>Boys Will Be Girls
>Bruiser is only nine weeks old and already I have a thousand questions about him:
Will his eyes stay blue?
Will his hair keep getting curlier?
Will he play football?
Will he be a dungeonmaster?
Will he love to read?
Will he be a wild child?
Will he get along with his sister?
Will he be gay?
Yes, the gay question is already on my mind, mostly because other mothers have put it there. Because let a little boy ask for a Barbie at the toy store or want to try on his mother’s lipstick and immediately, his mom’s asking herself if her son is gay- or she’s calling me to talk about it.
Read what I have to say about the whole thing in this week’s Nashville Scene edition of Suburban Turmoil- The full text of the column is below…
Boys Will Be Girls
In my family, certain events, though never discussed, are forever machine-stitched into the cheap rayon fabric of our memory. There’s my parents’ divorce, for example, and the death of my beloved yet incredibly irksome grandfather. And then there’s the time my mom asked my brother if he was gay.
The question came despite the legions of girlfriends he’d amassed by the time he was 16 and the giggly phone calls he received at all hours of the day and night; Tee raised suspicions after returning from a youth mission trip to New Orleans with a massive pile of Mardi Gras beads. He proudly hung them on the doorknobs and picture frames of his room, draped them over lamps and spread them across his dresser. And to my mom, that could only mean one thing.
“What kind of boy puts beads all over his room like that?” she whispered to me one afternoon. “I’m going to have a talk with him.”
Well aware that what happened next would go down as one of the most awesomely bad moments in family history, I kept a close tail on my mom as she made her way to the teen Casanova’s room and informed him that they needed to chat. Within 30 seconds of their little heart-to-heart, the screaming commenced on the other side of the door. I won’t repeat the actual words that came from Tee’s mouth, but apparently, my brother is as straight as Karl Dean at an Elks Lodge fundraiser.
Still, who could blame my mom for asking? She was only responding to the pressure felt by every mother of a boy to uncover her son’s hidden drag queen and wrestle the bitch into submission. My own son is less than two months old and already it’s like I’m being vetted for the secret moms club known as Is My Son a Gay Guy Yet? (I. M. S.A.G.G.Y., for short). Suddenly, moms are confiding in me about their preschool-aged sons’ obsessions with the Disney princesses and remarking on their penchants for Broadway musicals. At my playgroup, one mother constantly wants to discuss her son’s affection for our dollhouse and doll stroller. Another recently mentioned a little boy she knows who (gasp!) loves to wear sparkly nail polish.
The underlying question is whether encouraging these sorts of behaviors will somehow contribute to a little boy’s gay potential. And when the moms refuse to play into that ridiculous notion, their family members are more than happy to step in. Take my friend Maya’s mom, who has plenty of hetero-centric assvice to dispense about Maya’s two-year-old son. “She’ll tell me, ‘Don’t buy him that doll’ or ‘Don’t let him wear that shirt! You’ll make him gay!” Maya told me sheepishly.
Even worse is the judgment passed down by society at large. “It’s not that I would think any less of him if he were gay. Or transgender, for that matter,” another of my mom friends qualified. “I just worry about what other parents and kids will say in front of him if I let him dress as a princess the way he wants to. I really don’t want him to be hurt.” She has a point. I may one day find myself informing my little son that his sister’s Snow White dress isn’t the best look for his body type, but if anyone else says a word about it, I will have to personally cut her tongue out with a dirty pocket knife and pin it to a piece of Styrofoam. Capisce?
But perhaps all this concern over the tastes of three-and four-year-old boys is much ado about nothing. That’s what my friend Claire, mother to four boys, thinks. Although her youngest regularly references the day “when I grow up and turn into a woman,” she’s seasoned enough not to read too much into it.
“It’s not that he doesn’t like being a boy, it’s just that to him, being a girl means purses and pretty shoes and skirts that twirl and sequins and makeup and different hairstyles and dangly earrings,” she explained.
