(UPDATE: The Psychological Association of the Philippines already issued its stance on parenting LGBT children. Read the statement here) Christine Bersola must have wondered what the fury from the LGBT community was all about. After the deluge of criticisms online from the Filipino LGBT community over her article on how parents should address so-called signs of homosexuality in their kids, she pleaded for understanding. In her tweets, she explained that she was merely quoting expert psychologists who were expressing their personal opinions on the issue. And what Bersola’s ‘experts’ said should be called for what they truly are – not insights founded on scientific evidence, but mere personal opinions, biased, sectarian opinions at that.
If we go by what the scientific community says about homosexuality, the content of Bersola’s article is quackery. Here, the Psychological Association of the Philippines, has already said that LGBT gender expressions and sexual orientations are normal variants of human sexuality. It needs no curing, and it doesn’t require any form of treatment. For PAP, anti-LGBT discriminatory attitudes and practices among psychologists violate the PAP’s Code of Ethics. (Read PAP’s position here.)
Don’t shoot the messenger, Bersola said, and as expected from a celebrity with great PR skills, she apologised. She must have thought that her personal perspective on the issue, which reminds parents to love the sinner and to hate the sin, is harmless enough. She said she has profound respect for gays. I wouldn’t be surprised if she decides to stop speaking on the issue and to just move on.
What is ironic is that in trying to expose telltale signs of homosexuality among children and to show how parents can cure them, Bersola revealed the dangers of homophobia and sexism among parents. Children whose gender expressions defy social norms have never caused harm, certainly not to themselves or their peers, or even to their own families. The notion that homosexuality is a pathological condition or a deviance that needs to be corrected has already been proven wrong by the same scientific community to which Bersola’s so-called experts belong.
What’s harmful is when parents accept using homophobia and stigma as part of their armory of acceptable and legitimate parenting skills. Homophobia in the family can lead to depression and low self-esteem, a cause of suicide among our youth. It pushes children to hide their sexuality, thus creating the perfect breeding ground for sexual abuse or risky sexual behaviour. When parents extol machismo as a way to straighten boys, they inadvertently give license to corporal punishment and physical abuse to keep boys strong, to ‘rough em up’ and prevent their descent to the path of effeminacy. When parents impose on girls to follow certain gender norms or a particular sexual orientation, they limit their children’s opportunities, or worse, they create a climate that tolerates corrective rape among lesbians.
Bersola might argue that she is simply thinking of what’s good for the child, that she only wants to uphold the Christian way of raising kids. Incidentally, that’s the same motivation that has driven parents to abuse children who, by virtue of the toys they play with, the color they favour, or the clothes they like to wear, are presumed to be sexual deviants. It makes the line between parental discipline and child abuse porous. How that line gets easily crossed by homophobic parents is something that many LGBTs are familiar with. Abuse in the hands of a homophobic parent is something that Edmund Padilla knows quite well – the 19-year old boy was scalded with boiling water by his own father, who admitted that he could’t accept another gay son. Our society tries to hide or tolerate cases of homophobia-related child abuse because many still believe that homosexuality is unacceptable, a condition that when displayed by children should alarm parents.
Bersola apologized, saying that she lacks knowledge of the politically correct language of the LGBT community. What she failed to grasp is that homophobic parenting is ethically wrong, and that abuse is abuse. It cannot be sweetened by any ‘acceptable’ terminology, not even when labelled as ‘Christian parenting’ or ‘Catholic parenting’ (which will offend Catholic and Christian parents who are more accepting). Bersola’s kind of parenting harms children, for which an apology should actually be done.
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I dared ask Bersola on twitter (thanks to Twitter and Facebook, we the 99% can finally cause inconvenience to the 1%) if she is willing to have a dialogue with the LGBT community. Of course she didn’t reply, but I hope she meets the pro-LGBT advocates in PAP – the team of Eric Manalastas, Chei Billedo, Ton Clemente, Margie Holmes.
xfullman 