacey has said he is attracted to mascule men but is not able to tell whether someone is gay jt by lookg at cross-examatn durg his trial on sex abe charg, the Hollywood star nied he was a “sexual bully” and told the jury he did not have a “power wand” to make people want to sleep wh about his sexual preferenc, Mr Spacey said he had prevly had romantic enunters wh men who would not scribe themselv as homosexual. It’s what the behavrs signal to parents about their child’s cipient sexualy that mak them so unsirable—the behavral patterns are feared, loathed and often spoken of directly as harbgers of adult homosexualy.However, is only relatively recently that velopmental scientists have nducted ntrolled studi wh one clear aim md, which is to go beyond mere stereotyp and accurately inty the most reliable signs of later homosexualy.

And, curly enough, the age-old homophobic fears of parents seem to have some genue predictive currency.In their technil wrgs, rearchers this area simply refer to pt-sized prospective gays and lbians as “prehomosexual.” This term isn’t perfect— manag to achieve both an unfortable air of blogil termism and clil terventnism simultaneoly. Michael Bailey, a psychologist om Northwtern Universy, and Canadian psychiatrist Kenh Zucker published the semal paper on childhood markers of homosexualy wh their ntroversial 1995 review article Developmental Psychology . The explic aim of this paper, acrdg to the thors, “was to review the evince ncerng the possible associatn between childhood sex-typed behavr and adult sexual orientatn.” So one thg to keep md is that this particular work isn’t about intifyg the of homosexualy, per se, but stead ’s about xg the childhood rrelat of same-sex attractn.

Not surprisgly, therefore, boys naturally select other boys for playmat, and girls would much rather play wh other girls than wh boys.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 fatuated wh their mothers’ make-up ks; ltle girls strangely enamoured by field hockey or profsnal wrtlg…that sort of thg). The thors found that, “those targets who, as adults, intified themselv as homosexual were judged to be genr nonnformg as children.”Numero studi have sce replited this general pattern of fdgs, all revealg a strong lk between childhood viatns om genr role norms and adult sexual orientatn. There is also evince of a “dosage effect”: the more genr nonnformg characteristics there are childhood, the more likely is that a homosexual/bisexual orientatn will be prent adulthood.But—and I know you’ve been wag for me to say this—there are several very important veats to this body of work.

AM I GAY/STRAIGHT? ?️‍? (FEMALE EDN)

But I also wasn’t an overly effemate child, was never bullied as a “sissy,” and by the time I was ten I was distguishably as annoyg, unuth and wired as my close male peers.In fact, by thirteen, I was already eply socialized to mascule social norms; this se, I took to middle school wrtlg as a rather scrawny eighty-pound eighth grar, and so dog I ironilly beme all too nsc ed of my homosexual orientatn. I distctly rell beg wh the girls on the monkey bars durg send gra recs while the boys were the field playg football, thkg to myself that that was rather strange.Another veat is that rearchers this area readily nce that there are probably multiple—and no doubt very plited—velopmental rout to adult homosexualy. In fact impli que the oppose, sce prepubertal erotic experienc n later nsolidate to irreversible sexual orientatns and preferenc, as I discsed a prev piece on the childhood origs of fetish and paraphilias.It is fashnable the days to say that one is “born gay,” of urse, but if we thk about a b more crilly, ’s a b odd, and probably nonsensil, to refer to a newborn fant, swaddled blankets and still sucklg on s mother’s teats, as beg homosexual.

In any event, I thk ’s far better for parents to regnize the source of their ncerns about havg a gay child as beg motivated by unnsc geic terts than is to have them fibbg to themselv about beg entirely different to their son or dghter “turng out” gay.And, bear this md parents, ’s also important to strs that sce geic succs is weighed evolutnary blogil terms as the relative percentage of one’s gen that rry over to subsequent generatns—rather than simply number of offsprg per se—there are other, though typilly ls profable, ways for your child to ntribute to your overall geic succs than humdm sexual reproductn. So here’s my msage: 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 if ten medcre straight offsprg leapt om your los.There’s one fal thg to note, and that’s reference to the future of this rearch and s real-world applitns.

