A mother refuses to be bullied by good concerned Christian women

Timothy Kincaid

November 4th, 2010

If you have not yet seen this, and you probably have, this here is the five year old son of Nerdy Apple Bottom. It’s Halloween and he’s Daphne. And his mother is not going to let you bully him about it.

If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to ‘make’ him gay then you are an idiot. Firstly, what a ridiculous concept. Secondly, if my son is gay, OK. I will love him no less. Thirdly, I am not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja so back off.

If my daughter had dressed as Batman, no one would have thought twice about it. No one.

But it also was heartbreaking to me that my sweet, kind-hearted five year old was right to be worried. He knew that there were people like A, B, and C. And he, at 5, was concerned about how they would perceive him and what would happen to him.

Just as it was heartbreaking to those parents that have lost their children recently due to bullying. IT IS NOT OK TO BULLY. Even if you wrap it up in a bow and call it ‘concern.’ Those women were trying to bully me. And my son. MY son.

These good mothers at the Christian school would never ever think of themselves as bullies. But they are setting role models for their children, approving of condemnation and rejection and letting their kids know that they have the right to humiliate other kids who don’t dress up to their standards or live according to their gender expectations.

But I think this kid’s going to be okay. He has a cop for a father and a super-hero for a mother. I love this woman.

My son is gay. Or he’s not. I don’t care. He is still my son. And he is 5. And I am his mother. And if you have a problem with anything mentioned above, I don’t want to know you.

Amen.

Allison

November 5th, 2010

The world needs more mothers like this, and a few less of the “good christian women” who expressed concern. Let children discover themselves instead of worrying that it’s an indicator of their sexuality. Bravo lady, I wish u were my mom.

Nathaniel

November 5th, 2010

Cute picture!

It’s good to see that there are good parents out there.

Lindoro Almaviva

November 5th, 2010

This woman is my hero.

Lindoro Almaviva

November 5th, 2010

Can I suggest something for the title? I think the word concerned should actually read “concerned”. I do not think that what mom A,B,and C did, or their behavior should be described by the true meaning of that word.

Just saying.

Jafuf

November 5th, 2010

My half brother used to dress up in women’s clothes all the time, and you couldn’t find anyone ‘straighter’ than he is.

enough already

November 5th, 2010

If it makes this kid happy, great.

There’s too little room in America today for children to be creative.

Maybe he’ll grow up to be a brilliant designer. Maybe he’ll grow up to be a brilliant engineer. Or cook, or artist.

Maybe he’ll grow up to be a defensive lineman – who knows? The point is, he wants this, his mom supports him – in one little story, we see pretty much all of what’s wrong with America’s schools system of today.

The bully’s define the system now, not the other way ’round.

Great mom, good for her! Somehow, though, I suspect the kid got Thelma’s brains, not Daphne’s….

Emily K

November 5th, 2010

Sometimes it’s just fun/funny to dress up like the opposite sex for kids. It doesn’t always indicate a fetish, transvestitism, genderqueerness, or a non-heterosexual orientation. Sometimes people take things way too seriously.

I mean, he’s a little kid. He’s still growing in that manner. Some kids are pretty much asexual til middle school age, some aren’t. But they’re all still growing.

And like the mother said, even if he DOES end up gay or genderqueer, who cares? He’s still her child whom she loves.

BlackDog

November 5th, 2010

Ya know, what REALLY rankles my ass about things like this is: the kid is FIVE, people. FIVE, and those “concerned” moms are worried about his sexual orientation ALREADY? And HE’S worried about how THEY’RE going to react?

Seriously?

I think if I’d of heard the words “Sexual Orientation” at five, I might have asked what they meant, I sure as all raging hell would not of known what they were. Yeah I was five in the 70’s but I sure as hell don’t remember people being so obsessed with Other People’s Lives and for that matter, Sex, that they would be worried about that sort of thing at that sort of age.

