My best friend thinks gays are the product of a traumatic childhood?

Ignorance · Feb 9, 2014

So, there's this girl who is my best friend. Let's call her Amy.
About a year ago, when I was still closeted and a bit confused about my sexuality, I was telling my friends about how my female cousin wanted to inscribe her baby boy to ballet classes when he grew older, but her husband wouldn't let her because "he'd end up gay".
I was about to tell them how I thought my cousin's husband reaction was absurd, when Amy said "Well, he's clearly right". I asked her how was he right, as people don't turn gay by doing ballet, but rather are born this way, and she told me she didn't think that way. I asked her which was her theory on homosexuality, and she said, "Well, based on psychologic studies, if for example your parents argued a lot, or you were missing a parental figure as you were growing up, you may end up traumatized. If your parents argued too much, you must have thought you didn't want a relationship like that, and became gay.If you didn't have a father figure, you may have become gay because of that."
I told her, with some sarcasm, "Oh, so if you're an orphan, you're asexual because you didn't have parental figures?" And to my surprise, she answered yes.
So, I told her about scientific studies that suggested that homosexuality may be caused by the exposure of certain hormones on the womb, but Amy said "Well, I'm stuborn, and I believe that science can't explain everything, and it obviously can't explain this".
We go on with this debate for a couple of days, Amy thinking it was nothing but an amuzing debate of an unimportant thopic, and me trying not to show that it was actually important to me. One of my friends changed her view on homosexuality because of this debate, and she went from thinking like Amy to thinking that being gay was something you were born with, and that it was ok to be gay. Other friend backed me up on this debate, also. However, I gave up on Amy after she said that Freud backed up her theories, but then admited she didn't know a thing about Freud when I asked her what she knew about the freudian theories of human sexuality.
When I came out to her, a year later, she told me that she wasn't going to hit me (She's big and quite violent, she once almost broke a guy's arm because he took her hair clip) and warned me to never be with another girl in her presence, and that was it. Me being a lesbian was never mentioned afterwards.
I had the hope that she would have changed her point of view on homosexuality after my coming out, but she didn't. She still says things like "My dad told me no to refer to gay people as 'that gay', but rather use their name, because he says people should be remembered by their actions, but I think that the only thing they do is being gay", or for example, I was telling her about 'United States of Tara', and when I told her that the son is gay, she said "Well, he's by far the most traumatized".
What should I do? I know people has the right to believe whatever they want, and I'm ok with that. Maybe I'm wrong for wanting her to think the same way as I do, but it hurts to know that my best friend thinks of me as some traumatized kid that does nothing but being gay. Being still closeted to most of the world, I have to put on with homophobia on daily bases, and have to look away when people tells me how gays disgusts them. I want my friends to be that place in the real world where I still feel accepted, and out of the four friends that I've come out to, she's the only one that thinks this way.
We used to be so close. Should I confront her about what she thinks of me now? How can I make her understand that her opinion is actually important to me?
I'm really sorry that this is so long. Sorry if I bored you!

Mlpwoof · Feb 9, 2014

Well what I would do I would take to her about how I don't a appreciate your homophobia towards you and tell her to please stop. If she continues dont talk to her again you don't need people bringing you down for who you are. People like her only bake your life miserable and unhappy.

---------- Post added 9th Feb 2014 at 05:11 PM ----------

Talk to her*

---------- Post added 9th Feb 2014 at 05:11 PM ----------

My god dang speeding errors dumb spell check ):

Convoy · Feb 9, 2014

You can't win over ignorance sorry if I'm restating this, but that's something that you can't always win. Regardless of what happens people hate to reach conclusions themselves or they never will.

Anyways. A lot of gay and LGBTIQ and unidentified individuals (As well as others) have been traumatized in their childhood. A lot of NON LGBTIQ and unidentified individuals (IE: Straight people) have been traumatized in their childhoods and have sexual 'dysfunctions'.

These 'dysfunctions' are not the same thing as identifying as LGBTQI (Etc), and are not the same thing as gender expression and identification. Sometimes people associate them together, and sometimes they can result in misidentifying gender issues, however they are certainly not the same thing.

