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Wouldn’t it be nice if everybody had to come out? Thoughts on Raising my Rainbow.

I just finished reading Raising My Rainbow: Adventures in Raising a Fabulous, Gender Creative Son, by Lori Duron. She chronicles her experiences raising her youngest son, CJ, who, despite being a boy, loves all things Barbie, pink, and fabulous.

He abhors boy things.

The book is really fantastic – in part because she does not neglect her older son, Chase, who is a boy’s boy: Lego, sport, and whatever else boys are supposed to like. Lori takes pains to point out that it wasn’t just Mom and Dad struggling to cope with CJ’s pink-tutu wearing ways, but that Chase was bullied because of his younger brother’s proclivities. She details how she used the system to deal with the problem.

I was actually familiar with CJ and his family because I occasionally read the underlying blog, Raising my Rainbow, so I knew what to expect in terms of writing style and engagement levels: the book is a fast read – and I finished it in no time.

But that’s not what got me to think deeply and pose the question above, wouldn’t it be nice if everybody had to come out?

That came about because of The Thinking Housewife – a conservative blogger who may, or may not, be a stay at home Mom. I read The Thinking Housewife because it amuses me endlessly – I love reading conservatives who have their panties in bunch about the US’s high speed train to hell, whether it’s talking about interracial mixing, the Pope not being Catholic, or gays thinking that they have rights.

Lori inadvertently caught the attention of Karl D, a regular reader of The Thinking Housewife, when Lori revealed in a Huffington Post essay, that Chase, CJ’s older brother, was forced to come out to Mom and Dad as straight:

I’m careful how I phrase things. I ask my oldest son Chase if he thinks anybody in his class is cute. I leave it open so that he can answer honestly.

For years that’s how we’ve been raising our sons. We make no assumptions about their sexuality, in an attempt to avoid a coming-out process. We always act like a gay person is in the room, just like we always act like a straight person is in the room.

Then, a few months ago, Chase felt the need to come out to me… as straight.

We were talking when he mentioned that one of his buddies and a girl from their class were dating. I asked if he was attracted to anyone at school.

“Mom, I’m straight,” he said. “It’s time you faced the facts.”

“What?” I was shocked by his directness.

“I know what you’re doing,” he continued. “You always leave it open, like I could be gay. But I’m not.”

Honestly, this is where I went from liking Lori to adoring Lori. It is so fantastic that Mom and Dad made no assumptions about sexuality, even using gender-neutral terms when questioning her sons.

It’s also the point on which The Thinking Housewife’s readers go insane – well, first they frame the issue: “Lori Duron, a young mother who has made a living writing, blogging and bragging about raising her two sons in a gender-neutral atmosphere,” before going insane:

She is so obsessed with “being open” that her own son seems to feel like his mother thought he should embrace homosexuality.

Or

Keep in mind that it is very easy to see that this woman NEVER wanted to raise “straight” children to begin with and that is why we can see her homo-chauvinist, religion-like obsession with raising any child (boy or girl) she gave birth to as “homosexual” and “gender-confused!!!!”

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is also how gay and lesbian so-called “parents” raise “their” pets (children) as well because they also don’t like the idea of adopting “born straight” children either!!!!

When I read stuff like this I cannot help but wonder how one gets this kind of worldview? Why is being open so bad? Why not go with what your kids want to do?

But then I realize that these asshole are probably raising the next generation of self-loathing closeted Republicans.

And I wonder how they would respond to Dan Savage talking about how his son came out as straight:

I bet their heads would explode.

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