My parent’s homophobia gets to me because I think someone’s sexuality is such a non-issue for others to concern themselves with, much less attempt to control/oppress.

Pea, I’m sure you’re brother will realize once he gets a bit older! And kudos to your mom – her support is important.

Nio, that’s why I’ve turned out like I have. Our families certainly set examples for us.

Though our experiences in terms of religion and growing up are different, i hear ya when it comes to certain pressures to adopt the beliefs held by the rents. My dad, who i think realizes his own supreme hypocrisy in calling himself a Christian, isn’t so critical anymore but my grandma prods me to go to church and, unbelievably, to actively seek out the daughter of a pastor for marriage.

One of her friends had said her husband was worried about their son, who is about 7 and is fond of cooking and baking. The husband is worried that too much exposure to such “feminine work” will make him gay. I asked my mother what she said. She said not to worry about it, “unless he’s 11 and still wants to wear an apron. Then, he needs to be re-directed.”

When I was a kid, I liked watching stuff go on in the kitchen when usually my mom would prepare food because to me it was just interesting to see how stuff worked. My uncle used to tell me all the time the same thing that that husband suggests: “you stay in here too long ..you’ll be like a woman.” He had some messed up ideas about “manhood” and masculinity. Also when I was a kid, the same uncle instructed me to carry a flaming BBQ grill from one spot to the next just “to see if you were man enough.” Now that I really think about it, I think he actually slipped in the homophobia along with the misogyny. usually just an assortment of “gay” and “sissy” and “momma’s boy” comments. I guess the homophobia wasn’t as pronounced becase just the possibility of homosexuality was so unheard of in my family’s specific ethnic community that it was dismissed as, pretty much, an impossibility.