Three Pride Flags. Three Brave Tweens. One Scared Bigot.
In our queer-friendly neighborhood, I thought they were safe. I was wrong.
We live in a very liberal neighborhood, in a very liberal city.
My children have lived in this liberal blue bubble their whole lives. It’s the ideal place for parenting queer kids.
Their friends’ families have had two moms or two dads, or a mom who became a dad, and they’ve thought nothing of it.
Rainbow flags have festooned their schoolhouse walls their whole lives. We’ve grown up attending (and marching in) Pride parades.
The GSA is the biggest club at their middle school and both were members — one as an ally, and one as a genderfluid queer person.
My kids have attended more same-sex weddings than opposite-sex ones. In fact, when marriage was legalized — first in our state, then for the whole country — they shrugged. As much as I tried to underscore the historical significance, they just rolled their eyes at me (this happens a lot lately).
This is just the way things are, to them, and so this must be the way things have been and are to all, in their young minds.
Until two years ago, when my youngest learned that even our city isn’t a monolith of queer allies.
My child was in a rainbow phase.
When my child first came out as genderfluid, they got super into the Pride flags. Their artwork, bedroom walls, and wardrobe exploded with all the rainbows.
At their request, I purchased a few 3' by 5' rainbow flags; they were intended to hang in their bedroom, but mostly were used as dress-up capes.
And really, what’s the fun in wrapping oneself in a flag if no one sees you?
Pride Walks became a new pastime. My child would dress in their rainbow finery and we’d walk up to the neighborhood park, sometimes with friends. It was adorable and heartening to watch the people in our neighborhood cheer them on.
One day, my child had two new friends over, another sixth-grader (Evie*) and one seventh-grader (Scout*). All three were gender-curious and damn proud of it. They decided to each wear one of the capes — trans, lesbian, and the traditional rainbow ones, if memory serves — and to take a Pride Walk around the block. I was working from home and sent them off with a cheer. Go forth and be queer, children!
They tore outside, laughing.
I returned to work at my desk.
A short while later, I heard the basement door open and shut. This door has a code instead of a key, so my kids tend to use it to come and go. But the footfalls on the steps up sounded too fast, and I only heard one set of them. I looked up from my desk and my child ran into the room, sobbing and nearly breathless. All they could gasp was, “SCOTT!!!”
Oh shit.
I grabbed my phone and bolted out the front door.
Our neighbor Scott lives about midway up the street.
I’ve been here 18 years; he was already a fixture when I arrived. In a neighborhood of welcoming families, Scott’s Craftsman house stood out with a large handmade “Hey Liberals, Up Yours” sign in his window.
He’s since toned it down a bit and replaced it with a tasteful Trump bumper sticker.
Scott is the grouchy old guy who stays inside on Halloween night with the lights on, in plain sight, who doesn’t answer his door or give out candy. I can just imagine him, stewing on his sofa about these damn liberal kids wanting their free candy handouts.
I’d heard stories about Scott, how he’d called our neighbor’s daughter the N-word as she walked past on her way home from elementary school, and called his next-door neighbor’s gay teen son the F-word. Rumor is he made sexually inappropriate comments to another neighbor’s teen daughter.
I’ve avoided him assiduously.
A couple years ago, Scott chatted me up as I walked my dog past his house. He tried to earn my sympathies by telling me his brother had died. He seemed to be having a human moment with me, and so I responded in kind. I told him that I was sorry for his loss.
“I used to hear from my brother every day,” he went on.
“Again, I’m so sorry,” I said, sincerely.
“Yep, every day I’d hear my brother’s voice, and now I’ll never hear from him again. And that brother’s name… was Rush Limbaugh,” he proclaimed.
“Your brother was Rush Limbaugh?” I gasped.
“No, but Rush has been like a brother to me all these years.”
Oh, good grief. I don’t remember exactly what retort I spat back at this, but suffice it to say, it wasn’t sympathetic.
My street is lined with older homes, and the property values have shot up astronomically since I moved here. Rumor on the street (literally) is that Scott’s grandmother bought his house way back in the day. To my knowledge, he’s the only one on our block who was gifted their home, while the rest of us work our liberal asses off to pay our mortgages and property taxes (or rents), to keep living in our liberal, accepting bubble.
Bootstraps, indeed.
But Scott’s free rent wasn’t top of mind when I bolted out the door.
The kids’ safety was.
Turns out: the kids are alright.
I found Evie and Scout at the other end of block, clearly rattled. Scott was nowhere to be seen.
I took them back to my home, fed them ice cream, and listened to their jumbled retellings of what had just happened.
The trio had marched up our street, chanting for gay and trans rights to our mostly empty block at midday. A few houses up, they’d encountered Scott, and not knowing any better, Evie cheered in his general direction. I inwardly groaned at my carelessness.
I should have warned them, or gone with them.
But I didn’t. I assumed our neighborhood was a safe space for these kids, just as they did. As the adult, I should have known better.
But more importantly, as an adult: Scott should have known better than to stomp on these tweens with his homophobic views. With any of his views, really. As a rule, it’s a best practice for old men not to engage with 11-year-old girls.
Oh, but he did.
What I gleaned from the kids’ recap is that Scott unloaded on Evie about why her views were wrong. And Evie — who is brilliant, defiant, feisty, and also has some mental health challenges, including anger management — did not take his tirade lightly.
She stood her ground. In her mind, she was defending queer people everywhere.
So she yelled back.
And this man — this grown-ass adult, easily in his seventh decade of life — starting filming her as he egged her on.
My child, knowing full well who Scott was, attempted in terror to untie the knot on their flag cape as soon as the altercation started, but it was tied too tightly. So instead they ran home the long way, to avoid passing Scott again in a trans cape, to alert me and bring another adult to the situation.
The poor child was terrified they’d abandoned their friends in need.
But they also recognized they were too small to fight back.
These three kids were so shaken as they told me what happened — and especially Evie, as she slowly regained control of her sympathetic nervous system that had clearly gone into panic mode. She told me, sobbing, that in the heat of her outburst, she’d threatened to kill him.
“I was so scared,” she blurted. “But also I was so angry, I actually wanted to.”
That’s what she confessed to me, breathless, simultaneously proud and horrified, this vulnerable child, a fierce warrior, a force to be reckoned with who also recognized the consequences her words and her emotions could bring.
I’m still in awe of her courage and spirit.
I hugged her and told her so. I told her she was safe now, and that her response was understandable and very brave.
Once their acute reaction to the incident passed, I called both sets of parents to tell them what had happened and to discuss next steps.
We all agreed we would walk over to Scott’s place — as a posse of parents— to let him know in no uncertain terms that this behavior was unacceptable.
So we went.
I’m not confrontational by nature, but I’ve learned over time. I led the way and was firm and angry, but calm. I told him he was never, ever to speak to, or even look at, these kids, ever again.
He got defensive and tried to yell back. We shut him down at every turn. “These are children, Scott, and you’re the adult. You needed to act like one.”
Evie’s dad was remarkably calm as he detailed how wrong it was for Scott to film his child, and that if the footage ended up shared anywhere, there would be consequences.
Scott yelled back that he was “terrified” of Evie, that she was unhinged and a danger. Yes, this old man bully who’d picked a fight with kids then had the audacity to claim he was scared of a petite 11-year-old girl.
Bullies are always cowards.
Scout’s mom absolutely tore into Scott for this. He yelled back and called her an “enema.” She retorted, “Well, if I make you want to shit your pants, then great — mission accomplished!”
I relished her, um, explosive response.
We’d made our point, so we turned and left. Scott hasn’t interacted with anyone in our family ever since.
But my child hasn’t taken a Pride Walk since, either.
Children need to live in the real world.
I’ve always maintained that within age-appropriate reason, I want my kids to understand the world around them. I let people swear in front of my kids, and I will discuss nearly any topic with them. My goal is to raise confident, knowledgeable, empathetic adults.
So with this, my child learned a very real-world lesson.
They now realize that being queer isn’t always a neutral event, as they’d always assumed. It’s one that involves bravery and can lead to harm — even close to home, when you least expect it.
I think they learned not to take the freedoms they have as a queer person for granted.
As a parent, I’m glad they know.
But as a parent, my heart also aches that they need to know, you know?
I’m countering my heartache with a few silver linings, a few hopes for their future that come from this experience:
I hope they grow into even deeper allies, for LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups.
I hope it arms them to continue to fight for the hard-won freedoms the LGBTQ+ community has gained in recent years, which are especially vulnerable right now.
I hope they now proceed with a bit more caution in the future, to keep themselves safe from harm.
But most of all — I hope my child won’t be afraid to go on future Pride Walks, one day.
*Names changed for anonymity.
Greetings!
I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.
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Life's lessons are tough but the love does not need to be and that softens the learning curve. And there is no such thing as a tasteful Trump sticker. ; )
So glad my 30+ years experience with that bully are finally over!