Freaks. There is no other way to put it. I realize that this is Toronto, gayest city in the world. I realize that I've done my fair share of fag-hagging, dancing the night away in Montreal's Gay Village, and singing That's Life at gay karaoke on Ste. Catherine Street. The very first time I came to Toronto in 1997 was to go clubbing with my gay boss and his roommate (really, just a roommate). We had a blast.

But I was taken aback by the mere children who were gender bending at the Eaton Centre today. As I waited in line for my lunch in the busy food court, I saw a couple of young boys - maybe 13 or 14, and an older girl, maybe 16-ish. Then I looked again. The taller "boy," his baggy jeans so low as to have his boxers almost completely on display, had breasts. And the girl? "She" had a 5 o'clock shadow (and too much eye makeup, but that's another story). I am still unclear as to the gender of the smaller "boy". All three had more than five facial piercings. Whatthefuck? Do these kids not have parents? Not to get on a "kids these days" kick, and certainly I would be the pot to anyone's kettle, but where is the guidance?

Despite the rampant sexual activity among young teens, and the experimentation with "alternative" sexual orientations (girls with girls, boys with boys, everyone with fruit, dogs with cats - hell in a handbasket, I tell you!), kids still don't know their asses from their elbows. They really don't. I was the little goth chick slut back in the day, too, and I didn't know a damn thing. Gay, straight, up, down - how the hell did I know? I was just a kid. And the fact that these three were so heavily perforated in the facial area leads me to believe that there was no one at home saying "Honey, why don't you rethink that? Why don't you wait a couple more years, till you're sure that's what you really want?"

I can almost - almost - imagine some crunchy-granola, progressive (dirtiest of all dirty words), I-teach-at-U-of-T, latent hippy single mother letting her daughter become a boy (and a rather unattractive - though convincing - one, at that), but who the hell let's their 16-year old son dress in drag, a full month after Halloween? And on a school day? Do the teachers question this, or is it part of the who has rights and who doesn't mandate that they dare not ask?

These kids are freaks because they're kids. But their parents? They are truly the damaged ones.