Feministe Feedback: Talking to Kids About Homophobia

50 thoughts on Feministe Feedback: Talking to Kids About Homophobia

1. One thing is to start early. My daughter’s five, and I’ve already told her that some girls fall in love with girls, and some boys fall in love with boys, and that’s totally fine. And I’ve repeated that more than once.

   Of course, I’ve got a girl, so it’s easier; the reason boys are terrified of homosexuality is all tied up in patriarchy and gender norms and the horror of being “too feminine.” But I’m getting the message in place now so that my daughter knows what I think, so that if she hears different from somewhere else she’s got a point of reference.

   (And to those who would complain that “five is too young” — my daughter knows what getting married is; she knows boys and girls get married and sometimes then have kids. She doesn’t know the details, and doesn’t have to — there will be time to expand the lesson in the future.)

2. I think I would look at giving a history lesson in discrimination. Perhaps start off with basics like slavery and women getting the vote. Maybe go into how interracial marriage used to be illegal. And lynchings. Basically to set the groundwork that certain groups have been discriminated against and subject to hate crimes. Talk about how the same types of language have been used to discriminate against other groups and how it has turned into hate crimes. Maybe even bring in the halocaust, as an extreme case example of racism/homophobia/etc unchecked.

3. I’ve only had to deal with this once, with a nine-year-old girl, so it’s different, but I followed my parents’ model of talking about other kinds bigotry which is not to be afraid to lay down the law in simple declarative statements–rather than asking my young cousin why being gay was gross, I just flat-out told her “There’s nothing wrong with two people being in love no matter if it’s two boys, a boy and a girl, or two girls. People who say that there is are bigots.” Of course, that led a pretty hilarious conversation:

   9-year-old cousin: Does Mark (my then boyfriend) live with Chris (his roommate)?

   me: Yep. They’re roommates.

   cousin: Ew! Are Mark and Chris gay together?

   me: Nope. Mark is my boyfriend, and Chris’s boyfriend lives in Paris and is named Jean-Paul.

   cousin: EWWWW!!! That’s DISGUSTING!

   me: It is not disgusting. Only bigots think that men being in love with each other is disgusting. There’s nothing disgusting about two people–any two people–being in love.

   cousin: I guess you’ve never heard of a thing called S-E-X!

   me: Right, good point. I had forgotten about sex.

   As soon as I figured out that it was sex in general that she thought was disgusting rather than two men having sex in particular, we were cool again, and given that she spent the rest of my visit saying that me having a boyfriend was gross, I’m pretty sure it was a sex-in-general thing. I remember thinking that sex sounded pretty gross myself when I was nine.

   But sometimes you have to lay down the law: “Everybody has a right to love the people they want to love without being hit or hurt. You wouldn’t like to be hit just because you like girls, and we are not bigots in this house.”

4. humanize, humanize, humanize.

   It’s really easy to demonize someone when you can objectify them as “bad guys.” I grew up passively homophobic, mostly because I was taught that homosexuality was wrong and I saw them (I was thirteen, mind you) as hating everything and everybody because, you know, they were evil. Needless to say, that framework didn’t survive contact with an actual gay person.

   The key, I think, is to get his brain working on the justification for and consequences of his viewpoint. It’s easy to stay in group-think hating mode when the object of hatred is some distant target that barely registers as a human, not so much when you come face to face with it.

   But man, thirteen- I’d be shocked if parents managed to change his viewpoint on ANYTHING at thirteen. Probably planting the seed of doubt in his absolutist morality and waiting patiently for him to actually mature into an individual is the best you can hope for.

5. Reading that makes me want to cry. My 4 year old son saw two men kissing and didn’t even blink an eye. To him when two grown ups love each other they kiss, gender isn’t even a part of the equation to him. But I know that somewhere he’s going to hear and see things and it’s going to become a huge deal. It breaks my heart that sooner or later society is going to destroy that part of him that naturally sees love as just love.

6. I’m pretty blunt about it. We have lots of gay friends and several queer family members, so the one time Ethan expressed disgust with homosexuality, I said something to the effect of, “You know our friend Joe?” “Yeah!” “He’s gay — should he be beat up?” “No!” “And you know our friend Nancy?” “Yeah!” “She’s gay, should she be beat up?” “NO!” “And Aunt Susie? She’s gay too, should she be beat up?” Repeat as necessary.

   The sooner that Ethan learned that many of our best friends and closest family members were gay, the more quickly it resolved his social weirdness. I haven’t heard anything about it since. I think it also helps that I try not to use heterocentric language when discussing relationships, etc.

