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Helping Boys Become Men, and Girls Become Women: Is My Child Becoming Homosexual?

via The Huffington Post

I only really put this link up on here because I was intrigued by the story carried by the Boston Globe which looks at the differences between two identical twins aged just 7 years old, one of whom is almost certainly going to identify himself as gay, the other straight. This is interesting because it implies a non-genetic pressure on the boys, though they had very clearly different personalities and interests from the very beginning, despite being raised about as similarly as possible.

When the twins were 2, Patrick found his mother’s shoes. He liked wearing them. Thomas tried on his father’s once but didn’t see the point.

When they were 3, Thomas blurted out that toy guns were his favorite things. Patrick piped up that his were the Barbie dolls he discovered at day care.

When the twins were 5, Thomas announced he was going to be a monster for Halloween. Patrick said he was going to be a princess. Thomas said he couldn’t do that, because other kids would laugh at him. Patrick seemed puzzled. “Then I’ll be Batman,” he said.

Their mother - intelligent, warm, and open-minded - found herself conflicted. She wanted Patrick - whose playmates have always been girls, never boys - to be himself, but she worried his feminine behavior would expose him to ridicule and pain. She decided to allow him free expression at home while setting some limits in public. That worked until last year, when a school official called to say Patrick was making his classmates uncomfortable. He kept insisting that he was a girl.

Patrick exhibits behavior called childhood gender nonconformity, or CGN. This doesn’t describe a boy who has a doll somewhere in his toy collection or tried on his sister’s Snow White outfit once, but rather one who consistently exhibits a host of strongly feminine traits and interests while avoiding boy-typical behavior like rough-and-tumble play. There’s been considerable research into this phenomenon, particularly in males, including a study that followed boys from an early age into early adulthood. The data suggest there is a very good chance Patrick will grow up to be homosexual. Not all homosexual men show this extremely feminine behavior as young boys. But the research indicates that, of the boys who do exhibit CGN, about 75 percent of them - perhaps more - turn out to be gay or bisexual.

Patrick’s mother says, ”I can now imagine him being completely straight, which I couldn’t a year ago,” she says. “I can imagine him being gay, which seems to be statistically most likely.”

She says she’s fine with either outcome, just as long as he’s happy and free from harm. She takes heart in how much more accepting today’s society is. “By the time my boys are 20, the world will have changed even more.”

Boston Post: What Makes People Gay?