{"id":27674,"date":"2016-01-05T10:58:50","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T14:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=27674"},"modified":"2016-01-05T11:07:40","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T15:07:40","slug":"why-public-speculation-about-the-duggar-childrens-sexuality-should-be-off-limits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/01\/why-public-speculation-about-the-duggar-childrens-sexuality-should-be-off-limits.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Public Speculation about the Duggar Children’s Sexuality Should Be Off Limits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

When Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar signed on with TLC, they put their family before the public\u00a0as a form of entertainment, and that is how many Americans seem to view the Duggars\u2014as entertainment. I\u2019m not surprised, then, to see people publicly speculating about the Duggar children\u2019s sexuality, but I am<\/em> concerned. To be clear, I\u2019m not talking about noting that the odds are one of the Duggar\u00a0kids is going to be gay. I\u2019m talking about public speculation about the sexual orientation\u00a0of individual<\/em>\u00a0Duggar children. I\u2019ve seen fans and critics alike analyze individual Duggar\u00a0children\u2019s\u00a0dress, bearing, and other details looking for indications that this one or that may be gay, and then gleefully trumpeting\u00a0their findings.<\/p>\n

There are some very serious problems with public speculation about the sexual orientation\u00a0of individual Duggar children, particularly\u00a0those still living at home\u00a0(whether or not they are minors). First, while Jim Bob and Michelle chose to sign with TLC, thrusting their family into the public eye, their children have never had a choice in the matter. Second, while it may not be obvious at first glance, speculating about the Duggar children\u2019s sexuality is actively dangerous<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a teenage child growing up in a fundamentalist Christian homeschooling household. Imagine, now, that there are rumors circulating that you are gay, rumors based on your appearance or bearing, or your interests or\u00a0likes. Think for a moment about how such rumors would impact you\u2014because you better believe they would. These\u00a0rumors might make your\u00a0local homeschool and church community standoffish and suspicious, and they would certainly lead your\u00a0parents to\u00a0crack down on any sign of failure to toe the party line.<\/p>\n

Your every move would be\u00a0scrutinized.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This is not idle speculation on my part, either. I know of homeschool alumni who experienced exactly what I described above. As rumors\u00a0swirled in their communities, or as their parents became concerned that they might be showing gay tendencies, they faced consequences\u2014whether or not they were in fact\u00a0gay. They were shunned by their\u00a0communities, or had their parents treat them with suspicion and quick judgement or even try to \u201ccure\u201d them of their tendencies. Speculation about a fundamentalist child\u2019s sexual identity isn\u2019t just harmful, it can be outright dangerous<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Roughly\u00a040% of homeless teenagers are gay. Where do you think all those gay homeless teens came from, exactly? There are fundamentalist Christian families out there who respond to having a gay child very very<\/em> badly. Remember Leelah Alcorn<\/a>, the transgender teen who walked in front of a truck a\u00a0year ago? Her parents were fundamentalist Christians whose efforts to \u201ccure\u201d their daughter\u2019s\u00a0gender identity ultimately led to her death. There are other stories too.\u00a0Homeschool alumni Susie writes this<\/a> of coming out to her parents:<\/p>\n

After a few weeks of gay therapy, I was still gay so my parents did the unthinkable. They both, in my opinion, totally slipped over the edge of reason. I had gone to my therapy appointment and when I came home, as I was pulling in the driveway I realized my driver\u2019s license was not in the console of the car where I usually kept it. So I went inside and asked my mom if she knew where my driver\u2019s license was. Long story short, in an effort to \u201cprotect me from myself,\u201d my dad had taken my driver\u2019s license, passport, social security card, birth certificate, credit card and debit card and put them all in a safety deposit box at the bank. I had no legal identity!<\/p>\n

I am trying to share enough details to paint the picture, without boring you. So I am going to cut to the chase.<\/p>\n

My mom ended up driving me two hours away, in my car, with some of my things and dropped me off with $7 to my name. Tough love is what they called it.<\/strong>\u00a0I was lucky enough that a friend had a house with two of his friends and they let me stay in an open room. I had no bed, just a pillow and a sleeping bag with some clothes. I didn\u2019t even have a blanket.<\/p>\n