7. Having been around gay people from the time he was small, my son came out as straight at 8 (very cute story actually). I’ve always been crystal clear about how bigotry is wrong with him. When he started middle school last year and came home complaining about how kids were saying “that’s so gay” as an insult, we talked about why that is stupid. And he has seen me tear into people for using sexist, racist, or any bigoted comment, so he has an example of what it looks like to stand up against bigotry. I think that part helps the most. If they don’t have an example of what standing up for someone looks like then it is all too easy for them to ignore and internalize bigotry.

8. I have a 13 y/o sister. And a Jesus-loving mother and step-mother. So no matter how many times I tell her that homosexuality is NOT wrong, she hears the opposite twice as much. Fortunately, I have a leg up in the conversation as the cool older sister instead of the stuffy old mother figures.

9. There’s a difference between talking to a little kid, as I’ve done with mine, and responding to a teenager who’s already internalized some homophobia. With the teenager, talking won’t do diddly. I’d also want to get stern and be very tempted to lecture and offer history lessons, but my experience and training tell me that responding that way can more firmly cement attitudes than it can change them. Even in the best of circumstances – and this is not the best of circumstances for this kid – it’s incredibly scary to challenge the status quo.

   My bet is that A brought this up because he isn’t comfortable with it, and he was looking for something from your friend. I don’t know what he’s looking for – maybe validation of how he really feels, or what he’s scared of.

   In my best moments, I’d try to respond by getting a lot more information. Yeah, the silence makes that hard, so instead of asking direct questions, I’d probably say something like “I wonder how it feels to think you should beat someone up” or “Wow, if I felt like my friends wanted to beat up gay people I’d scared”. And then I’d stop talking and listen to whatever he said. Instead of responding to the words, I’d try to respond to the emotion behind them, whatever I think it is. “Sounds like you’re angry/sad/scared/confused”.

   The folks at the National Coalition-Building Institute teach that comments like this come from a place of hurt, and train their facilitators to look for the hurt, usually indirectly (because it’s way too threatening to come at people directly about their attitudes). That doesn’t mean we should tolerate homophobic or racist or sexist attitudes, but it does mean we get more out of engaging them when they appear than trying to drive them underground. We can’t engage every expression – there are too many – so I choose to engage those that happen in the context of a relationship that’s important to me, so it’s worth the work. Sometimes that means I stand by silently, and that doesn’t feel right either, but sometimes it’s the right thing for me.

   The NCBI, by the way, does amazing work and is worth checking out if they’re in your community.

10. Oh my, Lauren! I’d completely forgotten about doing that! My best friend’s younger sister went to Catholic school and came home at the age of 12 saying that she didn’t like gay people because they made her feel nauseous, which is how she could always tell if people were gay. At which point my best friend and I started saying things to her like “Your uncles Lenny and Pat make you feel nauseous?” “No…I didn’t mean them!” “Dale (a friend of the family) makes you feel nauseous?” “Dale’s gay?” “Who do you think that woman she lives with is?” “We make you feel nauseous?” “You’re gay?” “Didn’t you say you could always tell?” That kinda worked, too.

11. Start early, definitely. I think I started mentioning that some people were gay or lesbian back when my daughter was four, but didn’t hold discussions about it until she was five— waited for her lead. We didn’t get into transexuality until after Ugly Betty. I think the younger you start, the better a chance you have at inoculating against the homophobia and hatred that a child will be exposed to outside the cocoon of home/friends/family.

    When I was growing up, it wasn’t something that my parents talked about with me (unlike racism and sexism). I grew up wondering if Aunt Sal’s girlfriend was her girlfriend, or just a roommate (because it isn’t unusual for single heterosexual women to have roommates in the Big City, too expensive to live alone!). But it was never mentioned, and I never saw any verbal or physical expressions of affection (which is why I was confused about her status—wouldn’t good labor/lefty people like my family been perfectly ok with her being a lesbian? They’d be ok with hugging and kissing, right? So if they aren’t hugging and kissing—they must not be girlfriend girlfriends, just friends, right?). That was how my thought process went as a kid.

    Sal’s dead now. Died of cancer last year. She always talked about wanting to move back home to Illinois, where it’s less hectic and the cost of living is so much cheaper. I think what kept her from making the plunge (pre-diagnosis) was her experiences here in her youth—she got the hell up out of dodge early on. She tried the closet, found out it didn’t fit worth a damn, and I’m sure she was leery of even slipping back in there, even just a crack, to “get by” in Illinois. Not mentioning that she was lesbian, keeping that part quiet within the family, was how she spent time back here—until after her father died. That was the unspoken “deal”.

