Part of the conversation I had with Thing One yesterday related to the fact that statistically speaking, the odds are that several of his classmates will identify as gay as adults. Purely as a numbers thing. The point I was attempting to make is that since he has no idea whose feelings he or others might be hurting at this moment with any kind of comment that could be construed as homophobic, that's a really good reason to keep his mouth shut and tell other people to close theirs too.
Just now, I got a text from a close friend whose child is in the same grade at the same school. Apparently one of their classmates came out to this kid today. Statistics really don't lie. I have no intention whatsoever of mentioning this to Thing One, but BOY, am I glad that we had that chat.
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There are probably quite a few of his classmates who identify as gay/bi/trans right now but they feel they can't express that to anybody. Well, at least that's how it was of my generation - so many people knew when they were young and had to hide it until college or leaving home. Now, more kids come out much younger, which makes me very happy. The thought of anybody having to hide who they are on a fundamental level makes me very sad.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there are still kids who are afraid to be who they are. Especially here: we are a very homogenous and small-town sort of community. It made me really glad to hear that this child was able to be honest here and that my girlfriend's child took the news about as well as you'd ever hope a sixth grader would. "I don't care...you're my friend no matter what." Love that kid. Damned if I'm raising a bigot or homophobe and clearly my friend isn't either.
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