You really can't convince someone of this. You can't make someone read, they have to do it themselves. I've lost plenty of friends after coming out. It happens, unfortunately you may just have to let friendships fade away as you become more open and conformable with yourself. Occasionally they will reach out and be ok with it, but not always.

I'm sorry this had to happen to you, however it's just a facet of life in a lot of places. I know almost nobody from my 'original' group of friends because they were all uncomfortable with my sexuality. So I had to leave them, because I just did not feel comfortable hiding a lifestyle that was important to me.

Not everything is sexual and it's not important for me to make a big deal of it everywhere, but in my personal life I like to be comfortable so sometimes I have to 'reduce' friendships. It's part of life, unfortunately.

Confronting her will only hurt yourself, I doubt anything will change. Sometimes space and time can help things and sometimes they fall apart.

Good luck, and (*hug*)

skiff · Feb 9, 2014

Ummm...

Beaver Cleaver wishes he had a childhood as good as mine.

Tom

resu · Feb 9, 2014

You need to be more direct with her and say that mental health has nothing to do with sexuality. The American Psychological Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder way back in 1973 precisely because peer-reviewed scientific research had shown homosexuality is not due to trauma or family environments:

The social, medical and legal approach to homosexuality ultimately led for its inclusion in the first and second publications of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). This served to conceptualize homosexuality as a mental disorder and further stigmatize homosexuality in society. However, the evolution in scientific study and empirical data from Kinsey, Evelyn Hooker and others confronted these beliefs, and by the 1970s psychiatrists and psychologists were radically altering their views on homosexuality. Tests such as the Rorschach, Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) indicated that homosexual men and women were not distinguishable from heterosexual men and women in functioning. These studies failed to support the previous assumptions that family dynamics, trauma and gender identity were factors in the development of sexual orientation. In light of the overwhelming data, as well as changing social norms, the Board of Directors for the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental disorder from the DSM in 1973.
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Homosexuality and psychology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You should say that in fact, the trauma gay kids experience are from other people saying homophobic comments that degrade their self-image and make them feel like freaks. This is precisely what she is doing to you when she makes such ignorant remarks. You should point out that homosexual kids are often more likely to commit suicide because of being in a homophobic environment.

Gay and lesbian youth who attempt suicide are disproportionately subject to anti-gay attitudes, often have fewer skills for coping with discrimination, isolation, and loneliness,[14][35] and were more likely to experience family rejection[36] than those who do not attempt suicide. Another study found that gay and bisexual youth who attempted suicide had more feminine gender roles,[37] adopted a non-heterosexual identity at a young age and were more likely than peers to report sexual abuse, drug abuse, and arrests for misconduct.[37] One study found that same-sex sexual behavior, but not homosexual attraction or homosexual identity, was significantly predictive of suicide among Norwegian adolescents.[38]
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Ignorance · Feb 9, 2014

Thank you all so much! You've helped me a lot.(*hug*)

stocking · Feb 9, 2014

I'm in the closet too and i have a homophobic friend at work in fact most of the people I work with are homophobic so I can't truly be myself and most of the time I have to sit back and take the comments and I hate it . because I feel so weak that i can't stand up for people like me because I'm scared of being outed .
I had a coworker tell me that he thinks if gay people can't change they should kill themselves because they are a waste . So i know how you feel . I think friends like that we don't need them and if I quit my job , I wouldn't talk to this person anymore . He constantly asks me if I have a cell phone and if I had one I wouldn't give my number and lie and say I didn't . Because who wants to be with hateful people like that when you can't bring your girlfriend around them and if you do you get hated for it plus they want you to hide that side of you and act like it doesn't exist .

Clay · Feb 9, 2014

Her theories are nonsense by the way.

No father figure? Gay due to lack of male role models. No mother figure? Gay due to no female interation. Two parents who got divorced? Gay due to broken childhood. Two parents who didn't get divorced? Gay due to them arguing all the time. Two parents who you grew up with in a loving household? The exception that breaks the rule.

AKTodd · Feb 9, 2014

Hmph. I certainly had a traumatic childhood. So did my six (yes, SIX) brothers and sisters. All of us have had various issues, but I'm the only one who's gay.

So much for your friend's theory.

Todd

My best friend thinks gays are the product of a traumatic childhood?

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My best friend thinks gays are the product of a traumatic childhood?

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