Raising Queer Kids

About Moms who Advocate for their LGBT Kids

Amelia over at Huffington Post Gay Voices just posted a blog about moms who are standing up for their LGBT/Gender Non-conforming kids.

I recommend it. She has brought together some of the moms, like me, who can’t keep quiet about how great our kids are. We are observing that a new day is here and our kids are a part of it—these kids have the words and confidence to express how they feel. 

They, and all the other amazing little pioneers, deserve to be embraced and supported. And the parents of these kids need to know that they are not alone as they try and navigate this uncharted territory.

Amelia: Moms Standing up for Their Kids

(Source: raisingqueerkids.wordpress.com)

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Accidental Role Models: Integrity and Bold Action

I recently heard Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns reflect on his October 12, 2010 statement about bullying and being gay during a City Council meeting. Wow. It was a considerably more intense experience than I had anticipated.

Apparently I cannot watch the video of his speech without crying, still. It is well worth watching (again): Joel Burns tells gay teens “it gets better” www.joelburns.com

At the event I attended, he described what brought him to that moment of bold action—one that would turn his world upside down. Week after week he read and watched news stories about young men killing themselves after being bullied and harassed for being different, or perceived as such.

Finally, after a report of a young man who took his own life after witnessing homoprejudice at his local city council meeting, Joel was moved to speak out. Talk about the universe knocking on the door and saying, “hey, you need to do something about this! You, City Councilman. Yeah, you!”

His experience describes the sort of moment that (hopefully) all people encounter in their lives—a moment of choice. Be true to your values, stand up, and speak up, or stay silent, be safe, and let injustice continue unchallenged. I gather that Joel had no idea what the ramifications of his action would be, but it was huge.

Today, I remember how important it is to not let injustice proceed unchallenged. There are so many moments great and small when we choose to make a stand or stand aside. We needn’t put ourselves in danger or sacrifice everything to a cause, but we can act with integrity, and on occasion take a bold action that may have incredibly widespread consequences.

* I hope I’ve accurately represented his story. My apologies for any incorrect interpretation. Watch the video and hear his own words.

(Source: raisingqueerkids.wordpress.com)

Coming Out Too Early?

That just isn’t the right question to be asking. I just read this really great article: Are Kids Coming Out Too Early. E. Winter Tashlin writes:

The Huffington Post ran a piece a few days ago from Amelia, a mother whose 7yr old son recently declared that he was gay. It was a lovely essay about love and acceptance, with a bit of parental concern in there too. The parents are being supportive of his identity, while at the same time, understanding that what he feels at seven may or may not be how he feels in the months and years to come. They seem quite content to take him at his word and see what does or doesn’t change with time.

There have been quite a lot of people on internet message boards saying that this is ridiculous, that this child can’t know at such a young age that he is gay. I’ve seen this particularly on LGBT message boards, where people are holding up their own coming out at older ages as proof that seven is “too young.”

Now I will grant that I didn’t know that I was gay/queer at seven, but not because I didn’t like boys. My best friend in 2nd grade was a boy named Noah, and I distinctly remember thinking that I wanted to grow up and marry him. I didn’t know that there was such a thing as “gay” at the time, but if I had, I would have considered myself to be so. Certainly by 4th grade I was having serious crushes on boys in my both school and religious community, although I knew to keep those thoughts private.

I don’t know if this boy will continue to ID as gay as he gets older, no one really can. But the idea that all kids are heterosexual until proven otherwise is starting to crack up.

It isn’t “prematurely sexualizing” a child to consider their orientation. After all, children’s books, movies, and family conversations, even at a young age, involve questions of marriage and relationships, just nearly always from a hetero-presumptive stance.

(Source: wp.me)

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Queer Kids Make this a Better World

I love how our queer kid has changed our lives.

Because of her …

I work harder to make the world better for all queer kids.

I have the chance to participate in her own amazing, unique journey.

I see the world through different eyes.

I am more courageous.

I demand more authenticity and truthfulness from myself. If she is going to put her identity on the line, I better do it too.

I have a great role model to follow.

I am a better person.

Thank you, my sweet girl. I love you.

(Source: wp.me)

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Coming Out at School: This is NOT a Drill

Attention School Personnel: This is NOT A DRILL.

This is an Actual Test of Your Professional Ability

Friday, my daughter came out to the temporary school counselor and the music teacher.

We see now that her approach to coming out to the teachers does not include basing her own self-worth and identity on what they said (which would be unhealthy anyway), but refusing to be denied by them, pushing them further when they try to say she is too young to know, and then privately rating their responses based on what she knows should be the appropriate response of an educator!

This school is NOT READY FOR MY DAUGHTER IN SO MANY REGARDS.

Temporary School Counselor

The school counselor, according to our girl got very low marks for how she handled the interaction. Apparently, she was speechless. The counselor earned herself an eye-roll and a “she’s a TRAINED SCHOOL COUNSELOR for heaven’s sake” comment when the incident was recounted over dinner on Friday evening.

This was when we realized: a-ha, she’s not coming out to them, she is testing them! She has enough support; that is not what she is looking for. She is furthering the process of being her out, authentic self and school and she is testing these professionals against what she knows are the right ways to react and support LGBT youth.

Temporary school counselor grade: D. Comments: Perhaps she should be allowed a do-over to improve her grade. It was a pop quiz after all.