    People shouldn’t feel forced to live their lives that way; carving out narrow niches of acceptance—especially amongst family. I’d use every opportunity to show “A” how this affects real people. Sure, his family may have gay friends, but have they ever talked about homophobia directly with him? Talked about being gay? Mentioned who is gay? How homophobia affected their life? I was seventeen before my aunt talked about being lesbian—and it wasn’t because of my parents, or me, but because of her father and how he would react. That was in stark contrast to how racism was talked about, how it was deliberately compared to Italian-American experience (within and outside of direct family experiences), how racism was an up-front topic of conversation in mixed-race gatherings, how racism or racist events on the evening news were immediately related closer-to-home. And that started at a very young age, long before the birds-and-the-bees.

    And I think it’s critical to mention how The Closet and religious intolerance plays into the difference in how homophobia is battled, vs. racism or sexism. Being a thirteen year old, “A” is probably already having to run the gauntlet of “tough guy” masculinity. It’ll help to mention that real strength doesn’t consist of picking on or beating up other people, and that guys who are secure in their masculinity aren’t worried about “gays”, and that gay men are men too, however they choose to express it. “A” might put up a tough-guy front and parrot some of the toxic messages he’s been getting from other venues, but chances are damn good he’ll still be thinking about the pro-LGBT messages he gets from loved ones, long after the conversation is over. And the more anti-homophobic messages he gets from other men, the better. His reaction to a woman giving anti-homophobic messages is probably going to be along the lines of “easy for you to say”—meaning, we (women) aren’t going to get hassled in the locker room or on the block for not being sufficiently homophobic. Part of that is age, part of it is gendered versions of homophobia—but it’s real, nonetheless. It’ll help if he hears other men shooting that bullshit down.

12. I was thinking along much the same lines as Jay: this 13-year-old has a reason for bringing this subject up, it wasn’t just a random utterance. Maybe he’s wondering what’s right and what’s wrong, trying to reconcile earlier things he learned with other attitudes he’s encountering in a new environment. Maybe he’s disturbed at the level of violence and disgust that comes up in discussions of gay people. Kids pick up a lot of information from their environment and the attitudes of people around them — not just the usual “what all the other kids say at school” stuff, but kids are often pretty dead-on about what their parents think of issues, at least ones the parents talk about openly. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew it was going to be a hot-button topic at some level, and wanted to talk about it even as he simultaneously was uncomfortable and didn’t know what to say about it.

    All of this just underscores what everyone is saying, I think — that it’s so much easier if you teach kids about discrimination, differences between people, how some people out there are upset or angry about people being different, and how to stand up against that. And it makes me think so much about right-wing pundits who bleat angrily about how kids can’t just be kids anymore, and that we shouldn’t teach kids about things like gay people or trans people or even race politics, etc, because it would somehow violate the sanctity of childhood. They willfully blind themselves to the fact that there are perfectly age-appropriate ways to talk about any of these subjects that don’t even have to involve sex if you don’t want them to. (Although I guess some kids will just bring it up on their own, ewwww grosss!) It’s all because they want kids to “just be kids” — which basically amounts to that they should grow up absorbing every default prejudice that crops up in their environment.

    Also Jill — I haven’t posted thoughts on the last two Feministe Feedbacks, but I think this is a kickass awesome idea to continue. Yay!

13. I think the best way that I’ve ever had of dealing with this with any kid – my own is seven, but I’ve had this discussion with older kids, too – is very similar to the one above. “You know Uncle FriendofFamily and Uncle FriendofFamily?” “… yeah?” “Well, they’re boyfriends.” “NUH UNH.” “Yes, they are. And they’ve been together longer than you’ve been alive. They’d be married if they were allowed to get married.”

    It tends to derail the situation if you put a definite face on the situation rather than a tenative one, IMO.

14. Wow, there are so many good examples in just the last dozen posts of kids who benefit from the direct experience of having gay folks in their friends-and-family network. I think that’s a pretty powerful and often understated reason to be open and visible about your sexuality — or at least not tiptoeing around friends, family, and kids about it. But La Lubu said it all in her post, really.

    It also makes me feel bummed out for kids who grow up in families & communities where there aren’t good “our gay friends” examples around…

15. I think your friend and the above commenters had great responses and showed a lot of grace under pressure – I’m not nearly as good when I’ve been blindsided with questions I don’t really expect from younger relatives.