“Look, most little boys like to dress in girls’ clothes and play with their toys at some point,” a friend of mine and mother of two boys scoffed when I told her my thoughts on the matter last week. “That doesn’t have anything to do with their sexual orientation.”
“I wouldn’t mind if my son is gay, though,” I said wistfully. “Because we could shop together and watch romantic comedies. And he’d probably want me to move in with him some day so that we could combine our Tori Amos and Kate Bush collections and play Yahtzee whenever we wanted.”
“Yeah, if you’re lucky,” she snorted. “But he might not turn out that way. He might end up being one of those guys around here who’s gay and married with kids. Write about that, why dontcha?”
I paused, considering it for a moment. I could almost hear Rose Palermo cackling with glee on the other side of town. But then I shook my head regretfully. I don’t think even Suburban Turmoil’s ready for that one.
>My five year old is determined to be a ballet dancer when he grows up and my three year old has taken a liking to wearing my little girls barrettes and headbands. I think it’s adorable, but my husband gets a little irritated when I let the three year old go out in public, “all sparkly”.
>I. M. S.A.G.G.Y. – lmao!The female influence is strong at our house. I have one boy and 5 girls. He played with Barbies once or twice before my husband put his foot down and insisted we get him a Ken doll if he was going to play dolls with his sisters. I don’t think playing with dolls is going to affect his sexuality – in fact, based on the websites he’s been trying to get to lately (according to my blocking software) he’s pretty much hetero. Still, I can’t help but think that anyone who wears a lot of girly clothes when they are young is going to want silky panties when they grow up – cotton can be so scratchy – and is that really such a bad thing? As long as he doesn’t let his pants hang down around his thighs no one will ever know 😉
>I think it’s only an issue if we make it an issue. A boy who wants to play at princesses with his sister will probably end up playing at killing something by the end of the play time. My son went through a brief phase were he wanted to wear pretty things too, he wanted to dress like a princess, so we dressed him up. BUt as soon as I introduced the idea of a knight with a SWORD he was done with being a princess forever, and then he was a pirate with guns and a lacey pirate shirt killing dragons.Remember, less than two centuries ago in western culture straight men wore pretty things all the time, brocade jackets, lace cuffs, silk trousers, artfully arranged cravats, powdered wigs and face powder and no one worried that they weren’t manly men for doing so. Honestly I think that it only becomes a big deal if mothers make it into one. (The self-fulfilling prophecy.) By the time our boys get old enough to risk ridicule from other boys they have probably outgrown the pretty phase and are trying to look exactly like dad.
>When my son was three or four, he asked me to paint his toenails “like Mommy,” so I happily painted them all different pastel shades. My parents hated it. And I took off the polish before the kiddo went to his dad’s house. I was okay with the polished toes, but I didn’t want to deal with my ex’s reaction. *sigh*
>Yes, I have thought about it many times and even though I don’t have a boy, here are my thoughts on it – and you can be sure I’d implement them if I have a boy this time around (I’m 35 weeks pregnant).Pretty clothes and purses? Nail polish? Dolls and doll-houses? Kitchen? NO PROBLEM AT ALL! I don’t think these things influence one’s sexuality at all. All my life I grew up around boys who liked to don their sisters’ dresses just for the fun of it and ALL of them turned out heterosexuals. My dad used to buy me and my brother identical dolls whenever he went on tours – and my brother is heterosexual (and I WOULD know if he were not – we are that close).Personally, I don’t think its wrong to be gay. Or a lesbian. It is just a way of life different from mine – thats all! Infact, I have told many friends on different occasions – I’d be OK if my daughter came to me and declared that she was a lesbian but NOT if she came to me and said she didn’t want to go to college!I do think that many people just blow these things out of proportion – maybe due to their prejudices or ignorance. Little boys can be attracted to glitter and pink too – just because it IS attractive to a 2 or 3 or 4 year old.Sorry for the long comment.
