One mother shared the disheartening story of her 11-year-old son losing a friend because he’s gay.
Lori Duron acted as a guest writer for the Huffington Post and shared the story of her 11-year-old son C.J.
Lori shared that her son C.J. used to have a best friend named Allie. Together, the kids bonded over make-up and talking about cute boys.
But things changed after Allie’s parents got mad at her reading Lori’s blog, which discusses gender non-conformity, and attended his birthday party attended by other gay people.
Then a few days ago, C.J. told his mother on the drive home from school that the two weren’t friends anymore.
“She just said it. She said her family doesn’t hang out with gay people, so she can’t hang out with me. She says I’m the only gay person she knows, and she doesn’t want to know me. She says that all of our friends will be her friends now because she is more popular than I am.”
As C.J.’s mother put together, Allie’s family were ok with C.J. being what she calls gender-creative, but they aren’t ok with him being gay.
If some of you think C.J. is too young to call himself gay, Lori says that he has the right to say, or not say, whatever he wants about his own sexuality.
“At this point in his life, C.J. doesn’t talk much about his sexual orientation. He’s not yet a romantic or sexual being; he’s an 11-year old boy with lots of time to figure out who he is attracted to while having our unconditional love and support. When he does talk about it, sometimes he says he’s gay. Sometimes he says he’s half gay and half bisexual. Sometimes he says, ‘I’m just me!”
As flexible and understanding as C.J. and Lori both are about his sexuality and self-expression, the loss of a friend took a major hit on C.J.’s psyche and Lori’s parenting.
Having a sad and confused child is always hard, but having to address issues of homophobia proved to be the hardest task yet for Lori Duron.
You can read more about how she handled the situation and how C.J. is doing by reading the article at the Huffington Post.