    The only (hopefully constructive) criticism I have is that in the original story, the husband brought up the idea of “what if someone decided being Mexican is wrong?” The thing is, a lot of people do think that being Mexican is wrong and adults should be really sensitive to that, especially with adolescents. In terms of developing his individual identity, the boy could internalize this in a manner it wasn’t meant – specifically, that there is something wrong with being of mixed heritage or with being Mexican. Kids don’t always get the message and it helps to be dorkily specific.

16. EG, good tactic, I used that one, too. I also took every opportunity to tell my daughter about famous singers or actors she liked.

    I made tapes of pop-songs for her when she was very small, and she particularly adored Elton John’s “Take me to the Pilot” (hearing my sweet preschooler sing along with that is one of my fondest memories!)–Elton John was one of my first real-life examples for her.

17. La Lubu is right on, as usual, about modeling. Whatever we might wish, 13-year-old boys are swimming in a sea of messages that will help them discount what women say. And I suspect there’s a big piece of figuring out masculinity in here, so hearing a man speak out against homophobia might well have more of an impact. But I wouldn’t want that speaking out to be against the kid; better to deconstruct something in front of him, like attacking a third party. “Wow, look at that idiotic TV show – I don’t think gay people should be treated that way. How about you”?

18. Perhaps I’m reading this wrong, but the question(s) sort of implies hetero-normative values of family for the child; in that it’s not necessary to ask a minority family how they bring up racism to their child. The world sort of makes sure it’s never a non-issue, frequently there is not an explicit point capable of pinning down as THE moment you brought it up, it’s just always present.

    As such, there’s nothing helpful I feel I can add to help your friend. Our child grew up knowing people love people, and sometimes those people are boys who love girls, and sometimes they’re boys who love boys, and sometimes the same boy may love a boy and a girl, or maybe two, and doesn’t see anything inherently wrong with that. I guess that part was easy because our family is not only surrounded by examples of that, but is itself an example of that. At some point we discussed that not everyone else viewed love as we did, but again, it was a subtle and on-going thing, difficult to state explicitly, as the ability to comprehend the world outside our house was capable of being different from the world inside our house blossomed.

19. The trouble with much of this advice is that, while extremely good, it’s for younger kids. If you don’t have any gay friends/family that they know, maybe you could casually expose him to movies or TV shows (NOT Will and Grace, please God) that have nuanced gay characters in them (books too, but I’m not sanguine about the effectiveness of telling a 13-year-old boy what to read). Also edgy, hip music that either talks about these issues or is made by gay artists. I also think you’re on the right track by challenging him on it – make him explain why it’s bad, if he can, so you can address each point head on.

    Also – can I just say that Jill’s friends deserve mad props for what they’re doing? I can’t imagine trying to raise a 13 year old boy at age 24, especially if I’d never been a parent before and hadn’t acted as his guardian previously. Good on you, and good on you for not letting these comments slide, however challenging everything else in your lives are. Maybe your youth will be on your side here – you can be the cool cousins who can show him how lame/square homophobia is. I’m sure it’s a tough line to walk, seeing as you’re not just the cool cousins; you’re also the guardians/rule-makers/enforcers. But speaking from personal experience, having someone about 10-15 years older than you to look up to can be hugely influential at that age.

20. I suspect there’s a big piece of figuring out masculinity in here, so hearing a man speak out against homophobia might well have more of an impact. But I wouldn’t want that speaking out to be against the kid; better to deconstruct something in front of him, like attacking a third party. “Wow, look at that idiotic TV show – I don’t think gay people should be treated that way. How about you”?

    Ding ding ding ding!!! What you and La Lubu said. I really (and sadly) believe that it might count more coming from a male role model.

21. I got really, really lucky with this.

    Three of my four kids were baptized by the first openly gay UCC pastor in Ohio. (The oldest was before that pastor came here.) They are growing up not only with gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people–but in an environment where personal sexual identity is just that, personal. Normal. Part of life.

    They are seriously puzzled by homophobia. My oldest used to comment often on how she just doesn’t get why it exists at all.

22. I think at a bare minimum, it’s important to establish that even if you think what someone is doing is “wrong,” is it NOT okay to hit, punch, kick, or otherwise physically harm them, unless you are defending yourself or someone else. My gayness doesn’t harm A, so A has no right to harm me. That can then be extended to verbal abuse — taunting, name-calling, intimidating, etc.

    I would love it if A grew up to be an ally. My first priority, however, would be making sure that the (perceived) queer people around A were safe.

23. I agree with #1 and #3 (I haven’t read everything else yet).

    I’ve told my 6 year old repeatedly that boys can love boys and girls can love boys and boys and girls can love each other (like mommy and daddy). He seems to take it in stride at the moment, but I’m sure that as he gets older and his friends have more influence over him that we’ll have our work cut out for us.