>I have 2 girls, and the lesbian thing has come up. Thankfully, my husband and I agree, they will be what they will be. The sorrow would be in the hurtful treatment they may receive. We believe that they would experience heartache because they would live an alternative lifestyle. Even if someone states it doesn’t matter to them, at some point it must cause grief to not be accepted for who you are. Who would not worry about something like that for their child?
>If he is gay, I’m okay with it. Though I hope he’s straight because life is hard enough without that.
>In my opinion, I think that there’s a general societal bias against things that are considered to be traditionally feminine, and that’s why it’s a big deal when boys want to wear tiaras. Girls want to play with something boyish like a truck? It’s almost seen as a relief! Thank goodness they aren’t shallow preening bimbos! We can thank rigid gender stereotypes for this kind of thinking.I also think there are plenty of parents out there who would genuinely be horrified if their sons were gay, and not because of all the other homophobes out there. I think it’s naive to say that most moms are mainly concerned that their sons have the easiest path possible in life. It’s probably true of your readership, Lindsay, but I have my doubts about, say, American moms to boys under 4.
>Great post. Oddly enough, the gay thing was one of the first things that my son’s father was worried about after he was born! I thought it was a very weird thing to worry about, considering he was just a wee babe. I guess the idea just terrifies some people.My son had a pink purse and loved to wear my shoes around the house when he was a toddler, and he now has pots and pans and a stove to ‘cook’ on. He also has a bunch of guns and swords and cars, along with 2 Million stuffed animal ‘babies’ that he ‘takes care of.’ I think it’s all normal and we shouldn’t worry so much about labels. Whether my son grows up to be a sweet, sensitive, homemaking type guy who likes cowboy music and zombie films like my husband/his step-dad or a sweet, slightly less sensitive, but well-meaning macho Army sergeant who likes action flicks like his father, I will be very proud of him, no matter whether he’s straight, gay, in-between, or drag queen.
>eh…my son plays with his sister’s dress up shoes, fairy wings and barbies, polly pockets and dolls all the time. And I have NO problem with it. I have, however, taken pictures to be used as bribes for when he brings home his future wife/husband, lol!He’s a fun kid, loves his bears, trucks, mommy, sister, daddy, and fairy wings with cinderella shoes and a tinkerbell crown…what can I say?
>We are having a boy, and while my husband has definite opinions on what he will and will not wear (leg warmers he said is on the NO list) as an infant, he’s also comfortable enough with sexuality (and homosexuals) to know that it’s unlikely that you can MAKE someone gay, you can only accept what they are.Gay, not gay … I really don’t care. I just hope they find happiness and love, and understanding.
>Let them be who they are destined to be. I was married to a man who ‘came out’ when our daughter was 8 months old, and thank goodness he did. He didn’t keep me captive in his trying to ‘fit-in’. She knows her Dad is gay, and loves him because he’s still ‘just Dad’. Genetically, she might be gay too. I just hope she’s true to herself and can find love in her life.It’s hard enough being judged on everything in this life, let alone your natural sexuality. Parents and society who try to force prejudicial ‘anti-gay’ attitudes really hurt the children, and their future unsuspecting heterosexual spouses. Your daughter could end up with a young man who succumbed to the pressures to ‘be straight’. I know a lot of men and women who’ve been left by their ‘coming-out-gay’ spouse. We all need to live and let live-and get out of each other’s bedrooms.
>I’d just as soon they didn’t turn out to be gay, but I could live with it. And if there’s criticism, well I might just lose a friend. Ain’t nobody’s business but theirs.
>My mother always said that boys that play with dolls turn out to be great dads. They are kind, nurturing and gentle. As for liking lipstick and clothes that sparkle, what child wouldn’t like that? We show kids when doing art projects to use lots of colors, put glitter on the paper to make it extra special. My son tried lipstick, dresses, tiaras, etc. for about 6 months and then it was over. Could he still be gay? Maybe but right now he seems like a seven year old to me. My family has nine children. We were all basically raised the same. Only one is gay. If my mother had tried to change him it may have taken away some of the best parts of him.
