Dear Prudence: My Wife Thinks Our Gay Son Can Date Straight Guys If...

[minoanmiss]

This one is a doozy, utterly fake, or maybe a mix.



Gay son or trans daughter: Our teenage son came out as gay. He does not have a boyfriend, and due to the pandemic, we would have discouraged intimate relationships regardless.

However, my wife now wants him to become a girl, so that when he’s ready, he can date straight guys. She says she’s worried about STDs, which she thinks are a much greater risk for gays. She even wants me to dress as a woman, as an example for our son. She showed me dress designs and various feminization activities. Crossdressing actually does sound fun, but this seems like a very bad reason to do so. Do I need to shut this down?

Yes, you need to shut this down. Please tell your wife not to say a word about this to your son. Present her with some kindergarten-level explanations of the difference between sexuality and gender identity and repeat them until they seem to sink in. Try to give her a basic lesson on why her homophobic beliefs don’t hold water, and end with some general principles about how parents don’t get to decide about anything related to relationships for their children. When you think she’s somewhat up to speed on being a reasonable person in 2021, you can take a step back and think about the fact that she very clearly wants you to cross dress and you seem interested too. Good for the two of you. Enjoy. Focus on that and let your kid live his life while you live yours.

Comments

[lemonsharks]

Oh my god there's no way this can be real, right? Right?

... Right??

[purlewe]

CHEESE AND RICE THIS IS AWFUL

[conuly]

Well... I suppose it could be real, but nevertheless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6yQOs93Cgg

[xenacryst]

I say this as a transfem nonbinary genderqueer oddball:

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

Look, ma, our transfem identities are not your fucking playthings. We are not dolls clothes you can use to dress up your child in. Your son has told you what he is. FUCKING RESPECT THAT. Do not use kink, gender identity, cross dressing, or trans bodies to sort out your fucked up sense of order - you are playing with fire, and you will get burned, and you'll likely burn everything in your path, too, including your son and your spouse. FUCKING STOP.

GAH. Wow. I haven't been this angry in a while. I sincerely hope this was a fake, because. Ugh. Damn. I need a fucking month long shower now.

LW, can you please take my rage and tell your spouse to STOP NOW? Shut that shit down.

[cynthia1960]

As the spouse of a transfemme nonbinary person, I am at your back ready to add my own repeating mortar fire of whoop-ass at the LW's spouse and the LW himself if he doesn't have his child's back.

Yeah, I hope this is fake too, but I'm afraid that there are folks out there who would be thinking this is reasonable. NO

[azurelunatic]

PrEP, people. It's a thing now. (PRe-Exposure Prophylaxis, for HIV.)

Also I am absolutely staggered by this woman's assumptions about the amount of less safe sex a gay guy would be having, vs. the amount of less safe sex that same person would be having as a girl.

[cereta]

Okay, I could write a fucking list of what's wrong, here, but how about this: lady, do not overwrite your son's identity with your clear feminization kink when you have a willing husband right there.

(OMGWTFWHY?)

[mommy]

This feels like someone took TERF talking points and just assumed they applied to real life. I really hope it's fake.

[laurajv]

yeah, I wonder if this was what I was seeing subtweeted a bunch today? Like the subtweeters, I disbelieve that there's a lot of people out there who are ok with their child being trans but not ok with them being gay. I'm all *narrows eyes* sounds like terf talk to me

[melannen]

That is actually something I wouldn't have been super surprised to see, oh, sixty years ago - there was definitely a time in living memory when it was more OK to be trans than gay, at least if you were the right kind of trans.

And even as late as the early 90s, I could see someone who was getting all their info about AIDS from mass media believing this was safer.

But in 2021 it makes no sense unless they have been living in a bottle for at least thirty years.

[ioplokon]

I believe there are people who would CLAIM this is the case but if their child were actually trans they would be all, why can't they just be gay. It's not that they're actually ok with either, it just gives them an out or some way to try to assert authority.

That said, I'm someone who tries to take all letters at face value, but I'm still like, hm...

[bikergeek]

I want to say that this is fake and too fucked up to be real, but there is no idea that is so fucked up that someone somewhere doesn't believe in it.

[cynthia1960]

+100

[kindkit]

Fake, I think. It's literally two transphobic tropes (parents "trans" their gay kids to make them straight, and feminization videos on the internet turn formerly cis men into trans women) mashed together.

I really wish whoever's writing as Prudie now had either called out these tropes, or not published the letter at all. Because every transphobe in the Anglophone world is going to be pointing at this and saying "See, it's all real! We told you so!"

[minoanmiss]

I am severely unimpressed with this Prudie.