Neighbours angry at DS for snapping back and daughter’s homophobia - hypocrisy??

Sexuality aside your son sounds like an unpleasant entitled boy. Hope he improves with time.

If my 8yo said that to your son I would be horrified OP. I’d be making sure she understood and never said it again and apologising profusely to you and him. I feel really sorry for your son as he does seem to be getting bullied about his sexuality and is very sensitive to it at a very formative age.

He obviously knows he shouldn’t have reacted like that to a little kid who may not know any better, but it genuinely sounds like he’s a pot ready to boil over. He needs to find some other LBGTQ+ friends and allies to hang out with pronto, can you direct him to any local community groups?

I would also love to know if the OPs son would have reacted the same if the person calling him a gay boy was older, bigger, and male? Rather than younger, smaller, and female? I doubt it.

OP bullying is awful and I really feel for your son. But making excuses for him is not going to help him battle the battle bullying, keep himself safe, or make friends

My teen son is gay but is not stupid enough to be discussing crushes out loud with younger children in earshot.

I think your son sounds a bit immature and a bit of a show off. Especially with his quick temper!

Instead of coming immediately to his defence, you might want to focus on helping him navigate growing up in a homophobic world and how not to become a target for bullies!

I don’t think OP is coming back…. Didn’t get the answer she wanted clearly

I think you'd be very surprised on what some areas are like with kids and homophobia. I live relatively rural in the middle of England and my son has been subject to homophobic abuse and multiple physical assaults by both students at his school and adults in the street. The abuse from the kids at his school was relentless and he is still in his late teens now so this is only a year or so ago. He isn't actually gay but hanging out with the two gay kids in school branded him as well. Thankfully cahms and the police round our way are great or he would probably not be here.

I've got a 9yo and she can be silly and use words she doesn't properly understand... and is obsessed with other people's crushes. I have had to pull her up on some of her language recently, to tell her how it will be perceived and how it's wrong.

If she got yelled and sworn at by a 13yo I'd be livid. He should know better.

Yes, an 8 yo should be taught about language choices but they're still learning and should be spoken to gently. Your 13 yo should not get so angry and aggressive at such a young child.

It sounds like he's having a rough time and it's depressing that in this day and age, boys can't be themselves in this regard. I'd hoped we'd progressed as a society but apparently not.

He said that to an 8 year old girl?! I’m shocked!

Kids are very accepting of same sex attraction these days, I don’t think he’s lack of friends has anything to do with him being gay!! With a personality like that it’s no surprise he’s struggling to make friends…. He absolutely won’t be the only ‘out’ gay or bisexual child in secondary school.

Also, 8 year olds find everything to do with crushes/ relationships hilarious. If his crush was a girl she’d have started teasing and be laughing/ sniggering. She just needed to be told gay boy was rude, not funny. She’d have heard it before but not really fully understood it. She was being playful in a way most 8 year olds are….

Your son has lost more potential friends because of his personality, not because he’s gay.

you might be able to, sadly some other posters on here seem to think being misogynistic is okay. nobody is saying you have to be homophobic to battle misogyny or misogynistic to battle homophobia. you can call both out, like people have done on this thread. shamefully many would rather ignore the misogyny that is rife on this thread

not one fucking person has actually said homophobia is okay because she's "only 8" however multiple people including yourself seem to think misogyny is okay because OPs son is gay. its really quite sad how misogynistic posters on this thread are

The 8 year old would need a chat from her parents but a 13 year old should definitely know better than to call a 8 year old a fucking bitch and to fuck off.

The fact he felt he could as well in front of all those adults I’d reckon means what he would say away from adults would be much much worse.

He is the older child and should know better.

The friendly neighbourly relationship is nuked though let’s face it.

Is there anyone he can talk to at school about friendship issues he is having?

Bitch by itself and spoken by a woman is quite tame imo.
Adding the "stupid bitch" and said by a man gives me Andrew Tate vibes and yes, I feel it's misogynistic. I do get that others don't see it that way though.

But isn't the whole point that "I'm sorry you took it that way" isn't actually a real apology or excuse?

A lot of homophobia is rooted in misogyny. The concept comes from a man behaving like a woman is unacceptable. Even going BB ack to Roman times it was not acceptable to be the recieving party if you get my jist (unless you were the younger male party, which is a whole different section of grim) because it was seen as womanly and men don't do that. Plus the effeminate stereotypes etc. Women like behaviour is not acceptable in men. Hence the man up, toughen up, real men comments and stuff like that. It's the same place of not like woman.

To be fair to the boy he wasn't he was talking to her older sister. She was listening in. I doubt it was sexual either and she clearly knows gay people exist.

If he’s talking about crushes on celebrities, then I agree with you. However, if he’s talking about crushes on male classmates then I think that would definitely impact any possible friendships with boys in his class.