Tough love.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Leelah\u00a0and Susie both chose to come out to their parents, on their own timing. Engaging in public speculation about the sexuality of\u00a0children living in fundamentalist Christian homes risks forcing those children\u2019s hands, which, again, is actively dangerous<\/em>.\u00a0Being a gay teen in a fundamentalist Christian home is a risky proposition even\u00a0without<\/em>\u00a0having to worry about public speculation forcing you out of the closet, especially<\/em> when the consequences can be astronomically high.<\/p>\n

But wait, you say! Speculation about the Duggar children\u2019s sexuality will\u00a0never actually get back to the Duggars themselves! This is not at all clear to me. It\u2019s fairly clear that the Duggars follow what the media says about them. After the news broke that Josh Duggar had molested four of his sisters as a teen, the girls themselves spoke of feeling re-victimized by the media. The Duggar children still living in the home do have internet access, albeit with certain restrictions. And even if such rumors never make it to the kids themselves, the same is unlikely to be true for the Duggar parents\u2014or for others in their communities.<\/p>\n

Perhaps you would still argue that the Duggars signed on for this when they signed with TLC? Public speculation about your personal life is just one more consequence of leading a public life, yes? First, let me repeat, again, that the Duggar children didn\u2019t have a choice in the matter. And second, do you truly care more about your \u201cright\u201d to publicly snark and speculate about the Duggars than you do about the Duggar children\u2019s safety or autonomy? I certainly don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Yes<\/em>, it is likely, given the sheer number of Duggar children, that one of them is gay. But we need to give that\u00a0child the space they need to decide when and how to come out, on their own<\/em> terms, and without having to worry about\u00a0public speculation about their sexual orientation. This isn\u2019t just about privacy, though it is about that as well. This is also about basic personal safety. Growing up gay in a fundamentalist home is hard enough without the risk of\u00a0being forced out of the closet by rumors fed or created by public speculation. As homeschool alumni Andrew Roblyer\u00a0put it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I often equate growing up gay to growing up in a warzone, where bombs fall all around you day after day after day.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong> Eventually the abject terror you feel when one lands nearby fades into a constant clenching in your stomach that you don\u2019t even realize, because while you can\u2019t entirely relax, you can\u2019t afford to run at full alert at all times.\u00a0 I saw and heard so many gay people attacked and condemned by the people I grew up with that my stomach was perpetually clenched, terrified that their rhetoric and doctrine would be used to attack me if they ever found out.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How can we make things better for children like Roblyer? And, presuming that at least one of the Duggar children is gay, what can we do to support that child?<\/p>\n

To begin with, we can stop making\u00a0children\u2019s sexual identities\u00a0a thing of snark or speculation or a \u201cgotcha\u201d against fundamentalist Christian parents\u00a0and instead demonstrate our support for LGBTQ youth wherever they are found (and that includes respect for their self-determination of when and how to come out). We can prove ourselves safe people by being<\/em> safe people. And while we\u2019re at it, we can deconstruct myths about homosexuality or queer identities and criticize the Duggar parents\u2019 anti-gay rhetoric without<\/em> putting their children in the firing line.<\/p>\n

If we care at all about the safety and wellbeing of the\u00a0Duggar children, and not just about the entertainment value they provide, we need to end public speculation about whether this or that one may be gay.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar signed on with TLC, they put their family before the public as a form of entertainment, and that is how many Americans seem to view the Duggars—as entertainment. I’m not surprised, then, to see people publicly speculating about the Duggar children’s sexuality, but I am concerned. To be clear, I’m not talking about noting that the odds are one of the Duggar kids is going to be gay. I’m talking about public speculation about the sexual orientation of individual Duggar children. I’ve seen fans and critics alike analyze individual Duggar children’s dress, bearing, and other details looking for indications that this one or that may be gay, and then gleefully trumpeting their findings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[398,110,158],"class_list":["post-27674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","tag-duggars","tag-lgbtq","tag-the-duggars"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Public Speculation about the Duggar Children's Sexuality Should Be Off Limits<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar signed on with TLC, they put their family before the public as a form of entertainment, and that is how many Americans seem to view the Duggars---as entertainment. 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