Hell, one of my best friends was a girl, sometimes we played with her dolls and sometimes we played with my toy guns. We both went to the same Christian school and you know what? No one seemed too worried if I colored in her Barbie coloring book and she colored in my Star Wars coloring book!

People need to grow the hell up, and religion in particular really needs to get a grip. Who in the hell knows WHAT the kid is gonna be, he’s FIVE.

It’ll turn out a lot better, if they just let him be that instead of him being more grown up then some of the adults.

BlackDog

November 5th, 2010

Oh and by the way considering that I *Was* a Scooby Doo fan at that age myself…that is a hell of a costume.

Maybe mom should’ve dressed up as superman. It’d fit, and maybe make her point stick even more.

William

November 5th, 2010

“Hell, one of my best friends was a girl, sometimes we played with her dolls and sometimes we played with my toy guns. … No one seemed too worried if I colored in her Barbie coloring book and she colored in my Star Wars coloring book!”

You’re bloody lucky then, BlackDog, that your mum and dad hadn’t been reading books by George Rekers. Otherwise they might have taken you to him to get your “sexual identity shaped”.

JandyA Says

November 5th, 2010

WOW… I can NOT believe the “Christian Sex Patrol” is attacking a five-year-old.

IT IS A PRETTY SAD STATEMENT of THE RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY in America when a FIVE-YEAR-OLD is even questioning HIS SAFETY over what Halloween Costume he chooses.

Why don’t you HOLIER THAN THOU people move to a different planet and leave the FIVE YEAR OLD’S alone.

STOP pretending to CARE, when your real objective is to OPPRESS and SUBDUE Freedom of Choice AND Freedom of Religion.

GET A LIFE… if your religion does this to you… LEAVE IT OR TAKE IT SOMEPLACE ELSE !!! Keep your BS to yourselves.

DN

November 5th, 2010

I commented on this elsewhere, but I think it bears repeating…

The executive team at my company does this really embarassing Hallowe’en show every year, and every single time, our male CEO comes in drag. This year he was Lady Gaga.

So if this poor kid has any future ahead of him at all, it’s as the CEO of a company with about $14 billion annual revenue.

Truly, he is cursed.

BlackDog

November 5th, 2010

@ William

Ah yes, Rentboy Rekers, yet another one who proves the stereotype about the uber-anti-gay dude being the one most likely to be queer as a three dollar bill.

You know what I thought when I first saw a picture of him? The molester mustache should’ve been a clue.

Honestly, even considering that my dad was a somewhat devout Christian (my mom was and is a non-religious nothing-at-all) I think my dad would’ve been shocked by the obsession with Teh Gay that American Christianity has these days.

By the way, my mom was and is bisexual, although I was not particularly aware of that until I was like, nine or ten. There was no particular effort around the house to hide it, I guess kids didn’t used to have to think about stuff like that.

If you ask me, sexual orientation or “what people will think” STILL isn’t something a kid should have to worry about.* It really, really did not seem to be when I was a kid.

*Also worth noting we went to a liberal Northern Baptist church and I went to that church’s school for a few years before my dad died and we moved out to Cali. If I’d gone to a Fundamentalist Southern Baptist school, who the hell knows how much I’d of heard about the subject.

Ben in Oakland

November 5th, 2010

Lindoro– the word you want is “consternipated”.

This story reminds me of Porgy’s line in Porgy and Bess: “Between the god-fearin’ ladies and the god-dammin men, that gal ain’t got a chance.”

andrew

November 5th, 2010

As my mother would say — Hot damn.

Way to go mom.

I’d say this kid’s going to be just fine, and we’re all going to be better for it.

Priya Lynn

November 5th, 2010

Blackdog said “Hell, one of my best friends was a girl, sometimes we played with her dolls and sometimes we played with my toy guns. We both went to the same Christian school and you know what? No one seemed too worried if I colored in her Barbie coloring book and she colored in my Star Wars coloring book!”.