I asked DS14 about this last night. I asked how he would feel if he found out a boy in his class had a crush on him. He said he would feel super awkward and stay away from him. I challenged him on whether he thought that behaviour would be homophobic. He said no, because he would also feel awkward if a girl had a crush on him too but he’s not in changing rooms with girls and there is a chance that he may also like the girl. If it were a boy that was telling people he had a crush on him, there would be no chance of anything romantic happening so he’d just keep his distance.

OP, if your DS is openly discussing crushes on straight classmates, then I would gently try and tell him it’s not a great idea.

He wasn't "discussing his sexuality" with an 8 year old though, was he?!
If you read the OP again, it says that the boy (13) and the girl (who was 11 ) were talking about crushes.
Which is perfectly normal. I had crushes at that age, and so did my mates and we mentioned/laughed about them. Absolutely nothing sexual though, it was whether you wanted to kiss them or whatever!
Or should the boy just have shut up as his were "gay" feelings?!

It sounds like you told him you understood his behaviour and that was a fundamental mistake, which has enabled him to think he need not apologize and that his gayness will be an excuse for such things in the future. But the key issue here is his verbally attacking an 8-year old who quite probably cannot grasp the complexity of sexual identity, or may indeed have no concept of gayness. It is for her parents to explain to her that same sex relationships are okay and this is clearly a teaching moment. But not your teaching moment. Yours is with an unruly son who has gone way outside of acceptable social interaction and needs to apologize or accept consequences; the first consequence likely being he no longer gets to play with the neighbour girls and becomes even more socially isolated. Whether it is fair or not, as an out teen he needs to learn to use more productive words and explain himself and his identity because otherwise he will continue to be pushed to the margins.

She was listening in to a conversation between him and her older sister

Women absolutely can and should challenge men who insult them

Male homophobia has roots in misogyny because some of it comes down to, and refers to, uncomfortableness around men taking the traditionally "female" role

SHES 8. Jesus christ. Your son shouldn't even be discussing his sexuality with 8 year old. He also needs much thicker skin, women dont get to lash out every time a man calls them a stupid bitch, or we risk getting smacked in the face. Your son needs to learn to control himself.
And no, homophobia is not rooted in misogyny, what a fucking weird thing to claim!

What still gets me about this is it was only repealed in 2003! It's up there with the rape in marriage repeal only happening in the 90s. I'm always a little shocked it's all in my lifetime. It all feels much too late for such grim legislation to be tossed out.

It's sweet that so many posters think an 8-year-old is so innocent that they could never intentionally say something hurtful to another child.

Minorities usually know when someone - child or adult - has said something prejudiced deliberately or accidentally. Given that this girl's family weren't absolutely mortified about her homophobia, I'm thinking the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

I once called an 11-year-old girl in the year below a stupid bitch after she'd repeatedly called me a racial slur. It's not "internalised misogyny"; kids reach for the nearest and easiest slur without reading up on how different slurs are gendered. I also have no regrets. She was a stupid bitch, and she left me alone after that.

Did you go to school in the 80s/90s? Obviously I don't want you to go into details, it'd just be interesting to know - because if you did, we've got Section 28 law to thank for that.
We weren't "allowed" to know anything.
It was just a slur to throw around at people as "stuff like that" was frowned upon for want of a better phrase.

But he's male
We know what MN thinks about men

He's 13. 13!!

All those saying 11 -13 is too young to be talking about crushes/who we fancy.
Really?! I definitely remember talking with my mates discussing which boys we fancied when I was 12, even 11 in the 1980s!
(I'm a straight female) Did nobody else really talk about crushes at that age?!
I agree with the poster that said the 8 year old needs educating, I'd have been mortified if my child had come out with that. Just to say in age appropriate terms that it's not nice to call people names and laugh at them like that, and that some people are gay and there's nothing wrong with that if so.
The 13 year old boy, I get he was upset but that's an absolutely unacceptable way to talk to a child too.
He needs telling in no uncertain terms as well not to do that again.

I'm sorry to hear your son has had and is having a tough time of things. He is still so young, I'm not surprised it's hard for him to regulate his emotions. He is, however, now a teen and maybe you and he can use this incident to help him start to think about his feelings and put some reasoning around them. If the 8 yo is too young to be exposed to that language, too young to understand what she was saying etc. etc. then ok, maybe he can write a note to her parents. He can apologise for swearing at their daughter. He can politely explain why the use of homophobic slurs upset him so much, why the girl's language and attitude is harmful, and while he accepts that she is too young to understand how cruel she was being, he hopes she soon comes to understand how her words can impact others. Once again, accept this does not excuse the swearing so apologise for unacceptable response to daughter. Done. I would not be making him apologise face to face to the girl unless she was there to sincerely do the same.