4) What does it mean?: Bailey

"What does being gay mean?"

Bailey looked at the tiny, rather gangly figure who stood in the ajar opening of her bedroom. He was dressed in the blue uniform that his school wore, and his golden hair was slicked into a rather prominent cows lick.

"You should have knocked, William" She scolded "What would have happened if I had been getting dressed?"

The boy thought for a few seconds before giving his reply.

"Then I would have seen your panties." he said innocently unaware that his sister had been asking a rhetorical question.

He shuffled closer to her bed, his oversized polished school shoes clomping out of time.

"What does being gay mean?" he repeated in the same tone as before.

Bailey, who had been lying quietly on her bed rereading one of her favourite books, invited her younger brother to perch beside her.

He immediately flopped carelessly onto the bed causing the book that Bailey had been reading to bounce upwards, and lose its bookmark. Bailey sighed heavily as she saw this, but ignored the great annoyance of losing her place. Although it was highly frustrating, as any reader would understand.

"It means that a girl likes another girl, or a boy likes a boy."

"As a friend?"

"No, not quite. More in a romantic way, like Mom and Dad love each other."

The small boy thought for a moment.

"Do they kiss like Mommy and Daddy do?"

Bailey wondered why he was asking all these questions. Had he guessed her secret? No, certainly not. The boy could barely read, let alone, know what "being gay" was. She put his questions down to the pure inquisitively of a child. Perhaps he had heard it from one of his friends at school.

"Yes, they can kiss and hug and do everything a boy and girl who love each other can do."

"Can they even have a baby?" he questioned innocently.

Bailey smiled. He was a funny chap and an intelligent boy. She was very glad that she had an opportunity to teach him to accept gays. She could not bear Dad poisoning his innocent mind with derogatory lies about the LGBTQ+ community and this was her chance to make sure that he would always accept gays as normal people.

"They can have children, but not in the way Mom taught you. They can adopt, or if they really want their own baby, they can get a special person called a surrogate to carry the baby in her stomach. It is their baby, because they give their sperm and the doctor will put it with an egg that has been bought from a special place that is like a shop where you can buy sperm or eggs. The doctor then puts the sperm and egg together and then put it inside the woman's womb, which is where the baby grows. For two women, they can just buy sperm from the special place I told you about, so that one woman can carry their baby."

"That's so cool!" William shouted "I want a special woman to carry my baby!"

Bailey laughed at this remark. He was only a little boy and could be forgiven for misunderstanding something like that. As long as he understood that everybody was equal, Bailey was happy. The rest could be learned when he was older.

"That's okay" Bailey said laughing, "I just want you to remember, that no matter what you do, you must never treat gay people any differently. Just because a boy likes a boy, or a girl likes a girl, that does not mean that there is something wrong with them or they are not normal. Gay people are normal, they just like someone who has the same gender as them, and that is perfectly okay. In some countries, the people punish gays and treat them very badly, but in South Africa, everybody has a right to choose who they love without other people hating them. People don't always listen to these rules, but they are mean people. You can tell them that they are not listening to the law that the country has made."

"Dad said that the Bible says that gay people are bad, and God hates them. Is he lying?" William asked.

Bailey thought for a minute. Despite her sexual orientation, she had a relationship with God, and had received many revelations about it. She had always felt so guilty that she was continuously sinning and not living in the way that God wanted His people to, that was until God had spoken to her.

He had told her that there were physical differences in the brains of homosexuals, and just as He had made all people including forming their brains, saying that being gay was a sin was saying that God had made a mistake when creating gay people.

"Dad is not lying, he just does not understand the Bible properly. The Bible says that a person must not judge someone else and that it is a sin to do so, but if Dad is hating gay people, that means that he is also sinning because the Bible said he can't do that."

"There are a lot of things in the bible that are no longer applicable to our lives in the modern world, things need to be adapted, and we need to look at the new testament for our answers. Remember, Jesus preached love, not hate. He wanted everyone to love each other. I think that God just wants people to be happy, even if they don't marry the person that society calls normal. I think that God rather wants us to be happy with the person we love rather than be with someone who society tells us to be with and live an unhappy life. Besides that, being gay is not a choice, so even if it is a sin, gay people are not choosing to sin."

"Do you like girls?" William asked innocently.

Rather taken aback at this sudden question, Bailey was left speechless for a short period of time.

"No" she replied between her teeth "I don't like anyone."

William was too young to know now, besides, there was a 90% chance that he would run of to tell Mom the moment he had a chance. I mean, she planned on telling them, but now was definitely not the time, and it would be even worse if William were to run up to them and proudly explain that "Bailey liked kissing girls".

"Would you like a mug of hot Milo" Bailey offered, noticing the goosebumps that had appeared on his tanned skin. She already knew the answer when she saw Williams eyes light up with excitement.

Bailey spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch with William as they sipped on mugs of steaming Milo and freshly baked biscuits. It seemed as if William had forgotten most of their earlier conversation. After all he was only six and most likely would not even have understood if she had told him that she was gay.

He was a good little boy, and Bailey knew that he looked up to her immensely. The previous week, he had told his whole class that she had come first in a poetry competition. To be honest, Bailey admired the little boy too. He was wise beyond his years, and awfully cute.

That evening. Bailey felt very proud of William when she heard him telling Mom all about how gay people can have children. She was surprised to find how much he had actually remembered so much from their earlier conversation. Bailey was happy, when she came out, she would have another supporter.

Now it was just Dad who had to be converted, and that certainly seemed like it would be a tough task.