    I take the other approach with my high school kids. Whenever I hear them making a gay joke, calling someone/something ‘gay’ when they really mean stupid, or calling someone a fag, I just call them out on it. The first time I hear it, I’ll just tell them that I don’t want to hear that kind of language again and that I, personally, find it offensive. If I hear it again, I write them up and send them out. I’ve also explained to them that bigotry is the same whether it’s racism, sexism, or homophobia and that I won’t tolerate any of it. I don’t know that the approach works across the board or that it keeps them from acting that way outside of the classroom, but they do all know that any classroom I’m in is NOT the place to be acting that way (and the gay/bi/trans/other queer students in the school know they don’t have to be worried about being harassed in my classroom).

24. No 13 year old will listen to a lecture. They also will pretend they don’t care about anything you say, but they really do. If they hear queer-positive talk from family members, they’ll remember it. If you tell them simply that you don’t accept homophobia, they’ll learn from you.

25. I don’t have children, but I’ve found that – after some sort of bigoted statement comes out – a pause, followed by a sort of incredulous look, and “Wow. That’s really surprising. You always struck me as much smarter than that” can be a rather effective way of making someone question their thoughts with a sharp ego check. Usually it then provokes a conversation about why, exactly, it makes no sense to hate gay people/women/other targetted groups.

26. I talked to my boyfriend about this, since I’ve never been a 13yo boy, and here’s what he had to say (roughly – my memory of the conversation):
    “I don’t know how much it’s changed, but when I was a 13 year old, I and everyone I knew were homophobic. To varying degrees, of course – I wasn’t about to punch anybody, but I’d make jokes along with all the other boys. I played sports, and there was a huge amount of that sort of thing in the locker room, on the field, etc. I’d have to know the particulars of the situation in order to have any specific suggestions re: this kid, but I do think there’s a distinction to be made between changing thought and changing behavior. I think trying too hard to make him change his thoughts could backfire; but you can and should make it clear that any kind of violence or harassment is beyond the pale. ” (Emphasis added)

27. Also – can I just say that Jill’s friends deserve mad props for what they’re doing? I can’t imagine trying to raise a 13 year old boy at age 24, especially if I’d never been a parent before and hadn’t acted as his guardian previously. Good on you, and good on you for not letting these comments slide, however challenging everything else in your lives are.

    Word. My friend and her husband are incredible people, and they deserve all kinds of praise.

28. My 4th grade daughter came home from school last Valentine’s Day all worked up about a boy-girl game they’d played during their class party. Usual V-Day stuff – pairing kids off in some way, and giving points if they “liked” each other.

    “Hm,” I said as she explained the (extremely convoluted) rules, “That’s heteronormative.”

    “??”

    “The game is assuming that everyone in the class is straight. And you know the odds are that at least a few of the kids in that class aren’t.”

    “Mo-oom, I KNOW that! The point is, we’re nine. Gay, straight — Its ALL gross!”

    I am really loving latency…..

29. How do you jump from being gay is wrong to homophobia is wrong?

30. How do you jump from being gay is wrong to homophobia is wrong?

    Well, when someone says “being gay is wrong,” that’s homophobia.

    I’m not exactly sure where you’re going with this question, and usually I let almost any comment through, but this is one thread that I’m not going to let be de-railed. Only relevant, LGBT-friendly comments about how to combat homophobia are welcome.

31. My mom came out to me when I was eight. I came out to her a couple years later. There’s always been gay people in my family; however, I have been the one to come out to a homophobic young family member before.

    “I’ve loved women, _______.”

    “Sex?”

    “Yeah, that’s what you do when you’re grown up and in love.”

    “That’s nasty.”

    “Cut the shit, _______. I am the same person you knew before. If you’re going to be an idiot, you can call your mama right now and have her bring you back home.”

    I’m not a diplomat. I’m occasionally not nice. I’m more often a teacher than a scolder, but you have to choose your words. It snapped him out of it, he started asking real questions, I gave him real answers.

    I guess there’s nothing better for educating people about homophobia than coming out to them, straight up. Put it in front of their faces.

32. It just seems like an appropriate definition would help the situation.
    Believeing it it wrong is a rather loose definition.

33. Boy, you are in one hell of a pickle.

    I mean dicey navigating through the perfect storm is an understatement.

    As the step-mother of a 13 yo girl who I have raised since she was 4 I’d say Jay and those who agreed with him has the best advice.

    You’ve got a hell of a lot going on there and you are going to have to pick your battles.

