"How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay" & "The Joy of the Castrated Boy"

Before I talk about the parallels of Sedgwick's "How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay" and Lee's "The Joy of the Castrated Boy", I wanted to bring up random points I thought was very intersting. In fact, most of this blog post, like a lot of my other ways, will be very scatterbrained.
Again, I am reminded of the Oedipus complex in Lee's piece. It is the relationship between the mother and the boy. She wants her boy to grow up a man, and works hard at achieving this goal, threatening to castrate him. I wonder, then, how the father reacted to having a son that was more of a daughter. I also find it surprising that the author never made the transition from M to F, because it is clear that he identifies himself as a girl.
The concept of "racial castration" made me think about individuals that are of a racial minority, and are gay, or at least part of the LGBTQ community. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to be rejected from two different communities. I know that in the Asian community, being gay is severely looked down upon. My cousin is a lesbian, and her parents are deeply ashamed of her and are in no way supportive. This thought then ties me back into something that has already been discussed, the fact that both articles talk about the presence of parents in children's lives. As the synopsis for Gypsy tells us, our entire lives can be shaped by our parents.
I pulled this quote from Lee's piece, even though he does not agree with it: “whereas the boy wishing to be a star in this world must imagine himself in female dress, the girl may just take off her clothes” (75). It just struck with me because the topic I will be doing for the class presentation is about !spoiler alert! drag queens. My partners and I were talking about, how even though "drag kings" exist, they are nowhere as exciting as drag queens. Seeing men dress up in women clothes is interesting, to see the complete transformation. To see women wear a 3 piece suit and cut their hair is in no way a novelty. Actresses have worn tuxedos or suits to red carpet events before, and no one blinks an eye. It also harkens back to our fashion debate, about how much easier, and thus, much more difficult, for women to dress, because society does not put the same boundaries on women as they do on men. Men can't wear a dress, but a woman can certainly wear pants.

I also noticed that both articles talk about how it is, as Sedgwick puts it, "always open season for gay kids." I find it sad that even within the LGBTQ community, a "castrated boy" can be ridiculed or unaccepted (Lee). I would think that that community would be the most accepting, but even so, they have certain standards to upkeep, that the "the healthy homosexual is one that a) is already grown up and b) acts masculine," (Sedgwick). I don't know this is so because it has already been stated that it is important for the gay movement to stress the idea that wanting a man does not entail femininity and wanting a woman does not entail masculinity. If they don't want boundaries to be set in this matter, why are they doing exactly that?

Like Amy, I don't like the idea presented in "How To Bring Your Kids Up Gay" that "the reason effiminate men turn out gay is that other men don't validate them as masculine". I definitely think that sexuality is nature, and it does not come from nurture.

It makes me think of this clip, you all should watch this!: