Some LGBT people think being gay has something to do with the background you were brought up in, which parent you were closer to, and more distanced from. Others, like myself, believe it's not something that can be influenced by upbringing, and that we're simply born gay.
I believe that it's important for a child to express their true identity, play with the toys they want to play with, and dress the way they want to dress, even if it's not considered "normal" of their sex.
Today, whilst at work at the daycare center, I got very annoyed.
A white, German adoptive mother of a black child, age 4, (if that has any relevance to you) came to pick him up at the end of the day. Around his head, he was wearing a deflated, red, modelling balloon (the sort clowns make balloon animals out of) as a headband which he had been happily running about and having fun in for the best part of 4 hours prior to his mother's arrival. Clearly, it didn't bother me in the slightest and it didn't even cause my three colleagues and I to bat an eyelid. However, when his mother turned up it was a different story altogether.
When she arrived, she opened the door, took a look at a drawing he did which he ran up to show her, and then she asked us what was around his head. My Gabonese colleague simply said it was a balloon which he'd made a headband out of and it didn't seem to please the mother too much. Immediately, she scorned at him and started clawing it off his head, raising her voice to say "take that off immediately, it's very girly". At this point, I bulged my eyes in disbelief and left the room to tidy up some coloring pens. "Oh my God" I told myself, "I hate that".
For professional reasons, I clearly couldn't start giving a lesson to the mother about acceptance, so I had to keep my mouth shut, but I couldn't help but hear a tone in her voice which disapproved of the headband because it might turn him gay. This really surprised me. Is this popular opinion? Are headbands gay? In doubt, I checked with Google, which doesn't really seem to think so either.
Some of you may remember the case of the 2 year-old boy who wore a pink headband to Walmart and got insulted by other customers last August. It went viral on the Huffington Post, probably because it shocked people to think a 2 year-old could be attacked in a supermarket for a non-gender conforming item of clothing. He got called a "f*cking fa***t" by a fellow customer who also told him he'd "thank him one day". In this case the headband was pink, and in my case it was red, but apparently the colour doesn't have a lot to do with it.
I felt sorry for the poor kid and couldn't help but imagine what his life would be like if he turned out to be gay one day.
What do you think? Do you consider headbands to "be gay"? Let us know in the comments below.
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