First off I would never do this out right. When a person’s ready to come out they’ll come out. But in this situation I was being attacked, so I felt I had to lash out.
First off it should be known that my cousin is 15, has a strong flamboyant southern draw, wears pink tennis shoes and has been practicing ballet for 5+ years. Also, he has only female friends.
So anyway, I’m having a conversation with my family. The topic was (get ready, this is stupid) how a gay country singer could never be successfully but a gay rock singer could be.
Basically, me and a couple of other family members were being made fun of because we like rock music. :rolleyes:
So my 15yo cousin starts in with words like “Fagot lover” “queer” etc… The only person BTW to actually use derogatory terms like that.
So I turn to him and say: “Uh, you of all people shouldn’t be throwing stones like that.”
This is when the shit officially hit the fan:
His mom: “GASP! What are you trying to say Shakes? that my son is gay?”
ME: “No I’m trying to say he’s very androgynous”
HM: “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Me: “I’m saying he’s kind of girly. How many 15yo boys do you know that wear pink tennis shoes?”
HM: “That’s what’s in style!”
Anyway, this went on for while. The whole time my family is acting like I just accused my cousin of being Hitler.
I really don’t feel like I was out of line here. But maybe I was. Since he’s only 15; should I have just kept my mouth shut?
I would not consider responding to a charge of “faggot” with a reply that was immediately clarified to one of androgyny to be out of line.
Of course, if you are in the midst of a hotbed of homophobia, you might want to realize that even a charge of androgyny (especially when your opponents don’t even know the word) is pretty close to spitting on someone’s mother, so while you were not (necessarily) out of line, you were pretty dumb.
I think you should have asked him not to use derogatory language towards gays without making it about him as a potentially androgenous gay teen.
And if you HAD to make it about him, you should have done it in private, where the rest of the family and especially his mother would not hear and make it an issue of you vs. the cousin.
Maybe he’s in denial, maybe it really is the fashion at least in a subset of teen boys, maybe he’s being as flamboyantly gay as he knows how but Mom’s in denial.
Anyway I look at it, it’s not your place to out him. And anyway I look at it, you made a mistake because now the focus is on your behaviour and not on his.
It’s very common for gay kids (especially the ones who aren’t obvious) to be the most homophobic so that doesn’t surprise me. It’s also very traumatic when you’re that age and realizing that you’re gay. Give him considerable latitude and don’t draw attention to it again; trust me, his mom is way ahead of you whether she acknowledges it or not; it doesn’t matter to her if he becomes an interior decorator living in a Fire Island condo with a live-in “design partner” and florist named Butch whose name and portrait are tattooed on your cousin’s chest, he’s not officially gay to his mother until he’s said those words, and even then she’ll think he’s confused or in a phase for a while.
It’s really ironic: until you’ve told your conservative Southern mom you’re gay, you do not know how to make a woman scream your name all night.
We’ve got a friend who is gay. Actually, we’ve got quite a few gay friends from various countries who are part of my wife’s group of friends. One of the friends is a 32-year-old guy from Australia, and when I was introduced to him, without anyone saying anything, then mentally I put him in the gay category. We’ve joked that one of the fun things about being in a mixed gay and not group is guessing the preference of friends of friends who are invited to various activities.
We’ve been wrong before, like when two guys, a German and an Irish designer showed up together at a birthday party. Some people thought that they were a couple and others not. Turns out they weren’t. It’s not that this is all we do, sit around discussing sexual preferences and everyone, gay or straight, participates, so it’s just done in fun.
Anyone, this guy from Australia seems really gay, not only to me, but to everyone in the whole group. My wife gives me shit about it, so I asked her what she thinks and she says, “well, he says he’s not gay.” Which is true. He says that he’s not gay, and has claimed unseen girlfriends in the past.
One night we were out drinking and our extremely direct friend, a part time bar tender at a gay bar while he’s finishing his PhD, cornered the guy and told him to just come out of the closet already. He denied again being gay, but I really won’t be surprised that he’ll tell us one day.
Anyway, if some people don’t accept it at 32 (which we can’t really say about this friend, since he could actually be straight, but there are people who are still closeted in their 30s, it’s got to be that much harder at 15 to accept.
I would expect a 37 year-old to be mature enough to deal with being “attacked” about music preferences without making a disparaging remark about a teenager. I had a teenage nephew who was talking trash about gays. I asked him never to do it at my house again which gave him the confidence to honor me as the first person in the family he told he was gay. We talked a lot about how to approach the other family members. I guess what I’m saying is I think you missed a “teaching moment” and an opportunity to be a mentor.
He may have been testing the reactions of the people around him. I know that, as a teen, I would watch how folks reacted to statements that I felt uncomfortable with, to figure out who might be an “ally”. Well, in this context, outing your cousin (if he is gay) probably set him so far back in the closet that he’ll have a tough time finding the door again. You made it an attack, and made him lose face, and caused him to not trust you. For a 15 year old, this is worse than anything.
I would have asked him to watch his language, as he would have been insulting me. You could have said he was insulting people who are important to you. Then you might be a future ally.
(ETA: Yeah! See the above post, which speaks more eloquently than this one…)
Fair enough. I’m not sure if it matters much after the fact but most of my hostility was stemming from the fact (the point I was trying to make) that being gay wasn’t such a horrible thing.
They were acting as if it was. Hence the arguement that only a rock star could be gay. Even if it was said in a joking manner.
You were wrong. And no matter how obvious it may seem to you, I’ve known men who appeared very effiminate, and at least live a straight life. It’s not your place to make assumptions and spout them off in front of people, meanwhile attacking a child. If he’s gay and makes the decision to tell his family, that’s his choice, not yours.
You’re 37 and you felt you had to defend yourself against a verbal assault by a 15 year old, not even directed specifically against you? That’s pretty lame and out of line.
And you could have done better… "You study ballet and wear pink tennis shoes. I assumed you’re gay, not that there’s anything wrong with that. So this gay bashing language, coming from you, is a big surprise to me. "
I don’t think you did anything that wrong Shakes. Your cousin was a being a twit and he needed to be taken down a peg, even if what he did is “socially acceptable”. Fifteen isn’t too young to have a mirror held up to you.
(I’m drawing a weird parallel between this 15-year-old and the one being talked about in GD. Verbal barbs can be just as reflexive as a punching someone in the face, if the provocation is obnoxious enough. Doesn’t matter if it’s a 15-year-old or a 50-year-old. Though, I don’t think “fag lover” is all that provocative or that “you look quite androgynous yourself, mister!” is all that serious a barb.)
To smooth things over with him, I’d have a private conversation with him and just say, “Look, dude. About the other day. I hope we can still be cool. Both of us said things we probably wish we could take back. But you need to know that gay-bashing ain’t cool. When you spout off about “fags” and “fag lovers”, you look stupid. I don’t want my little cuz to look that way, you know?”
Maybe this will open up a dialogue or something. Or least let your cousin know that if he is gay, he’ll have at least one ally in the family when he comes out.
