Gay kids, yes. Happy childhood? No.

AOG, Madrid

A few days ago I read an article on the Huffington Post which discussed how best to talk to children about gay people. 

The author suggested that the subject be approached with absolute normality since children will, as with all else, take their cue from the adults around them. 

And then it just finished. 

I, having been a gay child myself, stopped for a second and thought...well, this is very all very well and good but, how about we talk to children about gay children too?

About the fact that their school friends may be gay? 

Or, that other great taboo, about the fact that they themselves may be gay?

To those who think, or would like to believe, that children are somehow unaware of things like this let me reassure you: they are not. 

No, a child does not understand or needs to know about sex itself. Granted. 

But children grow up very fast and they quickly become aware, in the most natural way, of who they are attracted to. 

But I'm not talking about that. 

I am talking about a parent –and other adults– doing their children a disservice, and a great deal of harm, if they raise a gay child and never even stop to consider –and in many cases refuse to acknowledge– that their little boy or little girl might be gay. 

A bad example...

A couple of days ago I was in Sitges, Spain's Mediterranean gay capital, at an optician's buying some sunglasses. 

A straight couple and their three or four year old son were being waited on by a gay optician. 

The little boy needed sunglasses and they were trying on several different styles.

Finally they found one they liked and the little boy looked both very happy and very smart with them on. 

The mother was looking at her son very lovingly, as was the boy's father, who proudly stated to all and sundry that: "All he's missing is the girl!".

I won't go into the objectification of women as accessories to men's lives, but it struck me as the usual kind of heteronormative expectations that parents, especially fathers, thrust upon their male offspring. 

That man has probably never stopped to think that his little boy may be gay. And that is the problem. Or maybe he has, and that makes it even worse.

Even though the man waiting on them was gay himself, this guy never stopped to consider that his son may be gay too. 


It was an innocent enough comment on the proud father's part. But it is sad that a father's stock source of pride would be that his son should be straight too.

Growing Up Gay


Until I was a young adult I grew up thinking that I was the only gay boy on Earth. 

I was certainly the only gay kid in school and the only gay anything in my life. I was it. My only reference for years.

Except, of course, I didn't know I was gay. I just knew I preferred boys to girls. 

Preferred how? Preferred in every possible way. 

I can't explain it beyond that.

And let me tell you, this knowledge was as daunting as it was frightening. 

You see, I lived in a very hostile world: that of childhood.

People my age, that is other children, saw me as being different and, thus, targetable for abuse of all kinds. 

Worst of all, I saw myself as different too.  Part of it was me, and part of that was seeing myself through their eyes. They thought something was amiss with me, so I began to think the same way.

And all of this went on while I saw that I had

absolutely no place in my society whatsoever. 

I was different.

Maybe even cursed. 

And I braced myself at a very early age for a life where I would always be the odd one out, and would suffer for it. 

Except I didn't really understand why exactly that was going to be the case. But it was. And nobody told me otherwise. 

On the contrary, the loud and very clear message was that being like this was wrong in the worst possible way.

I can tell you this, no child should have to feel like that. Not ever. 

Heteronormativity

Of course, parents prepare their children to be perfect little heterosexual people living in a heterosexually perfect world. 

The models shown to us as children are very basic. 

Heterosexual couples are the only ones most children are exposed to, so the message is that only they are allowed.

And the message isn't just, 'be like them'. It is 'be like them, or else'. 

It is the 'else' part that destroys people's lives. The part that makes so many young gay people commit suicide. 

That makes gay children the target of beatings and abuse by homophobes their own age.

This from parenting.com:

"Eleven-year-old Carl Walker-Hoover, a Boy Scout and athlete, hanged himself outside his room with an extension cord. 

He had complained repeatedly about being bullied at school, and particularly about being called "gay" by classmates at his Springfield, Mass., middle school. 

His mom, Sirdeaner Walker, did everything right: She comforted her son and supported him; she called school administrators and met them in person. 

She was assured the situation would be addressed. But clearly the damage was done—three months later, her son was dead."

And part of the problem is people not telling their children that there isn't just one way to be happy, or normal. That being straight is not the only way to be.

That there isn't just one type of normal couples. 

One type of normal family. 

The realities of life are hidden from them. And that is the problem.

A couple of days ago a writer friend of mine shared a teaching experience she'd had a few days earlier.

She had asked her students to match some photographs of people by whomever they thought made the best couple.

Some of the children started to pair up same-sex couples. 

At that point, the school's teacher, or invigilator, or whatever that lady's position was, went over to the children who had done this and told them that no, that that was wrong. And that they should do boy-girl couples only.

Well, what if those students were gay themselves? How were they feeling?

The message, again, is very clear. Only one type of sexuality allowed. And if you don't conform to it, then that is bad, and there is a problem with you. 

My friend apologized to the class and said that unfortunately theirs was a heteronormative school. 

And I loved that she told them that. At least somebody in their lives was challenging, or at least, explaining to them, that there is not just one way to be. That there is more to our species than just being straight.

