Sedgwick and Lee

One of the key points of the two articles is the resiliency of the gay man. Growing up feminine boys are often made fun of and attacked for how they act. According to Eve Sedgwick in How To Bring Your Kids Up Gay, “The reason effeminate boys turn out gay… is that other men don’t validate them as masculine.” During the teen, pre-teen, and even childhood years it can be very difficult for effeminate boys to fit in with other groups of kids. Kids are often some of the meanest and least accepting people and find it fun to pick on people for being different. To a lesser extent, even Joon Lee’s mother does this to him in The Joy of a Castrated Boy. She is not accepting of him as being feminine and threatens him with “we’ll have to take you to the hospital and get your pee-pee cut off so that you can become a girl.” Yet in both of these cases gay men are able to overcome the harassment and grow to be very strong, passionate individuals. Anyone that is able to overcome such anger and hostility will not fear what is to come and will stand up fully for what they believe in. For example, Joon Lee grew to accept the idea of castration and of being feminine himself. One modern day example of this is the It Gets Better Project. Started by Dan Savage the project looks to help homosexual kids deal with the bullying they face at schools and in everyday life. The project includes videos from many homosexual men and women who have grown up and learned to stand up for themselves and live their lives how they want. . In learning to overcome these challenges many feminine men are able to grow into that very resilient type mold.