>Actually like girls who are tomboys have a lot to vope with socially. One of my daughter’s friends (she’s 8) is ostracized by the girls in her class because she likes to play with boys at recess and likes boy games andhas a best friend who is a boy. Its pretty sad, and her mom is at a loss. It doesn’t hlp that the little girl in question is tall and slightly chubby. No petite little girly girl wants to have anything to do with her. Even her family has labeled her their wild child and is content to let her suffer her classmastes behavior.
>I wouldn’t be happy if my son was gay. But as a mom, I’d love him just as ferociously if he did turn out gay. Not so sure about hubby… I never really gave it much thought overall… no sense in worrying about what might happen…we just kinda roll with the punches. We used to have a neighbor though whose son, if he ISN’T gay, is missing the best chance ever!!! It was a little disconcerting to see a 6 year old boy want to play with betty spaghetti dolls and not have any interest in traditional boy stuff. Because of this, my son really never wanted to have anything to do with him. I DID encourage him to at least be POLITE to the child but did not force my son to play with him.
>The group of women I walk to school with each one of us have a son around the same age (now 5) and they play dress up with their sisters and with the dolls. We never think anything of it. Now our hubbys on the other hand have a little to say. LOL!! I think it is mostly because they are younger sibs of girls and they are their first playmates.
>They say your daughter is your daughter for all of her life, but your son is your son until he takes a wife.So if my son takes a husband instead of a wife, do I gain another son instead of losing the one I’ve got? And will they both go shoe shopping with me?
>Just yesterday my husband made a comment to me that he has noticed that our eldest boy, who is twleve, is very much interested in girls. My first reaction was, thank God! I can’t help but think how much harder living in a world that is already insane must be if you’re gay. So for me, it’s not the gay issue that scares me, it’s how society as a whole would probably treat my child. That’s just being a mom, I think.
>If we don’t worry that their other behavior at 3 and 4 is sexual in nature, why do we think that little boys dressing up or playing with Barbie’s will have any affect on their sexual orientation? I love that my 4-year-old can play trucks and basketball with his older brother and in the same day play Barbie and princess with his little sister. It never entered my mind that these behaviors will one day make him gay!Of course, my husband frowns upon me painting his toenails when I paint my daughter’s. Whether it is a “gay” thing or just concern for what others will think, I don’t know. I have only painted his toenails thus far (they can be covered by his tennis shoes at preschool), but I think this summer we might branch out so his toenails (barefoot and in sandals) and fingernails match! After all, we wouldn’t want him to look tacky!
>My youngest son (6) has always like “girl toys.” But he also likes Star Wars, Spiderman, Batman, etc. Most of his friends have also been girls, and that concerned me a little bit too until I talked to a friend who is a child psychologist. Her oldest son, now 13, was the same way. He and my son have a lot of similarities, among them being very intelligent, sensitive and verbal. Her son has outgrown all of the “girly” things, but as she pointed out, boys like ours tend towards “girly” things (and girls in general) early in life because they are also generally more sensitive and verbal, which makes them easier for boys like this to be around and relate to. Of course, as girls get older, they lose that sensitive part and just get a little too verbal – and send our sons running for the hills! ;)No, I’m not worried at all. I just look at it as doing research on the opposite sex early so he’ll have all the tools later in life to be an awesome boyfriend and husband! Good post!
>My brother, Eddy, used to run around with a favorite doily on his head.My father was sure this was a sign of gayness. Totally silly on his part, I mean how many gay men do you know that run around with a doily on their head?Anyway, Eddy did not turn out to be gay. He’s not quite right, but he’s not gay.
>Well, according to family lore, a certain parent of mine thought I was um, developmentally challenged because I was writing all my letters backward. I was even taken to a specialist. Now, my three-year-old is writing her letters backward, too. It must run in the family!
