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

[TheNoisyDeer]

DS, 13, came out in Year 6 at the age of 10 and he has struggled with making friends ever since. His boy friends always used to make him the butt of the joke so he stopped being friends with them. He has a couple of female friends now but he still feels like he can’t be himself around them because they give him the side eye when they talk about boys and he talks about boys too. Due to this he feels on the defence when his sexuality is spoken about.

I invited our neighbours over earlier this evening for chat and drinks in the sunshine and the younger girl, 8, overheard her sister (the older daughter), 11, talking to DS about their crushes. She laughed at him, made a few comments about it being weird and called him a “gay boy”. I don’t know whether she’d picked it up from school or somewhere, but DS was clearly upset. He snapped and called her “a stupid bitch” and to “f off”.

There was immediate anger from her parents because she’s only 8 and they said there was no excuse for speaking to a young girl like that and demanded I tell him off. The older daughter also took her side and shouted at him to not talk to her sister like that. He looked startled, humiliated and ran inside.

I went inside and spoke to him about the language he used and said it wasn’t acceptable, especially to a girl that young, but I also told him I understood why he was hurt and that nobody should mock someone’s sexuality. DS said he didn’t care how old she was because she’d been horrible to him first and then refused to go back outside and apologise. I explained this to my neighbours and the mum said she wanted to leave and won’t put up with her daughters being spoken to in that manner and they left.

Ideally I would have expected the children to apologise to each other, preferably her first as she started it and then moved on but I was shocked by their reaction to just leave. We’ve been good friends for years and now I feel hurt by their lack of accountability for the homophobia and hypocrisy. I wouldn’t like the friendship to end but I won’t be bowing down to them.

AIBU for thinking both children were in the wrong but both the daughter and parents are more so?

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.

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?

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 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

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?

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

At 8 it was 1979

He wasn't being misogynistic though

And there are multiple people excusing her homophobia because she's only 8

of course he was. calling an 8 year old girl a bitch is misogynistic whether you want to admit that or not. just because you think its okay to call a young girl a bitch doesn't mean its not misogynistic

and no, there aren't multiple people excusing her homophobia because she's 8. there are people say she's needs educating. thats not excusing it

however there are multiple people excusing his misogyny including you.

If it’s misogynistic then you’re talking about straight boys, which is irrelevant here.

Anyway the fact that they talk like that to each other doesn’t mean that they would talk that way in front of an 8 year old, or that OP’s son would. The poster I was responding to was acting as if there’s something automatically inappropriate about talking about gay crushes, I think that’s nonsense.

It's not though

I never said it was OK to call her names, I've said he reacted badly. But it's not misogynistic

There quite literally are several people excusing it and saying she's only 8 so she can't be homophobic

Just because you chose to ignore it doesn't make it so

yes it is. referring to a girl as a bitch is misogynistic

Just because you chose to ignore misogyny doesn't make it so

If it was an 8 year old boy 0% chance he'd have called him a stupid bitch. It's obviously misogyny.

The girl was being mean and the homophobia is completely unacceptable and she definitely needed to apologise and understand why you don't say things like that.

But for me a much older 13 year old displaying that aggression and misogyny to a little girl, not even his peer but a child 5 year his junior, would be much more concerning. At 13 that misogyny is already going to be much harder to uproot. You can't let it fester.

It’s funny as the only children calling girls bitches that I come across are girls but that’s ok, as is homophobia apparently.

Wow. Are you for real? You are obviously outraged that someone used the slur ‘gay boy’, but bitch is a mild insult? You’re really showing your misogyny there.

Agreed – since when is eleven years old too young to talk about having a crush? I was eleven in 1997-1998 and nearly every girl I knew was crazy for Leonardo DiCaprio – except for two who thought he “looked like a girl,” and one who insisted he couldn’t hold a candle to Matt Damon. My mother was thirteen when Beatlemania started, but according to her, every girl with an age in double digits had a favourite Beatle.

This. Whatever his sexuality, your son is growing up to be a nasty misogynist and you need to put some strict boundaries in place.

That is a strange post on a thread about a 13 year old boy calling a little girl a bitch. I appreciate you don't know him in real life but you've 'come across' him here as that's literally what this conversation is about.

Not that I think it's good for women and girls to use misogynistic language to each other, but surely you do understand why it's different and much more serious when boys and men do it?