Yes, it was a religious school, but one set in a country which was one of the pioneers of gay marriage.

So in spite of Pope Francis' apparently different approach to gay Christians (one which has yet to materialize in any positive way), the message is still: gay is bad, straight is good.


Although at this point in time one cannot expect the Christian church to teach anything other than heteronormative models (for whatever strange Biblical and religious reason they like to allude to), it is sad to see that, although we have come a long way on this issue, we still have a long, very long, way to go.

As always, parents are key in their children's education. But so is everyone else. Teachers, relatives, even strangers on the street.

You know the old saying, it takes a village to raise a child. 

Imagine that entire village being ok with that child being gay. Odd right? 

Odd to think that every member of society should be ok with something as natural as homosexuality. 

That is why, from my perspective, it is always surprising –as it is refreshing– to meet people who are not homophobic in any way.  Because the norm is just the opposite.

Homophobia, and just as we know it…

AOG, Madrid

The gays have never had it so good, so they say, but they are so wrong.

I live in Madrid’s gay village, Chueca. What used to be one of Madrid’s run-down and drug-crazed neighborhoods was, in the early to mid 1990s, turned into the city’s gay neighborhood par excellence.

Most people will tell you that it was because of its shady past that the area became a haven for gay people.

A haven in that society in Spain, as elsewhere, has always equated homosexuality with crime, sin, and all of those other goodies Christianity, and other monotheistic religions, seem to think their particular deity dislikes.

So when you are confronted with a fresh batch of just-baked homophobia on the streets of a gay neighborhood, you have to ask yourself just how far gay people haven’t come.

A week ago I was out shopping around my neighborhood, getting ready to meet some friends at my place later on in the evening. I was crossing the street when, from a distance, I saw a guy coming towards me. 

His appearance was not exactly run-of-the-mill, but then, this was Chueca, and here nothing like that really raises an eyebrow. 

His hair, which mainly consisted of jet-black braids, was up in a bun, and he had a scarf round it, keeping it all in place. He was muscular, as could be gathered from his half unbuttoned shirt, and in a hurry.

He swished past me at high speed, and I gave him not another second’s notice.

And then it happened.

I noticed a small group of people walking towards me. Two girls, maybe around 7 or 8, were giggling, making faces, and pointing at him. 

And one said to the other:

“Is it a man or a woman?”

And the other said:

“Yeah, what?”

And their mother, or the mother of one of them, in case they weren’t sisters, replied:

“It is a ‘that’!”

And they all laughed.

As they walked past me, I noticed the husband-father figure pushing a baby’s stroller, and noticed he was keeping quiet.

As this family walked past me, I overheard a gay couple saying out loud that the only ‘that’ on that street was the girl’s mother.

I have to say that I was aghast at having witnessed the entire scene. Disgusted.

Later on that night I was entertaining some friends at my place. We talked about many things, including homophobia, gay rights, sexuality, you know, the sort of thing that comes up when gay men and straight women (and one of their boyfriends) get together. 

One of them said something along the lines of “but surely the next generation will be less homophobic.”

Well, did I ever have a story to tell!

They were all really shocked to hear it. Surprised. In awe. Especially that this should happen in Chueca of all places.

And I just said that if it was happening in Chueca, could they imagine what must be happening in the less-trendy areas of Spain?

Last Friday, October 11, was National Coming Out Day in the US and several other countries. But not Spain. It is perhaps not necessary since the country was one of the first ones to institute full gay marriage, so a National Coming Out Day is not deemed -or at least not yet- necessary.

But coming out, for all its good intentions, is such a horrid thing to have to do. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, there isn’t.

But, when was the last time somebody informed you that they were straight?

When was the last time a straight kid was bullied for being straight?

Or somebody lost his/her job for being straight?

Never you say? That’s right. Never.

It is a horrible feature of our time that people still have to make some sort of public declaration of their sexuality when it does not fit the heteronormative bias.

Some people I know, those who think they are so trendy and with it, always say things like “but what does it matter? Why do I need to know somebody is gay? It doesn’t matter to me!”

I always say to them, it matters, and you do, and it should matter. And I am always surprised that people think otherwise.

It is not my place to educate people about sexuality, but when confronted with situations such as the one I witnessed a few days ago, I have to say that a little part of me died that instant when I saw that Spain’s next generation will be homophobic too (and when I say Spain, I mean the entire planet’s next generation and generations).

That those girls will probably taunt and make fun of one, or more, of their classmates deemed by them to be gay. That their mother will be totally ok with that behavior.

And that some poor kid, who may or may not be gay, will be bullied because society still has not come to terms with the simple fact that gay people exist, and that we have a right to be respected, and more importantly, just be left alone.

Yes, gay people have come a long way. At least we are not being burned at the stake these days (though in many countries we are hanged and persecuted just for being gay), but that does not mean society is where it should be on this issue (and oh so many others!).

We have come a long way, but we still have such a long way to go…