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?

Another shouty responder who appears not to have read fully the post they have quoted and are presumably responding to.

Yeah, they let their true colours shine with that comment for sure.

Shouting 🙄😂

It does feel very tricky (as a parent) when your young child tells you they are gay. My then 8 yo announced she was a lesbian. I didnt encouraged it beforehand my philosophy is pretty much as a grown you are attracted to the opp sex, the same sex or both and that is fine but that’s really something for when you’re older.

Schools do play a large part I think children are often taught adult concepts and terminology they struggle to deal with and then label themselves. It’s oversimplified though for example only like people of same sex then perhaps you are gay,

A few years down the line (11 now) and perhaps boys aren’t so bad so she has relabelled herself bisexual. Her twin sister describes herself as a aromantic throughout as has never been keen on “crush” culture. Children today seem very keen on labels. I am not.

I am very much in the the if you two have girlfriends / boyfriends or are single when your older then that’s absolutely fine now what shall have for tea camp.

Randomly the boys in her class are frequently using gay as a slur against each other but no one has ever said anything homophobic to her since she also told the class at age 8.

That is a complete untruth.

My language was careful. I said words to the effect that those parents who actively encourage their children to embrace being gay (or straight, for that matter but because that is the norm it doesn't feature so much) in their pre teen or early teen years were doing their children no favours whatsoever.

I went on to point out that I 100pc support people's right to lead their lives as they see fit and that my post was in no way an attack on gay people.

I also made the point that lots of children are confused about their sexuality in their teenage years and that this was something that they had to navigate themselves and that parents can do no more than passively support them as they navigate their developing sexuality.

Finally I pointed out that sexuality is a spectrum and that there are many examples of people who redefine their sexuality much later in life.

All these points were intended to reinforce the main point that over active parental affirmation of a young persons sexual identity is potentially harmful especially if there is a possibility that the person concerned will grow out of it.

To the last point a number of posters earlier in the thread made exactly that point that they had thought themselves interested in same sex relationships in their early teens only to discover later that this was not the case.

I have no idea why my carefully written earlier post was deleted. I can only assume that whoever moderates here didn't read it carefully themselves and reacted to your or another poster's completely unjustified accusation of homophobia.

You used the words "child abuse"

You didn't do any of what you're now claiming, where you use "may be" and "potential" etc

You straight up said it was child abuse if parents were understanding

And you also said things about the "gay agenda" and "forcing children to be gay"

You can claim otherwise now to protect yourself but those of us who saw it know it was blatantly homophobic

It would be nice if MN restored my original post so you could see how inaccurate you are in what you say. It was nuanced and I don't think you read it carefully enough.

Anyway no more from me on this thread.

Perhaps if you're accused of sounding homophobic on multiple threads you're the common denominator? and should rethink you're wording if you really don't want your comments to be interpretated the way you've been told on multiple occasions they come across as?

Exactly this, any grown adult who think children's crushes are sexual are the ones over sexualising children. I had crushes long before I even knew what the concept of sex was, I wasn't having sexual thoughts about any crushes as a child and it's weird that adults keep making that connection.

I'm honoured that you think of me as being so interesting that you've gone out of your way to trawl through my past thread posts.
❤
Thank you.