Can an 11-year-old be gay?

DEAR MARIANN: This past week, our 11-year-old son told us some chil­dren at school had called him “gay.” He is hurt that his class­mates are call­ing him this, but we are not even sure he knows the impli­ca­tions of this term. Our son seems so young and inno­cent to us. How do we han­dle this with him and with the school, with­out blow­ing it out of proportion?

MARIANN’S RESPONSE: The sce­nario you describe is heart­break­ing to me as a coun­selor and with­out doubt caus­ing you unspeak­able strife as his con­cerned and lov­ing par­ents. The sit­u­a­tion men­tioned could also be clas­si­fied as bul­ly­ing, which I have addressed in pre­vi­ous col­umn entries, specif­i­cally Sept. 14, 2012. Even though you may still con­sider your 11-year-old an ado­les­cent, the emo­tional scars of this sit­u­a­tion, if they remain unad­dressed, could be indeli­ble for a life­time, lead­ing to self-destructive behav­ior or even worse con­se­quences such as sui­cide, which is not an impos­si­bil­ity for some­one so young. Peer accep­tance is crit­i­cal to his age which leads to a healthy self-esteem and a more con­fi­dent adult. Being shunned or bul­lied dur­ing ado­les­cence is a mem­ory that could per­ma­nently impact his future if action does not occur to alle­vi­ate these poten­tial con­se­quences. Have you spo­ken with his teacher or prin­ci­pal? Would your son’s trans­fer to another class­room or an entirely dif­fer­ent school be an option? Is there some­thing he is doing or lack­ing in a spe­cific skill that is trig­ger­ing his being labeled as “gay” by peers?

Even though dreaded gym classes occurred for me many decades ago, I still remem­ber my per­sonal ostracism of being “last-picked” because I was not as coor­di­nated or con­fi­dent as the major­ity of my female class­mates. Also, I was quickly los­ing a bat­tle with deform­ing sco­l­io­sis which affected my bal­ance, coor­di­na­tion and over-all ath­letic abil­i­ties, mak­ing me quite oppo­site of the pop­u­lar cheer­lead­ers who were inevitably “picked first” when being selected for a team.

Could your son be one of these “late bloomers” for ath­let­ics and might ben­e­fit from some indi­vid­u­al­ized coach­ing to improve his coor­di­na­tion and phys­i­cal skills?

Our local and newly-built YMCA on Houk Road has a gamut of classes for some­one his age that could take the pres­sure off from hav­ing to “per­form” in front of his peers at school and give him increased con­fi­dence not just in ath­let­ics but for life. Elic­it­ing some “out­side help” might lessen the pres­sure in gym class and by show­ing mas­tery of some new ath­letic tal­ents could be what your son needs to be accepted into a group that once shunned him.

And finally, even though I get the sense you think he is too young to under­stand the term “gay,” this might be the appro­pri­ate time to dis­cuss this sub­ject and other “birds and bees” top­ics since he will soon be a teenager. Is he more com­fort­able with other boys his age play­ing sports or would he rather be with girl class­mates par­tic­i­pat­ing in their gender-specific activ­i­ties? Let­ting him talk about what he enjoys doing and with whom he best relates with­out your parental judg­ment is essential.

If he men­tions “want­ing to be a girl” this issue goes much deeper than just poten­tially being “gay” or ath­let­i­cally uncoordinated.

A child with gen­der iden­tity issues faces many chal­lenges since they feel more com­fort­able dress­ing and relat­ing to chil­dren of their oppo­site sex. Find­ing a qual­i­fied coun­selor who has train­ing in this area is essen­tial. Con­tact­ing the Gay, Les­bian and Straight Edu­ca­tion Net­work or “GLSEN” might be a start­ing point. Also the Fam­ily Accep­tance Project or the Trevor Project are two other good resources if your son con­fides that he truly has gen­der iden­tity issues ver­sus just feel­ing bullied.

Mar­i­ann Main is a Licensed Coun­selor and a Delaware native. Her col­umn appears weekly on Sat­ur­days. To sub­mit a ques­tion and have Mar­i­ann answer it anony­mously, visit delgazette.com/life-questions-with-local-answers or send mail to the Delaware Gazette office, 40 N. San­dusky St., suite 203, Delaware, OH 43015.

Posted by Mariann Main on Dec 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.