>I’m going anon today to protect my little bro.See, I have a friend who is bi (but has only LOVED a man). He said he was just born that way, that ever since he started liking girls, he liked boys, too. He was raised and still is a “manly man” – hunting, fishing, truck driving, redneck man. I doubt he ever even saw a Barbie.Then we have my little bro, who we got custody of at two (couldn’t walk, talk, etc – had FAS and Cerebral Palsey from his BM). Suddenly, he just had my mom, my sis and me in his life. As he got older, he loved doing hair and playing barbies. He loved baby dolls and is VERY dramatic. This year (he’s 13) my mom found a collage of ‘hot guys’ in his room and he told her he was bi. We’d ALWAYS suspected. My mom ‘blames’ herself because he had no good male influences. I often wonder if she is right that we “made” him gay. Either way, I don’t care. He doesn’t know that I know yet and I don’t plan on saying anything until he comes to me. We’ve known for so long, I couldn’t believe my mom was shocked.Anyway, that was really long, but it gives you a couple perpectives on it. I really liked your article and I do think the number one reason why parents “want” straight kids is simply because their lives would be ‘easier.’ That’s all we want for our kids, really, right? A good life?
>Say what you will, the boys who liked girlie things whn you were a kid end up being gay almost every time. Think about it.
>Statistically speaking, the chances are slim…But I love my son no matter what his preference ends up being…I asked my MIL to buy him a dollhouse for Christmas, because I saw how much fun he had with the one at the children’s museum…Toys are for play… play is how kids learn. The more learning, the better, I say!
>I agree that as parents we don’t want our children treated unkindly. That would be my only concern if one of my boys were to be gay.I am a single mom of 4 boys, so I guess statistically it could happen. My 14 year old went through a stage when he was younger where he wanted to wear a skirt, he also had a pink feather boa that he loved more than any thing. In 5th grade he dressed as a girl for Halloween in a short skirt and heels, I was concerned for him because the town we live in is NOT open minded about that kind of thing. But no one batted an eye because he is totally confident in who he is, and I like that.
>Living in the San Francisco area and working in the airline business means that I know more gay men than straight men. My son use to love to play dress up with his sister and he always played the bride. Who cares, I don’t and all I want is for him to be happy and a good person. He is now 13 and isn’t gay and loves those older women in the 8th grade! ( I found you thru BusyMom.)
>Well I’m gay and I loved Barbies. My brother did too though and he’s straight as far as I know! LOL!
>I knew someone who freaked out when her son hugged another little boy (he was 2) b/c ‘boys don’t hug other boys’ (her words); she also freaked b/c he asked for a toy kitchen when he was 4. Sigh.I don’t care if my son is gay or not, just as long as he wraps it up before he uses it, and is happy with his life.
>I would like to know if any research has been done about whether gay men did like dolls as children compared to straight men. It would be interesting, anyway.
>ExabyteFire in a tropical desert.The smoke plumes for 500 miles.Morning like a raw throat over a clear still lake.Captured in the blinking eye of an escaping lizard.squatting beside a riot.Dateless and flailing in the breeze.Edging closer to a hurricane and shouting at the eye.
>Too funny, because we always thought son #2 was gay. He wanted to play the harp when he was very young,(the harp??!!!) and he had a best friend in high school that he would hang out with, and then they would get on the phone for hours on end! He has had several girlfriends, ( he’s now 22) and yet I still wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be gay (or bi!) What difference does it make? Really. In this day and age, being gay isn’t all that weird. Look at all the celebrities that “come out”. Difficult? Yeah, maybe, but no different than being “different” in any other way.My son is good looking, tall, charming… My almost 4 year old grandsons favorite color is pink! (he has pink sunglasses, too )Is he gay? Should we worry? I think not…. he also likes trains, and cars and every other boy thing imaginable, but he will take the pink balloon every time. I think people worry too much, and stereotype out of “fear”. If being gay is the worst thing that will happen to someone, I say “knock yourself out”.
>I don’t know why when the topi of a boy wearing girls clothes comes up so does the topic of being gay. Gay means homosexual. Homosexual means you are attracted to the same sex. It has nothing to do with what clothes you wear. Crossdressers on the other hand like to wear girls clothes. Most crossdressers are straight men.
>Thanx for teh insight. You r rilly smart.