Veteran Music Teacher

The music teacher got HIGH marks for: coming around after my daughter upped her evidence-based argument, then addressing the issue of bullying proactively, making a strong verbal commitment to her as an ally, and then outing herself as a devout Christian (of questionable appropriateness as a public school employee, but fine as a caring human being) and making a “I believe God knows what he’s doing, and he can see the future, and he doesn’t make mistakes - don’t you let anyone tell you otherwise” statement. It was this well-intentioned music teacher’s version of a pro-gay Christian vaccination against stupid homoprejudiced Bible-Belt Christians.

Music teacher grade: A. Comments: Music teacher goes to the head of the class!

The New Evidenced-Based Argument

My girl has developed a virtual bag of reasoned responses to all sorts of questions and statements that people present her with. Some are defenses against bigoted comments and some are educative explanations when confronted with an ignorant person who makes unintentionally offensive statements.

She has been working on her answer to the “you are too young to know” dismissal that she gets from adults for some time, but has seemed unsatisfied with it, until now … .

So, the music teacher gave her some variation on the old “you have many years to figure out who you are/you are too young to know/you will get to puberty and figure out who you like then” chestnut.

Oh, the familiar disappointment.

Then … it came to her and she says something like this to the teacher:

Imagine you are a fifth grade girl in the hallway at school. There is this cute boy that every girl likes; I mean, EVERY GIRL has a crush on him. He is super cute, nice, everything. He walks down the hall past you and you feel nothing. NOTHING.

Then this girl you like, who is super cute and really nice walks down the hall past you and you feel all tight and tingly. Maybe you think to yourself, ‘hmmm, this must be a delayed reaction from the boy?’ But, NO, you realize you never get that tight, tingly feeling with the boy, only with the cute girl.

Apparently this was proof enough to convince the music teacher that when my daughter says, “I’m a lesbian” she means, “I’m a lesbian.”

Observations

First, I am so proud they way she handled this. She was quick on her feet and has intuited that appeals to reason aren’t convincing enough; she must appeal to emotion and our body’s own unconscious physical reaction to attraction. She has deduced that she must prove that she has consistent physical responses that support her claim of same-sex attraction.

This leads me to my second observation, do adults have to prove their identities to all and sundry when they come out? I don’t think so. Maybe a few times to family members, but bosses or college professors would never question or refute a man who declares, “I’m gay.”

I understand that adults guide and educate children and adults see this questioning of children as part of their obligation to help a child through life. However, we should consider reframing our “you are too young” denial to something more affirming. If one must search for evidence in order to believe a child’s assertion, consider asking questions that affirm and further the discussion, “what is that like for you?” or “how did you figure this out?”

Just imagine if the story I recounted above about my very confident, articulate, and strong-willed daughter coming out to the counselor and music teacher featured a scared child in need of support and affirmation instead. What would that girl’s experience have been? How would she have felt afterwards?

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Hyperbole and a half on depression

pflagmom:

A must read for anyone who has experienced depression or knows someone who has (I think that covers about everyone). Click the pic below to read it.

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Where, Oh, Where are The Queer Children?

Despite my searching and my attempts at visibility, I have yet to hear about LGB kids or talk to any other parents of gay kids.

The LGBT Youth Centers I have explored usually state 13 as their lower age limit.

I am sure there must be other kids from 5-10 years old who have come out to their families as gay.

I think it would be nice if these kids could find each other. I know there are communities and discussion forums for the parents and their transgendered children.

Gay children have different needs than their adolescent counterparts - though the children will shortly grow into older kids. It seems that nurturing gay kids in childhood would make adolescence a little easier.

Why Queer Children Now?

There are reasons that children are coming out earlier than ever - greater visibility in the media, perhaps an increase in acceptance by the general population, and so on. This 2009 ABC News article: “‘Smear the Queer’: Gay Students Tell Their Stories” describes the experiences of students who knew they are gay in elementary school and then suffered from ruthless classmates and teachers who were at a loss about how to handle the situation.

San Francisco State University Clinical Researcher, Caitlyn Ryan’s research shows that:

In generations past … people came out of the closet at much older ages. However, with increasing awareness of homosexuality on TV, in high schools, on the Internet and in the news, … children today are more likely to put two and two together much earlier.

“Many people knew that they were gay at early ages, typically boys — they knew when they were 5, or 8 or 10,” [Ryan] said.

This early awareness, in combination with immature children, can lead to serious problems in schools without proper intervention.

There should be a broader discussion happening about the needs of young gay children. Research and articles in the press address LGBT bullying as a middle school or high school phenomenon, but from the article linked to above and other such collections of stories, children are being singled out for being gay in elementary school.

And lots of people know they are gay in elementary school or earlier.

The delightful blog Born This Way posts pictures readers have submitted of themselves as children along with a short blurb about themselves and the photo. The point of the blog is to show through photographic evidence and 20/20 hindsight they we were born that way. Many of the entries are accompanied by statements such as “when didn’t I know?” or “I was five when I had my first crush . . .”

It seems that there is proof that there were gay children, but

where, oh, where are the queer children and their families now?

Please feel free to email me: raisingqueerkids@gmail.com.

Or Ask Me

And please circulate - we all need to know we aren’t alone.

(Source: wp.me)

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