Actor James Woods took to Twitter this week to let all 723,000 of his followers know that he is not about gender conformity. He shared a photo of a couple and their young son, who identifies as gender nonconforming, at a Pride event. The parents are holding signs in support of their child, who is standing between them, smiling and holding a rainbow flag. In fact, Woods thinks this is so “wrong,” that he tweeted his thoughts along with the family’s photo, saying that their son will resent them so much for raising him the way they do that it will lead to their gruesome murder.

Woods is known for movies such as “The Virgin Suicides,” “Casino” and “Once Upon a Time in America,” and has also done several cartoon voiceovers including “Family Guy” and the TV series “Hercules.” He is also well known for speaking his mind, especially on Twitter.

“James Howard Woods is a toolbox alt right nut job American actor and producer,” is the opening line of Woods’ Wikipedia summary  that appeared when Googling James Woods at the time of this article.

Photo via Google
Photo via “James Woods” Google search

Hypocritical would also be a word to describe Woods, the man who was part of a huge celebrity campaign to bring awareness to the homeless LGBT youth population.

So far, Woods’ horrific tweet has garnered 12,361 retweets, 31,762 likes. We can only hope that it is being retweeted out of awareness and not out of agreement and support for what was said. The 8,800 replies go back and forth between agreement and disdain. One popular rebuttal to Woods’ statement came from Emmy Award-winner Neil Patrick Harris.

Despite the backlash, Woods is sticking to his word, fighting off those calling him homophobic by using the classic retort of “I’m not homophobic, I have gay friends.”

 

 

 

“The family featured in Woods’ repugnant tweet is 10-year old C.J. Duron and his parents, Lori and Matt Duron,” according to The Huffington Post Queer Voices Executive Editor Noah Michelson. “C.J began showing signs of gender nonconformity at age 3, started referring to himself as gender nonconforming at 5, and self-identified as a member of the LGBTQ community at 8.”

gender nonconforming child CJ DUron
Photo from Lori Duron via The Huffington Post

Lori is the author of the award-winning book “Raising My Rainbow: Adventures in Raising a Fabulous, Gender Creative Son.” Her and her husband Matt spoke with The Huffington Post in an in-depth interview about C.J. and what kinds of hate comes with raising a gender nonconforming child.

“It was late at night and I was scrolling through Facebook because I couldn’t sleep,” Lori tells The Huffington Post. “I saw the tweet because someone had posted it on Facebook and one of our friends left a comment defending us. At first, I couldn’t quite make sense of his words in conjunction with the picture of us at Pride. Like, my brain couldn’t register that James Woods ― a somewhat public figure ― was saying that my sweet, happy, harmless 10-year-old son will eventually kill us, dismember us and stuff us in the freezer.”

“Woods also implied that we force our son to be gender creative. Anybody who has followed our journey knows that is not true. I’ve written about how much easier our lives would be if both of our boys were straight and cisgender. We had to evolve to the place where we are now, that’s what my writing is all about ― to show our evolution as parents and people and hope that it inspires others. I’m also always disturbed and surprised when adults ― who are old enough to know better ― think it’s okay to talk about a child in a negative way. Especially when they do it so graphically. The biggest rule we have in our house and the life lesson we stress most to our two children is ‘Don’t be a jerk.’ When adults are jerks it makes me wonder about the way they were parented, not how I parent. That’s a reflection of them, their background and their intentions, not mine.”

The full interview with Matt and Lori Duron can be read here.