'My 16-Year-Old Tells Me He's Gay. Is It ... A Side Effect of His Recent Brain Injury?'
That's a somewhat bizarre (and complex) question posed on Salon today. A lesbian mom in Texas wonders if her teenage son's constant coming out (he's done so several times) is real or the result of something else, something mysterious.
In a post titled "Why does my son keep coming out to me?" and subheaded "My 16-year-old tells me he's gay. Is it the truth, or a side effect of his recent brain injury?", Open Salon blogger Drema Dial wonders:
How many times will he come out to me? And is this really "coming out"? He has been asking both my partner and me questions, trying to figure out in his mind what it means to be gay or straight. He lives with me, my same-sex partner and his sister — three females. He does not have a positive relationship with his father but does have one with us. I suspect he sees in my partner and me a loving relationship; he does not have a good immediate model for a hetero relationship. He does not remember his father and me together (which was not a model relationship anyhow). So, as he comes out to me, I imagine he is trying to fit into the model that fits for him: a loving relationship with someone of the same sex. I wonder if his pronouncement is meant to show that he fits in with us, if he needs approval, or if it seems somehow that he should be gay.
In part, I wonder these things because he was a chick magnet before his accident. In part, I wonder because I am a prime example of the fluidity of sexuality, having been married to a man and then finding myself drawn to women.
Please read the whole thing and tell me what the heck this is. Is it just a concerned and open-minded (perhaps too open-minded, in some ways) mom working her way (very publicly) through a family tragedy, or is there some other weird thing at work here? Is it some bizarre concocted story, some accidental satire? It seems to be at least unwitting fodder for anti-gay internet fiends, as evidenced by a commenter:
Can anyone make sense of this for me, because I am feeling a whole Easter basket of emotions over this. Who's the one with the problem here?
