Helping Boys Become Men, and Girls Become Women: Is My Child Becoming Homosexual?
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.”
Are they serious?
You can’t ‘change’ a person, they are who they are…
Naturally, there are quite a few forums on the web where one must register in order to start leaving comments. How many forums are there where registration is required just to read the existng posts? How very odd for a website supposedly dedicated to the art and science of Christian parenting.
In one of the sidebar articles attached to the URL you posted, we learn all about the insidious Homosexual Campaign Against Children. One shudders to think! “Dr. James Dobson reports: ‘There is also the vigorous effort by gays to infiltrate the Boy Scouts in the same way lesbians have done so successfully in the Girl Scouts, where 33 percent of their staff is said to be lesbian.’”
Incredible. BTW, I was a Boy Scout, from 11 to 16, rising “through the ranks” to be the Senior Patrol Leader and, eventually, Junior Assistant Scoutmaster of my troop. I was a chubby, bookish mama’s boy when I started, and five years of wilderness training, camping, sports, 50-mile-hikes, military discipline and what-have-you turned me into a wiry and much more self-confident young man. Coming to terms with being gay, I quit the Scouts at 16 and never looked back; as the Good Book says, after all, one should “[a]bstain from all appearance of evil.” [1 Thessalonians 5:22] Acutely aware of the fact the BSA did not want someone like me in a leaderhsip position over boys, I put the thought completely out of my head for some 35 years.
Now, come to find out, there has been a “vigorous effort” all along “to infiltrate the Boy Scouts” and I obviously missed my calling in life! Sorry, guys, I never got the memo from Homosexual Headquarters on this subject. We really must do something about our abominably inefficient communications network. Otherwise, how shall we ever achieve our goals of corrupting all the youth, abolishing heterosexual marriage and leading the human race into extinction through failure to procreate?
Come to think of it, the James Dobsons, Pat Robertsons and George Bushes of this world seem to be doing quite all right in leading us all toward extinction, even without my help. False alarm, then: as you were. Carry on.
As Mark Green says in his comment piece for the Huffington Post, ‘We Owe Pat Robertson and Ann Coulter A Big Thank You’, the American Right (known as the (f)right!) is nuts:
I think it’s sad that people are being prevented from getting involved in the Boy Scouts and participating in the military (unlike in Britain - see the link), just because of their sexuality. I think it’s sad because I think those people who go into public service like social work, teaching and yes, working with the Scouts don’t get involved to push an agenda, but to protect children and to enrichen their lives.
I think members of the LGBT community have been so exposed to hostility and cruelty and opposition during their lives, they want to make sure that doesn’t happen to others: they want to make a difference. How can it be that we’re trying to stop that. Not every boy has to be a rough-and-tumble kid. I was. I grew up outside climbing trees, causing a rucku running around our neighborhood in Seattle. Does that stop me being calm, collected and considerate now? No. People aren’t identical, don’t come out of a mold looking all the same.
It’s important that kids see that they can be bookish and still be OK. They need to know that what they want to do, who they are, can be just great. The ideal of the alpha-male just isn’t real, and a couple of pansies in the Boy Scouts might just help break down the image.
And the gays would be great help sewing on those Scouting badges too, not just passing them over to mom for a quick iron-on transfer, fags get serious when we’re talking about embroidery!