    You didn’t say what area of the country/big city/rural the family lives in which can make a big difference too. Especially if location means you do not have any close friends/relatives to add into the conversation. (You love Aunt Jenny and Charlotte, don’t you? Bob and Tom, the neighbors, are pretty cool, right?)
    The temporary nature of the situation means you cannot sacrifice whatever love and trust you have with the kid to teach him a lesson on bigotry no matter how much you may want to.

    Most important things are:

    1) Open ended questions, more information, putting yourself in the kids shoes. All without judgment—that part is very important. (This may have a lot more to do with testing you than his actual beliefs. Something like, “Will they still love me if I say mean stuff?”)

    2) Physical safety. Hurting someone who is different is never okay. (I love to bring up Jesus, if I think the person who is bigoted is a Christian.)

    3) Make your values clear and then agree to disagree. Look for teaching moments in the future.

34. With daughter #3 being bi, I have much experience in educating teenagers who’ve come around our home. When I overhear an off phrase, I tell everyone involved straight out any anti-gay language is unacceptable.

    There are some conversations I do gently. This isn’t one of them. I’m not mean, but I’m not subtle nor do I attempt at all to persuade. (Teens can not be persuaded. They need to be told. The role model you want to trigger in them is “parent”, not “friend,” “teacher” or “peer”.)

    I tell them: “That’s homophobic. We don’t talk that way here, ever. It’s wrong.”

    Then I explain the facts at a level they will get, briefly, in measured, clear words, as if I were explaining gravity.

    Then I drop it, unless they have questions. Teens need to know from an adult they trust, homophobia is wrong. They need to hear it clearly without equivocation or trying to sneak it through in a “well, what do you think” manner. They don’t know what to think; they’re teenagers.

    Tell them what to think, and tell them in no uncertain terms. Let them sort it out for themselves when they’re older. For now, make clear to them what standard of behavior is expected of them. And make certain you come down like thunder from the heavens on anyone who behaves otherwise.

    “Homophobia is simply unacceptable in our home. Period.”

    This simple claim will give your teens enormous power to stand up to their friends. They can not participate (and possibly even speak up, although that’s tougher), knowing being against homophobia is family policy. Your public strong stand with them and their friends gives them firm ground to stand on, which is precisely what they need.

35. I have talked to my boys (11 and 5) about the definition of “gay”. Because they had been throwing around the term, “you are SO gay!” and I don’t think they even knew what they were saying. So we sat down and talked about it.

36. If your kid says something homophobic, it probably doesn’t mean that he’s analyzed a variety of opposing views and all available facts, and decided that the rational outcome was to be homophobic. A 13 year old is processing a lot of stuff, trying to make it all fit. If he brings it up, something is bugging him about it, and he wants to talk about it, and try to figure out what he really thinks. Maybe he’s attracted to boys, or a boy is attracted to him, and he’s resisting it because he’s trying to be normal. The pressure to be “normal” is incredible at that age. Let him talk; hear him out.

    The first time I hear it, I’ll just tell them that I don’t want to hear that kind of language again and that I, personally, find it offensive.

    That probably is not the best way to encourage a discussion, on any topic. When I was 13, my (silent, internal) response to that would be “Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever mom,” mentally flipping you off.

37. But you know, Hector, I think that’s OK. One of the things a parent can model is a strong stand, and the kid may roll his eyes and flip you off, mentally or openly, but part of what’s happening there is the parent setting down boundaries and the kid testing them. The result of the interaction doesn’t have to be the kid coming to a epiphanic realization about the history of homophobia and how best to combat it. The result of the interaction can be the kid thinking “Shit, stupid Mom. I better watch what I say around here or I could get into trouble.” And inculcating the habit of watching what you say isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes you start with the proper behavior and the proper mindset follows later. I mean, my parents told me in no uncertain terms that calling women I didn’t like sluts and whores was unacceptable and disgusting and they didn’t want to hear it. And yeah, for a while, I kept on doing it at school and with my friends and suchlike. But as my feminist consciousness grew, I realized, hey, they were right. Not everything has to happen at once.

38. They also will pretend they don’t care about anything you say, but they really do. If they hear queer-positive talk from family members, they’ll remember it.

    That’s my view. Early teens are forever positioning themselves, using the views and reactions of adults as reference points to figure out who they are and what they believe. Telling them loud and clear where you stand is valuable, even if they give no discernable reaction or even try to get a rise out of you. I have a teen niece, and my spouse and I are the cool aunt/uncle and we’re now in the process of debunking a lot of the crap that her parents put in her head about gender and sexuality (as an aside, she was a talented athlete, but her father’s misogyny finally discouraged her so much that she quit playing sports — that’s what happens when you make fun of your daughter for “throwing like a girl”). It’s important that she knows that people she respects have very different views from her parents, because it creates space in her mind for her to disagree with her parents.