What a sweet growing up story.

swampfox

November 5th, 2010

One of my nephews used to dress up in my sister’s old tutus. Today he is twenty-six and is as straight as they come.

Dennis W

November 5th, 2010

I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s and the ‘concerned’ messages were all around. This is nothing new. Good luck finding any gay person from that era that did not get ‘the message’ from the church, parents, siblings….. When I was 5 I knew exactly what ‘concerned’ was saying.

Rob in San Diego

November 5th, 2010

Word to you Mom, that’s awesome. Now if only more parents could be like you. I’m curious as to what the father says. Or if the Mom is use to sticking up for her son to his father, since he is a cop you know. Either way, it’s a proud family there!

Timothy Kincaid

November 5th, 2010

Rob,

Mom says that Dad supports the kid 100% and is proud of both of them.

Ray

November 5th, 2010

I won’t be using the cravat that I alternately played with dolls and bows and arrows, then grew up to be as straight as an arrow. I didn’t. I grew up to be, as Richard Green says, “An ordinary homosexual.”

Dress up play, playing with opposite sex playmate, avoidance of rough and tumble play and several other behavioral markers are predictors of adult homosexuality under ONE circumstance – If they are PERSISTENT.

It has a name in the field of child development: gender non-conformity (GNC.

Richard Green’s twelve-year longitudinal study of boys who *persisted* in one or more of these behaviors clearly demonstrated that persistent GNC behavior in children is a remarkable accurate predictor (not a guarantee) of adult homosexuality. It is such a well-established principle these days that both the American Psychological Association and (ugh) NARTH both acknowledge it as valid.

Even Focus On The Family’s Dr. James Dobson acknowledges that GNC behavioral persistence in children is the *best* indicator that a child identify as gay in adulthood.

Obviously the APA and NARTH have *far* different views concerning how to approach this issue. The term “GNC” has been trending towards a new name as “pre-homosexual” but there are a LOT of very savvy mothers in this country with children who behavior is remarkably persistent who are cutting to the chase, as this mother has, but just saying their child is gay.

I wish my own parents had had the benefit of this modern understanding of GNC behavior, along with the will, desire and sensitivity to guide me through my life and do as this mother does – what my back.

Instead, I suffered humiliation and physical abuse from my father thoughout my childhood for behaving no differently than this boy. I’m happy being the gay man I turned out to be, but the beatings I took as a child from my dad and my peers remain dreadful memories when I allow them to.

I read Richard Green’s study on GNC children, “The Sissy Boy Syndrome” about 15 years ago and my reaction to it was that I had the eerie feeling that someone had followed me around as a child and recorded every one of my odd behaviors. The book turned out to yield a sense of relief for me. I felt validated for the the first time in my life. I can’t conclude that I was “born gay” but I certainly know I meant it when I told my family at age eleven that I wanted to marry the farmer from whom we rented our farm. My father bloodied me with a leather beat that day and that’s when I just took that sense of myself underground and left it there far into my adulthood.

I stayed in the closet until I was thirty due to the abuse I experience for being this type of chilld. When people ask me if I think I was born gay, I tell them: “I don’t know, but I sure feels that way and it has since as long as I can remember, even when I didn’t know what “gay” was.”

Ray

November 5th, 2010

Sorry. I made *several* spelling errors. I wish I could edit that post.

Urmensch

November 5th, 2010

As others have said, in my family it was my brother who turned out straight that took every opportunity he could to dress up in female clothes.
We often laugh about it in my family since I’m the one who turned out to be gay.

I think this woman is wonderful, standing up for her son and supporting him.
It’s the women that criticized her I worry about.

cowboy

November 5th, 2010

It is almost as if this blog is a therapist counseling session. I’ll take the chaise lounge next and relate my experience.

My Mother had an inkling that I was gay from even before I was five. She enrolled me in all kinds of sports. Even though I was too young I was tall enough to start playing softball. Naturally, I was assigned to right field, way in the back where nobody hits a ball. But, I remember a line-drive ball came straight for me. I tried as best I could to catch the flying orb but it struck me dead center in my chest. Bless his heart, the coach had to tell my Mom that I was just not meant to play just yet.

