Raising a tomboy isn’t always easy in a world where little girls are pushed to like pink. Just take it from one mom who wrote to the "Care and Feeding" advice column with a tricky little problem concerning her daughter, who’s starting to get teased for playing softball and the other kids are calling her “gay.” Of course, there’s nothing wrong with her if she is gay, but the mom is starting to worry that her daughter is getting just a bit too defensive when other kids call her names.
“This is such a silly question, but I need another perspective,” she explained in her letter.
According to the Letter Writer, her daughter has been playing softball “since she was big enough to hold a bat.”
“She started eighth grade this year, and kids have taken to bullying rhetoric and asking her if she’s a lesbian when they find out she plays softball,” the mom continued, causing her daughter to get “defensive” and “dismiss the idea of being gay out of the gate.”
The mom wrote that she understood this was a “learned response.”
She shared that her daughter “should be able to state that she’s not gay without being labeled homophobic,” but her “knee-jerk” response to getting called gay and how “insulted” her daughter seems when it happens is making her worry.
“We’ve brought her up to respect and accept everyone, and it’s never come up before that she doesn’t want to be associated with any group,” she explained. “But she’s growing and developing her own values, and being insulted by these assumptions seems to be something we should nip in the bud, right?”
She’s tried to have “open” conversations with her daughter about the situation.
“I’ve also tried sharing how when I was young anything outside of femininity was suspicious, and I had to work on understanding that being a lesbian is in no way an insult, but she only starts ranting about how she doesn’t want to be seen as gay,” she recalled.
That is why she wrote to the column, looking for a “better way” to get through to her daughter “or do I need to calm down and let her be mad about assumptions without making it about other marginalized groups?” she asked.
Many people in the comments section thought the LW was actually in the wrong for not taking her daughter's bullying seriously.
"The other kids aren't asking the LW's daughter if she's gay in respectful voices. They aren't politely curious. They are sneering at her and bullying her," one commenter wrote. "They want to demean her and insult her. It doesn't really matter what the sneer is focused on. It's the intent and the tone. They want to make her feel bad about playing softball. Isn't that kind of obvious?"
"It's easy for an adult to tell a kid not to take offense, but the issue is not so much that she's being called gay as much as it is the bullying," someone else agreed. "These guys aren't just making an honest mistake. They're disparaging this girl. That needs to be addressed by school administrators. Those guys are likely gonna give actual gay kids an even harder time than they're giving the LW's daughter."
"Hate crime legislature frequently specifies that the person was targeted based on 'real or perceived' race or orientation. So right now, your straight daughter is a victim of homophobic bullying, because she is being bullied over her perceived/assumed sexual orientation," another commenter chimed in. "It doesn't matter what her sexual orientation actually is. That's not relevant to the situation."
A few other people thought there was something else going on.
"'I had to work on understanding that being a lesbian is in no way an insult, but she only starts ranting about how she doesn’t want to be seen as gay.' Ask her to really think about it for a little while. Ask her 'Let's say for argument that you are gay even if you aren't. Can you tell me what would be so awful about that?'" one commenter advised.
"Re: Bullied softball daughter: Has LW considered the fact that their daughter may in fact be struggling with same sex attraction!?" another person wondered. "At that age, any sort of romantic or physical attraction can be excruciating and being called out for it — rightly or wrongly — is hard!! Maybe have an open ended conversation about that aspect? Even the most straight identifying person can develop a same-sex crush."
Columnist Doyin Richards told the mom that her question wasn't "silly" at all.
As Richards explained in his response, he himself was "bullied mercilessly" growing up and "it was mostly due to being too sensitive."
"There were times I used to cry on the basketball court as a middle-schooler, and you don’t have to dive too deep into your imagination to figure out what names I was called because of it," he added.
He advised the mom to again teach her daughter that being called a lesbian isn't an insult.
But he did sympathize with the middle schooler, who was undeniably the target of some pretty harsh judgment.
"As a Black man, I understand all too well that people make snap judgments about me due to things I can’t control," he explained. "They think I’m uneducated, they think I’m a threat, they think I can’t possibly afford to live in my predominately white neighborhood.
"At first it really upset me, but after a while I realized that I can’t control what ignorant people will think of me, so I focus on being the best version of myself instead."
He told the mom to remind her daughter that the people in her life who really matter "will always be in her corner no matter what."
Richards advised against going on a campaign to prove that her daughter is straight as "all that does is provide more red meat to the bullies."
"Additionally, I think she should speak to the school’s administrators if the bullying crosses the line to the point where she feels unsafe physically or psychologically," he added. "Hopefully this will serve as a blip on her radar as she continues playing the sport that she loves."