    Our own are little, but when my oldest wanted to know who that guy was in the holiday cards with our male friend R____ (who he has spent time with), she said it was R’s boyfriend. No discussion ensued; the facts are the facts, and when he wants to understand what that means we’ll explain.

39. I agree with theimperialprincess but do feel compelled to correct the assumption about my gender; I’m a straight married woman, mom to an 8-year-old daughter.

    I don’t think the open-ended approach that she theimperial and I are describing is completely at odds with setting boundaries on behavior. In my best moments, I would hope that I could do some exploring and then say “I hear what you’re saying but in our house, we don’t talk about people that way” and even more important “even if you don’t like someone or don’t approve of the way they live, they deserve to be safe”. And I completely agree that having boundaries like that can be helpful to a teenager. But it can’t be all boundaries; there has to be some real listening going on. We need to model the sort of openness that we’re asking them to take on.

40. This is a topic my husband and I talk about a lot, since I am in favor of all LGBT rights, and have done a lot of work in changing his original homophobic stance. We are currently discussing having a child in the next five years, and we talk about how we would address certain issues, including homosexuality. My approach is to not single out any homosexual couples, but to simply allow the child to accept that my friend M. has a boyfriend, or that a kid at school has two moms.

    I think the original setup in which your friend questioned A is the best way to go in this situation. It’s a strategy I used on my husband, when he was convinced that it was “wrong” to be gay. I first asked him if there was anything wrong with my friend M, and he admitted that there wasn’t. Eventually we’ve worked up to the fact that he’s uncomfortable with the idea of gay sex, in the sense that most people are repulsed by golden showers or other various sex acts. And since the discovery of homosexual buffalo, frogs, and other species, the “unnatural” argument has been debunked.

    I’m glad your friend is pursuing this–we all need to do our part to change the perception that being gay is wrong and should be punished with physical violence.

41. OH, I love this thread! TBIK and I are discussing issues like this because we’re trying to figure out this parenting thing while we’re trying to have a kid. My mom being a professional ballet dancer with lots of gay friends, I grew up in a German Lutheran household thinking that you pick someone based on what you love about their personality and they pick you because of what they love about you–and it’s not about whatever is between your legs. TBIK grew up in a conservative midwestern Lutheran household and, even though he’s nowhere near conservative these days, sometimes still struggles with what he inherited from his upbringing.

    We’d start a discussion about queerness with, simply, love–and we’d start it at a much, much younger age with a discussion about is it okay for one person to love another one? Sure, because love is great, it feels good, and then some more spiritual things about love that I don’t want to mention here (in order not to upset folks). And when two people love each other, they sometimes decide to have a family … you can see where this is going.

    The problems are going to come when pre-teens and teens pick stuff up in their peer groups, most likely in school or other social groups, where they’ll have to prove their “worth” to gain/ retain access to a clique. That’s where I assume A’s behavior comes from, and the need to negotiate between what’s he’s learned at home and what will make him fit in with the crowd. I am also assuming that his “tough talk” is a symptom of this, rather than a reflected position (the description of the conversation shows that, really). So, instead of reading him the riot act, however gently, about gay rights and equality, I’d start exploring the peer pressure angle a bit more to see where the attitude comes from.

42. “homosexual buffalo, frogs, and other species”
    Are you really equating sex between these and human homosexuality?

    “I’m glad your friend is pursuing this–we all need to do our part to change the perception that being gay is wrong and should be punished with physical violence.”

    Why is there an assumption that our perceptions must therefore lead to physical violence?

43. Why is there an assumption that our perceptions must therefore lead to physical violence?

    Gnoc, I thought that referred to the fact that the teenager mentioned in the post was advocating violence.

44. Are you really equating sex between these and human homosexuality?

    Well, if you’re making an argument about something being ‘natural’, then hell yeah we can compare, just as we can with heterosexuality.

    Why is there an assumption that our perceptions must therefore lead to physical violence?

    Er, because they do. Constructing people as less than equal contributes to a cultural atmosphere whereby it is easier to justify anti-minority violence. Seriously, it’s basic social analysis.

45. This is a great thread! I will be sending it along to some of my new mom’s and mom’s to be!

    From my experience with coming out to my entire extended family, one of the bext ways to come out to kids if it level with them, be honest, and don’t make a huge deal. Also, remind them that you are still the same person you always was. I have three younger cousins, all between 13-16 and they all took with with out a problem. And I can assure you, it wasn’t from their parents (who are all very homophobic). They didn’t care because I was their cousin first, and gay second. Which is amazing. Now, I’m not saying they will never say a gay joke again, but maybe next time someone is making a dyke comment, they will think about their favorite cousin who happens to be a lesbian. And maybe they will tell their friend to shut up.

