And What About A Triangle?

If I say to you, “A rectangle is not always a square.” do you understand the logic in that statement? One can say that a square is always a rectangle. However, it is wrong to flip the logic and make the claim that a rectangle is always a square. It is imperative you understand this bit of logic before moving on.

This is a picture of me dressed to the nines for Halloween in third or fourth grade, I believe. That would make me eight or nine years old. I was always very envious of my sister’s chest of dress up clothes. I loved that black dress. It was a cocktail dress of my grandmother’s and had a silky lining and lots of crinolines. The wig was one of my mother’s from an age where women wore wigs in order to have different looks. I remember thinking that this would be an awesome excuse to dress up and show off.

Studies have shown that a significant percentage of gay men incorporate cross dressing into their play as children. However, just as with the squares and rectangles, one should not flip the concepts and assume the logic holds. There isn’t a similar strong link showing that boys who’s play includes cross dressing grow up to be gay men-not that there’s anything wrong with that. (sorry, Seinfeld humor)

Mad Priest shared a link on his blog today concerning this little boy who last Halloween chose to dress up as Daphne from Scooby Doo. I encourage you to follow the links and read this kid’s story before continuing.

For the moment I am most concerned with the reactions of the mothers.

I have no memory of my mom’s reaction to my decision to dress up for Halloween that year. I do have a wonderful memory of her greatly enjoying helping me get dressed up. If she had any reservations or concerns up front, she did a wonderful job of keeping them to herself and helping her little boy with his costume.

I don’t recollect how it happened that my sister and I ended up trick or treating with my friend John. Some how or other we ended up back at his house and there was a delay in getting picked up to go home. I have a vivid memory of goofing around in the living room of their house doing somersaults in that black dress. I also have a very vivid memory of the intense disapproval radiating from John’s parents. They never said a word as far as I can remember, but I will never forget that feeling and the shame it generated in me.

This was not long after we had moved a mile or so away and it seems that my friendship to John waned about the same time. In hindsight I wonder now if he was soon forbidden to play with me after the Halloween incident. If that is what happened, such was the intense fear of any expression of effeminate behavior expressed in boys at that time.

However, as Boo’s story shows, such feelings are still very much alive even now.

There are important exceptions, however. I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Hockey is the sport of choice over Little League. Many, many of the residents own guns and look forward to hunting season. Our stereotypes of rural America would lead you to believe that gender roles are strictly enforced here.

Yet I worked with this wonderful nurse at the hospital. She has two daughters and her youngest is the only boy. This little guy grew up emulating his sisters and went through a very long dress up period in which he was fascinated with princess costumes, dresses, tutus, sparkly tiaras, etc. Michelle just let him play and did her best to keep her husband from freaking out entirely. We would have conversations about this at work and I strongly commended her on her instincts as a mother.

Now he is older and his fascination with girly attire has subsided. He plays hockey with the best of them. It would seem that once he entered school and expanded his social network to include other boys he transitioned to more conventional boy play. Is he gay? Only he will know the answer to that question for the present time. If he is, than it is likely that the cross dressing was an early expression of his sexuality. In any case, it most certainly was not the cause.

I am also reminded of a story about another nurse I worked with. She was moving and came to the house to collect some boxes. She had with her in the car her two boys and a nephew. Not long after leaving my house, she heard one of the boys call someone a fag. She stopped their conversation and challenged them with the question, “Do you know what that word means?” The boys were taken aback and replied rather quietly that it meant someone was gay. She pointed out to them that the friend of hers they had just met was gay so what was their point in using that word? It was an awesome teaching moment for those boys.

It’s not an easy job being a mom. Starting with Dr. Spock, we began to lump all the responsibility for how children turn out at the mother’s feet. That’s quite a load to carry. The truth is we are already very much shaped by the genetic code we carry. More and more we are finding that major aspects of our personalities are as much due to our genetics as to our environment. Further, our mothers are only one portion of our environment.

These moms - Boo’s mom, my mom, Michelle, and Lydia - represent to me the best of motherhood. Examples of mom’s who by their acceptance and love have shaped their children’s lives and guided them towards a better way of being. Kudos are likely due to the silent partners in these stories, the dad’s, who by keeping their reservations about their kids to themselves also played an important role in our development.

Peace.