Avoid dressing like a girl or trying to toughen me up with enrolling in all manner of manly sports didn’t do a thing. It didn’t change the ultimate outcome.

Okay. So, like Ray in his comments above, I didn’t know what “gay” was either. The subject of homosexuality was a strictly forbidden topic in our household. But, my family tried everything they could to dissuade me from anything that might be ‘sissy-fied’. That included dressing up for Halloween.

With all the efforts of my Mom and “The Church” I was kept from even a hint of what gay meant. I didn’t know what “gay” meant until someone came out to me in high school. Yes, I was that sheltered.

And yet…here I am. A gay man.

But, I really loved swinging a bat.

Ray

November 5th, 2010

Cowboy, I think we were separated at birth. I played Right Field TOOOOOO! LOL. I didn’t get hit. I FAKED the old “sun got in my eyes” thing because I was afraid to catch the because I didn’t want to hurt the batter’s feeling (or I was afraid the batter would beat me up) and they bought it (as far as I remember). I actually did pretty well in baseball and then, in 7th grade, I just outgrew everyone else. By 9th grade I was the tallest boy in high school and I ended up playing on two state championship basketball teams. I had to force myself to play aggressively.

Not the end of the story.

In my adulthood I was back playing with the girls when I because a sports reporter and columnist for USA Today covering women’s fastpitch softball, my favvvvvv sport. Did that for nearly 20 years.

ebohlman

November 5th, 2010

I remember some reports that two Halloweens ago, the most common character middle-school boys dressed as in some communities was none other than Sarah Palin.

Piper

November 5th, 2010

Let’s see.. I have been Marely (from a Christmas Carol), chainmail(plastic chains around me, and postage stamps on my forehead) a hippie, a clown, and a vampire for haloween. None of those is very girly (maybe the hippie) and I’m straight. Although many people still think otherwise, and I’m lucky, my parents couldn’t have cared less about who I’m attracted to, and neither do I!

Regan DuCasse

November 5th, 2010

Hey Tim, I’m glad that this kid’s father supports him.
Word to anyone who’d bully that boy…Dad is a cop.
Dad has a gun.

WMDKitty

November 7th, 2010

All I see is one happy cub.

Whether that cub is male, female, or both, or neither — didn’t even occur to me.

WMDKitty

November 7th, 2010

@Piper — “Chain mail” *groan* I need to remember that!

Soren456

November 7th, 2010

To me, “costume” always meant “disguise,” and what better disguise than to be completely not me.

I have sisters 15 and 10 years my senior. So, as a small boy, off to my sisters’ closets to find something to make Soren look completely not like Soren. Always worked for me, and that’s all it was: merely a disguise.

I had, and have, exactly zero interest in crossdressing. (Further, I find drag to be very annoying.) As Freud might say: Sometimes a costume is just a costume.

Regan DuCasse

November 7th, 2010

There is an article in People magazine about a little guy named Dyson Kilodavis.

His mother wrote a book about him called
“My Princess Boy”.
It’s a wonderful article about another mother just like this, who is standing up for her little boy and making an opportunity for others to learn.
He has an older brother and a dad, who all support him too.

Loving nuclear family, the ideal that FRC would say in the best environment for children.
And still some boys like pink tutus and sequined slippers.
Guess the FRC and NOM don’t really know much about families, DO they?

Kristie

November 7th, 2010

THAT right there is what real parenting is all about! Loving your child and letting them know that you will love them and support them no matter who they are ( or who they want to dress up as). She is teaching her child a valuable lesson no matter what his sexual orientation is. She’s teaching him to be who he is, unashamedly and to stand up for himself.

And, can I just say for the record, that that is one adorable kid!! I think he makes a great Daphne. ;-)

yuki(from japan)

October 22nd, 2013

Your thinking is my thinking.
Thank you!!

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