ARE YOU GAY? (FOR GIRLS)

Parents often say to their gay children, retrospect, “I knew all along.” But hdsight is twenty-twenty, and here we’re talkg about the possibily of really, fively, no-doubt-about-, knowg your child is gog to be gay om a very, very early age.I’m not a parent, but I n say as a once-prehomosexual that perhaps some preparatn on the part of others would have ma easier on me, rather than nstantly fearg rejectn or worryg about some sloppy slip-up leadg to my “exposure.” It would have at least avoid all of those awkward, csant qutns durg my teenage years about why I wasn’t datg a nice pretty girl (or qutns om the nice pretty girl about why I was datg her and not dog anythg about .)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 kick her out of the hoe for beg gay. As far as I know, no one has published a field gui for spottg gays, so I shouldn't be surprised that a well-meang -worker recently ved me to a sgl edy night at a suburban those unfortunate heterosexual souls who n't, as the old Ellen joke go, tell a lbian om a Lebane, I'm here to help. "The rourc n help:PFLAG: The untry’s largt anizatn ung parents, fai, and alli wh people who are lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and Spectm: Offers groups, trag, and rourc promotg genr sensivy and cln for all youthGLBT Natnal Rource Database: LGBTQ+ digal directory of rourcNatnal Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network: Directory of therapists/unselors who are people of lorNatnal LGBTQ Task Force: The progrsive advocy arm of the LGBTQ+ movementDurg LGBTQ Pri Month, TODAY is sharg the muny’s history, pa, joy and what’s next for the movement.

Berg, who works at Queen's Universy (serly) Belfast, says that not all children who take up the stereotypil behavr of members of the oppose sex will end up wantg to go to bed wh members of the same sex, but is a good this talk of "pre-homosexuals" and "sexed-type behavr" is way too scientific and plited, so we're gog to break down for you. )No matter what your gay party planner iends tell you, a boy askg for Broadway legend Betty Buckley to perform at his nth birthday party is not mon at dghter sists on sleepg on top of her Dora the Explorer bed spread, not unr your dghter plays "Hoe, " she pretends to be an annoyg doctor wh a pill-addictn and a though 's football, if your son has an obssn wh eher Tom Brady or Mark Sanchez, then he's totally a 'mo.

HOW DO I KNOW IF MY FIVE-YEAR-OLD IS GAY?

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 WHAT AGE DO KIDS INTIFY AS 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. 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.

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.

HOW TO TELL IF YOUR KID IS GAY

— Dodie HofstetterExpert advice"A lot more parents are gog to hear this as we see more openly gay upl our culture and kids meet more fai wh gay parents, " says psychologist Anne Dohrenwend, thor of "Comg Around: Parentg Lbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgenr Kids" (New Horizon Prs). But addn, gay and lbian teens often al wh an extra layer of strs — like whether they have to hi who they are, whether they will be harassed about beg gay, or whether they will face stereotyp or judgments if they are hont about who they are.

Tell her that you regret never speakg up the past when you’ve heard anti-gay slurs, that you were wrong to let homophobia go unremarked-upon, and that your love for her is not ndnally based upon her prumed heterosexualy.

AM I GAY QUIZ? (FOR THE GIRLS)

There are many rourc available to you as you figure out how to parent a way gog forward that repudiat pulsory heterosexualy and anti-LGBTQ sentiments: nsir the work of Mel Whe, Soulforce, PFLAG, and the Gay Christian Network, among others. But to actually be lockg ey wh Ellen and hold her, shakg hands as she said, "I'm gay, " on natnal televisn and for the first time, as she has shared outloud that way publicly, was such a profoundly extraordary and timate gift to that moment that I will forever be grateful for.

GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"

YOUR 9-YEAR-OLD THKS SHE'S GAY