Are One Direction gay?

"Emma Weston* says One Direction is gay - are they gay Mummy?" A asked while colouring in a picture of some pixies.

A is nearly 9 years old now so I nonchalantly replied "I'm not sure darling, shall we look it up? I'm pretty sure that Harry Styles is not gay as I think Taylor Swift was his girlfriend once, I guess he could be bisexual, lets Google it!"

Of course I knew that Emma Weston was not actually referring to the sexual orientation of the band members in One Direction, she was actually trying to say that One Direction were rubbish, she used the word gay as derogatory and I was certainly not having that.

So we looked up Harry Styles and ascertained that he was not gay, I made sure that A and P knew what the word meant, that loving someone of the same sex was exactly the same as Mummy and Daddy loving each other. Of course they understood completely.

I was reminded of this little conversation when some good mates of ours updated their Facebook status, they had recently got married and changed their status from Civil Partnership to Married, although we were all at their fabulous weddings and have considered them married for over 10 years. Instead of another celebration they spent their day reflecting.

"We chose to reflect on the fact that three quarters of primary school teachers report hearing the word "gay" being used as an insult. That ninety percent of secondary school teachers say pupils in their schools are bullied, harassed or called names for being - or perceived to be - lesbian, gay or bisexual."
Source: Stonewall

We were asked to consider donating just £10 to the charity Stonewall to send a resource and training pack to a primary school, to reduce bullying and changing the lives of many young people.

It was just a pity that when I donated that I couldn't request the training resource pack goes directly to our primary school, it certainly needs to. I will have a word with the Head Teacher.


*Not her real name for obvious reasons