Seven-year old announces he's gay

xsiborg wrote: »

here's news for her- her child is no longer unique or special, "my kid is gay" is so 2000 and late, the media has now moved on to "my kid is transgendered" as the next big "lets all gawk voyeuristically at the freaks" story, not so cleverly disguised as an "aren't we all so accepting and tolerant", "informative article".

Pacifist Pigeon wrote: »

Let me point this out, for a parent to say "my 7 y/o son is straight" is wholly premature as well, in my opinion. Given the fact that apparently around 10% of males are gay and another 20% of males vary from bisexual to bicurious, statistically, the parent could never be 100% sure that her prepubescent child was totally straight.

IrishEyes19 wrote: »

hmm, I wouldn't even take my son saying that at seven until he reached the age where "the talk" has to come up and Id be more observant then. A seven year old is innocent and open to anything, they believe anything and are more accepting to society and oddities than adults are.


as for the mother, just a quick observation, but she seems almost proud of her "project" they way her reaction is described. I'm not exactly sure how credible that is to be honest.

xsiborg wrote: »

i dont mean any disrespect to you deirdre but what really now are the chances that a couple has three intersex children? these parents are supposed to act as role models for their children. that means they should be guiding them, not letting them decide anything for themselves because as i previously stated, their brains are not yet developed enough to understand the concept of gender identity, let alone stereotyping. the idea of a child deciding what gender they are suits deirdre based on hindsight of HER OWN personal experiences, not those of her parents, who chose to raise her in what i can only assume is the best way they knew how, based on THEIR own personal experiences.

the parents of these children in this particular case, could have raised their children by their own beliefs and need not have courted the media's attention in doing so. simply the fact that they chose to court media attention puts even more pressure on the children. again we do not know the long term effects this attention will have on the children, or how it will influence their thought processses.


the point i guess i am trying to make here is that these parents decisions have far more reaching consequences for their children than just playground taunts and so on, they will perhaps unnecessarily face issues that deirdre will have faced. i think deirdre you will accept that now that your sexual identity matches your gender identity, you finally feel like you "fit in" to society? these parents however, seem intent though on creating problems for their children where there werent any- "fix" one problem (gender stereotyping), but create a hundred more, as it were (social, educational, future employment prospects, future relationships).

it is impossible to qualify without hindsight, the pros and cons of the parents decision to effectively and knowingly, raise their children in abstentia from the influence of their typical role model genders. and yes, i understand that the parents believe that what they are doing is the "right" thing to do, but to effectively fly in the face of millions of years of evolution does seem a tad huberous.

im past the whole "genderless" idea at this stage because to me the term is a bit of a misnomer, as deirdre said you ARE born with a gender, but its the stereotype of that gender that these parents seem to be trying to dismiss.


i just think there are better ways of going about it, like educating your child to form independent thought, not just abdicating your responsibility as a parent to teach a child what it means to have an independent thought, teach a child that society is not always accepting of those that do not follow the stereotypical norm, but instill in them a strength and courage so that they can face the consequences of decisions that the children themselves make, so that they grasp the concept that decisions they make can have both positive AND negative consequences.

these parents seem to want to have their cake and eat it too, they stand back from being gender role models for their children, yet i cant see the father wearing a dress, or the mother shaving her head any time soon, (the idea being to practice what they preach), they home school their children, in effect sheltering them from society, yet court the world's media to further their own agenda, regardless of having asked whether the children want to be paraded as an object of (lets be honest here) scorn and ridicule, for the media. again the children are not old enough to grasp the concept that the world's media really couldn't give a flying f*ck about the parents idealogies, they just want to parade the "freak show family" for ratings and headline grabbing, it has nothing to do with creating awareness of an the issue of gender stereotyping.

hell i even see now that the discovery channel, which used be about interesting and factual thought provoking documentaries has gone down the "shock factor" route with a program on the other night something along the lines of "my seven year old transgender child", something like that, headline grabbing sensationalism basically of what for many is a very serious issue and quite distinct from gender stereotyping in the societal sense of the phrase gender stereotyping.


actually this comes only a week after there was an oprah show about this very subject of a couple raising genderless children. in fact im seeing an awful lot more of this kind of thing on television and in the media lately, perhaps that's what's getting on my wick about this issue, the fact that the media treats it as a freak show masquerading as "creating awareness of a serious issue".


this for example-


http://www.queerty.com/all-of-america-is-falling-in-love-with-princess-boy-dyson-kilodavis-20110103/





EDIT: jesus christ, i hadn't meant to go on THAT long! sorry for TL;DR...

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

I've only made one point - it's hamrless and tolerant. Beyoind that, what's the problem? Should I not read everything? Is "I wins the internet" some sort of attempt at claiming the moral high-ground?

xsiborg wrote: »

reading the OP reminded me of an incident that happened to me once-

my own son was only about four at the time when a week earlier i had purchased a rather fancy universal remote control for €250; so i happened to be on the phone talking and when i came back into the room, there was no sign of the remote, i looked at my son, who was looking at the fish tank! i thought "no, no way!", but there it was, like a fancy aquarium ornament, and he looked back at me and he knew he'd done wrong from the withered expression on my face.

i thought "what could i do? its a bloody remote, i shouldn't have left it within his reach in the first place!", i just fished it out as if nothing had happened, and retrieved the sky remote from the drawer.

then later on when i thought about it, i remembered when I was about four years of age and i picked my mother some flowers i saw growing at the bottom of the garden, i had no concept of the idea that they were my fathers prized african lillies; of course when my father saw what i had done, i was beaten black and blue.

moral of the story?

you can always replace or repair material things that are damaged, but you can never undo the damage you do to a child.

the do-gooders can make all the excuses thay want for this woman, but the fact remains- it was a fúcking tv, there simply is NO "excuse" or "she might have done it because"... again, there is NO excuse to beat a child.

ToddyDoody wrote: »

Quick comment -More like seven year old announces he'd like to be gay so much that he claims he is gay. Is traditional masculinity failing to capture the imagination of this young boy for some reason?