    And maybe, in 20 years when they have kids… and one of those kids ends up being gay, they will accept them because they grew up being so close with someone who was.

    So, exposer to friends/family that are gay is probably the greatest way to help kids learn.

46. Post #17 made a lot of sense to me. I have two cousins who are 10 and 13 year old boys, and they are brimming with the homophobia they’ve learned in middle school. I try my best, as an older role model, to question their assumptions using characters in the media. For example, my 10 year old cousin and his friends were watching the movie “Across the Universe” while I was there. One of the characters in the movie is gay, and when she appeared on screen, one of my cousin’s friends said, with a tone of disgust, “She’s a lesbian.”

    “Prudence is my favorite character in the whole movie,” I said proudly. Since I’m older than them but not as old as their parents, I’m a cool, older role model who they look up to, so they stopped sneering about her after I said that. It’s easier to bring up in the context of a fictional character.

47. I’m not a mom, but I do have very clear memories of what my own mother taught me when it came to race, religion, and every other “touchy” subject, including homosexuality. I had to be like, 8 or 9 when the subject somehow came up and my mom told me that it was OK if someone was gay or lesbian. I think I just kinda nodded as I tried to figure out this bizarre, new information, and my mom obviously saw I wasn’t quite getting it. So, she ended the conversation with this question:

    “OK, so think about Uncle Jack. What would you say is Uncle Jack was gay?” The question hit close to home, and I reasoned that, since I love my uncle and he’s a good guy, then it’s OK if he’s gay. And if it’s OK for him to be gay, then it’s got to be OK for everyone else, too.

    As it is, I don’t have any gay family members, but it’s a life lesson that I still fervently believe. Go my mom.

48. I have never posted on a blog type thing like this before, but was given a link via a friend who often posts with me on a Current Events Forum. I am a moderator there and this came up in one on our threads.

    Basically, my share is this. I didn’t grow up with parents who sat down with me and showed me how not to be a bigot. I learned out on my own. One of the things that I did while in School and later professionally, was theater. I was constantly working with Gay, Transgendered, Lesbian, Bi, and straight actors. They were my friends and co-workers.

    I then had children of my own. They have had Gay, Lesbian, Trans and Bi people in their lives and I have never sat down and said “hey X person is this”…I just assumed they would love the person as themselves and accept them. It came as a total shock one day to hear my son say that he would feel “stupid” if his friend was “gay”. I sat down and talked with him…he is 11. After our conversation, it became apparent that he just felt that he should be able to “know” if a friend of his was homosexual. I then asked him if he loved his aunt “G”….He said, of course!! I then informed him and we discussed how Aunt G, had actually been born a “boy” but then “changed” into a woman.

    He was amazed and a bit confused about how one could do that…but it didn’t change his love nor feelings for her. He even wanted to make sure and call her and let her know that he did love her as her…because She as an adult was so scared that the children would stop loving her if they knew. It was a relief for her to realize that the children do love who they love.

    In conclusion, it is my belief that education of liking and loving a person as they “are” and not as we “wish” them to be is so important that it NEEDS to be started at a young age. If you have a teenager, there is not time like the present to start talking honestly. I have also a 16 year old…we talk…every night…sometimes about nothing in particular, just keeping the communication open. Teens appreciate honesty. They also like to emulate those they hold in high esteem. If you are honest about your feelings and attitudes and approach the subject with sensitivity and as much real life knowledge that you can…you will see a teen who should become at least “excepting” even if he can never “understand. Hope this short story helps.

49. Once when I was in about sixth grade I referred casually to gay sex as “perverted” in conversation with my mother. She asked what I thought was “perverted” about it (nothing, in fact – I was just uncritically parroting what I heard at school), and then she said that in her opinion, “perverted” sexual behavior meant hurting or forcing someone.

    I probably didn’t acknowledge it at the time, but the fact that I remember is a good indication that my mother (whose intelligence I respected a great deal, though I’d never have admitted it!) had a powerful impact on my thinking just by stating her own feelings on the subject. She didn’t argue or lecture, and she didn’t really need to – I doubt she could have persuaded me to admit that she was right (I never gave ground to my mother without a fight), but I knew she obviously was.

50. Pingback: Feministe » Love Feministe? It’s getting even better.

Comments are currently closed.