The mother of the skirt-wearing teen boy who allegedly raped one classmate and groped another gave an exclusive interview to DailyMail on the eve of the Virginia elections. She expressed right away that she felt the issue was being overblown and used as a political hot-button and seems to believe that public interest in the case is disingenuous.
DailyMail gave the mother anonymity to help protect the identity of her son because he is legally a minor.
‘He’s a 15-year-old boy that wanted to have sex in the bathroom, with somebody that was willing,’ she declared, sitting in an empty kitchen in her townhouse, DailyMail explained.. ‘And they’re twisting this just enough to make it a political hot button issue.’
The mom claims her son was not trans but that he also wasn’t taking advantage of the gender-neutral bathrooms? The article went on to explain that the boy identified to classmates as pansexual which is a fancy way of saying that he didn’t know what to identify as and would change his gender whenever he felt to do so.
‘He would wear a skirt one day and then the next day, he would wear jeans and a t-shirt, a Polo or hoodie,’ she explained. ‘He was trying to find himself and that involved all kinds of styles. I believe he was doing it because it gave him attention he desperately needed and sought.’
The exclusive paints a clear picture of internal conflict on the mother’s part. She expresses disappointment in her son but at one point aimed to victim-blame the girl.
‘If I was in a position where I was about to be raped, I would be screaming, kicking, everything,’ she said. ‘You’re 15. You can reasonably defend yourself. You’re not just going to sit there and take it. And so, because there wasn’t a presence of a fight, he felt it was okay to keep going.’
Court documents explained that the two had previously had vaginal intercourse but during her testimony, the victim explained that she explained she wasn’t interested in having sex. The boy’s mother also admitted that her son told her as much. Explaining that she was ‘wishy-washy’.
On a phone call, the mom claimed that the son doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong:
‘He asked me how I was doing, and I said, ”I’m broken, I’m shattered, you shattered me,” the mom recalled. ”Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me, what you’ve done to your family?
‘And his response was, ”No, what did I do?” she said.
She had been his primary point of contact, with his dad living in New Jersey.
‘At that point, I was like, ‘You know what? I love you, I always will, I will do everything I can to always be there for you in any capacity possible,’ she said. ‘But I told him – ‘You need to call your father for now on. Do not call me. I need to heal, and I need you to figure this out for yourself.’
The boy’s mother says it’s been a challenge his whole life to make her son do better and noted that his father has been mostly absent. The article explains that there is more than a little turmoil between the two parents. At one point the boy moved in with his father for a short time. The mom claims that’s when he became more defiant.
‘He’s been a challenging child his whole life, which I’ve dealt with myself,’ the mother said. ‘My son’s gone through multiple forms of counseling and therapy, resources here, at school, friends, family. It’s been 15 years of hell trying to get him to do better and be better.’
Previous complaints against him:
In addition to the rape, and accusation from a separate girl that the boy forcefully groped her— The teen was also busted in 5th grade sending nude photos of himself to another student.
While his mother admitted that her son is ‘troubled’, the interview makes it seem like she is more concerned with the media’s coverage of the reported assaults than the victims.
‘What is the end game on this?’ she added. ‘My son’s going to be going on the sexual registry and be committed to Meghan’s Law for the rest of his life because he had 15-year-old hormones.’
Personally, the article did not give me a sense of newfound sympathy for the boy but that could just be me. There is more to this interview and these are just the highlights. You can read the full exclusive here and come to your own conclusion.
Erica Carlin is an independent journalist, opinion writer and contributor to several news and opinion sources. She is based in Georgia.