The things we do to our kids

When you hear the phrase a dutiful boy what comes to mind? A boy who obeys every command of his Mom and Dad? Sure. One who also obeys the commands of his culture and religion? Possibly. What about a boy who obeys Mom, Dad, culture, and religion at the expense of himself? That last question describes Mohsin [“h” before “s” he reminds another] Zaidi in his book A Dutiful Boy, a memoir of secrets, lies and family love. He was born in England of parents born in Pakistan. They live northeast of London in a suburb with lots of other Paki families who are all Muslim. The secret is by age 13 he has figured out he is gay. He’s well aware that because of his religion his parents would be shamed by a gay son, especially by the eldest son on whom is laid a great deal of expectation – his parent left Pakistan to give him opportunity. And he should be the first to get married. He is assured Allah answers prayers, so he prays for a cure – though 11,000 prayers later he admits that isn’t working. That emotional upheaval happens while he is a student at Oxford University, which comes close to aborting that opportunity. It takes half the book for him to be tolerantly comfortable with himself and the rest of the book for his family to be comfortable with him and the life partner he found. He’s close to his mid thirties by then. The things we (and I mean mostly conservatives) do to our kids in the name of religion. Those kids are spiritually tortured and it takes a great deal of emotional work to recover – if they don’t commit suicide. For about a decade he is afraid that his mother might find out and then another decade after he tells her he treads carefully around her knowing how upset she is. He feels distant and unloved. Zaidi does a few things right. He doesn’t give up on his parents. When he reads a testimonial from a guy who has been through conversion therapy he understands that guy is lying to himself. He rejects his dad’s offer of a cure. He recognizes dating and marrying a woman would be unfair to her. And he finds a competent and insightful therapist. By the end (no, not a spoiler, see the subtitle and prologue) Zaidi is thriving and in love. And he is volunteering to help families like his avoid going through what he endured. I recommend this one. I have a vision of what his parents should have done – and, yes, I’m aware they would have had to step outside their religion and culture and would have had no thought to do so until their son came out. A couple years ago I read the story of a gay youth who wrote a letter to someone saying he is gay. His mother, perhaps mistakenly, intercepted the return letter. She put the letter on his bed. When he came home there was a bit of time between when he saw the opened letter and realized what that meant before his mom came to say she loved her gay son. But in that moment he felt terror. So here’s my vision: well before the child has a sexual awakening all parents say, “I love you. If you are attracted to men, I will love you. If you are attracted to women I will love you.” They can say the same kind of thing about being transgender to a much younger child. Zaidi went through a lot and, thankfully, came out the other side and is thriving with good self esteem and a great relationship between his parents and his lover. There are way too many LGBTQ kids who go through what Zaidi did and many of those don’t make it. And there are still way too many people pushing hard to make sure they don’t make it. About that last point... David Neiwert of Daily Kos has been describing militia groups who have been showing up at LGBTQ, especially drag, events to intimidate the audience or get the event shut down. Neiwert reported lately these stories are ending differently. RuPaul’s Drag Race is touring its show A Drag Queen Christmas and booked the Aztec Theatre in San Antonio, Texas. A Texas militia group and friends came to protest. Some of them brought guns. A significantly larger group of counterprotesters, came as well. And some of them had guns. When the militia saw the size of their opposition they weren’t interested in confrontation. That’s when the LGBTQ supporters turned to what we do best – they turned their show of support into a party. Four days later, A Drag Queen Christmas came to Grand Prairie, Texas. Again, militia groups were there, some wearing swastikas. Again they were badly outnumbered by the community defense crowd. The Idaho Liberty Dogs protested a performance of Drag Santa in Boise. Again, counterprotesters outnumbered them. This festive group added another feature – wings that shielded the militia from the audience. I remember wings being featured in the play The Laramie Project and the scene where the Westboro Baptist Church protested the funeral of Matthew Shepard. I’m glad to see they’re being used again. That play premiered in 2000 and there are videos of performances online. I saw it live and as a movie adaptation. I recommend it. The Liberty Dogs tried to spin their retreat as a stunt to force the “leftists” to freeze in the cold. Those even further to the right weren’t buying that excuse.