Recently, I read a series of incredibly poignant and heartbreaking posts on the social media site “Threads” which were written by Vivian Jenna Wilson. Dated July 25, 2024, much of what Vivian described was very recognizable to me: growing up with a father who wasn’t around that much, feeling different when you are a child, and experiencing teasing and bullying because of how you act. I can sense the anger and frustration throughout the posts; that were directed towards Vivian’s father. At one point, Vivan wrote: “He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there, and in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed…” The initial post has garnered over 40,000 likes. Why? Probably because Vivian is the son of Elon Musk and his first wife Justine Wilson.

Born in 2004, along with twin-brother Griffin, Vivian was once named Xavier. Although born male, Vivian now identifies as a female and on April 18, 2022 — one day after turning 18 years old, he legally changed his name and gender in my home-state of California. At the time, Vivian stated: “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.” Vivian’s parents divorced in 2008.

In addition to Vivian and Griffin, who were conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF), Elon Musk also fathered a set of triplets, also through IVF, with his first wife. He then procreated three children with the Canadian musician Grimes, one who was born using a surrogate. Next, Musk had three more children with technology executive Shivon Zilis; one pair of twins were born via IVF and another child using a surrogate. Recently, Musk purportedly sired his 13th child with social media influencer Ashley St. Clair.

On July 22, 2024, Elon Musk was interviewed by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. During their conversation, Musk spoke about Vivian. Although Peterson repeatedly interrupted Musk, he very briefly described how his son Xavier began to take puberty blockers because Musk was “tricked” after being told that “Xavier might commit suicide” if they were denied. On the same day as the Peterson interview, Musk said more about the situation about his son in response to a post (about the interview) from the on-line activist group “Gays Against Groomers.” Musk wrote:

Xavier was born gay and slightly autistic, two attributes that contribute to gender dysphoria. I knew that from when he was about 4 years old and he would pick out clothes for me to wear like a jacket and tell me it was “fabulous!”, as well as his love of musicals & theatre. But he was not a girl.

First of all, “Gays Against Groomers” is a Log Cabin Republican style homosexual activist group that is attempting to distance the LGB community from the transgender phenomenon. They have repeatedly claimed that the majority children who identify as transgender are actually gay. This unsubstantiated theory has been most notably promoted by Jordan Peterson. In 2022, just a few months before “Gays Against Groomers” would make the same assertion, Peterson said: “Gay kids are being convinced they’re transsexual. That’s not so good for gay people, is it?” Apparently, Musk believes him. But in a 2008 study published in “The Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry,” children who ceased to identify as transgender: “…all of the girls and half of the boys reported having a heterosexual orientation.”

A couple of days after the Peterson interview and Musk’s subsequent post on Twitter, Vivian Wilson responded through his “Threads” account and by granting an interview with NBC News; this would be Vivian’s first time speaking with a major news outlet. Most significantly, according to the interview, Musk was described as “rarely present” in either Vivian or his sibling’s life; and they were “cared for by their mother or by nannies even though Musk had joint custody.” Vivian said: “He was cold…He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.” Vivian then continued to describe Musk’s habitual absence: “He was there, I want to say, maybe 10% of the time. That’s generous…He had half custody, and he fully was not there.” He added: “It was just a fact of life at the time, so I don’t think I realized just how abnormal of an experience it was.” Regarding his mother, Vivian said: “She’s very supportive. I love her a lot.” It’s not surprising that Elon Musk did not have a good boyhood relationship with his own father and the two men remained estranged. These patterns have a tendency to reemerge through the generations.

For many men who experienced same-sex attraction when they were young, this seems all too familiar. In his influential 1989 book “Being Homosexual: Gay Men and Their Development,” Richard Isay, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and gay-rights advocate, who was instrumental in changing the way the mental health field approached the LGBT community, had to admit that:

The majority of gay men, unlike heterosexual men who come for treatment, report that their fathers were distant during their childhood and that they lacked any attachment to them. Reports vary from “my father was never around, he was too busy with his job,” to “he was victimized by my mother, who was always the boss in the family,” to that of the abusive, unapproachable father.

Dr. Simon LeVay, a neurobiologist at both Harvard Medical School and the Salk Institute, who has spent most of his career trying to locate a gay genetic determinate for homosexuality, in his book “Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation,” published in 2011, unlike Richard Isay, he took a less psychological and a more scientific approach to the issue of what causes homosexuality; yet LeVay still wrote: “gay men do indeed describe their relationships with their mothers as closer, and their relationships with their fathers as more distant and hostile, as compared with how straight men describe these relationships.” Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, who specialized in treating men with unwanted same-sex attracted, wrote:

One psychoanalytic hypothesis for the connection between poor early father-son relationship and homosexuality is that during the critical gender-identity phase of development, the boy perceives the father as rejecting. As a result, he grows up failing to fully identify with his father and the masculinity he represents.

And in an explanation that is eerily reminiscent of Vivian’s description of Musk, Nicolosi added: “One likely cause for ‘failure to identify’ is a narcissistic injury inflicted by the father onto the son (who is usually temperamentally sensitive) during the preoedipal [toddler] stage of the boy’s development.”

Yet, in his interview with Peterson, Musk blamed the “woke mind virus” for his son’s condition; and during a separate interview, he blamed “communism.” But how is a 4-year-old boy being influenced by the woke mind virus and communism? He isn’t. Though he is deeply affected by the absence of his father. Musk blames everyone; except himself. But I’ve seen it hundreds of times, some people would rather believe that their son was “born gay,” or even born in the wrong body, rather than admit to themselves that they were neglectful or abusive parents. Interestingly, in his conversation with Musk, Jordan Peterson never picked-up on any of this; after all, exploring family dynamics is a basic precept in child psychology. Instead, Peterson became visibly agitated when reacting to Musk’s description about he was “tricked” into agreeing that his son could receive puberty blockers due to the rick of suicide:

….that was a lie right from the outset. No reliable clinician ever believed that. There was never any evidence for that, and also if there’s a higher suicide rate the reason is because of the underlying depression and anxiety and not because of the gender dysphoria…that is so pathological that it’s almost incomprehensible. I can’t imagine anything worse…I can’t imagine a therapist doing anything worse than that.

I can imagine something just as terrible. For many years, the threat of increased suicidality has also used against parents with so-called “gay” children. But, as Peterson explained regarding gender dysphoric youth, there are likewise serious underlying mental health issues among LGB persons; that persist into adulthood; even in countries with a long history of LGBT acceptance, like The Netherlands; and in Sweden, where male same-sex couples are allowed to marry. But Peterson and others think that homosexuality is the natal identity that trans children should return to. Because, as Musk believes his son was “born gay.”

But there is little proof do substantiate his claim. Even the highly gay-affirmative American Psychological Association acknowledged “there is no consensus among scientists” on this issue. I In a large study looking at identical twins, Vivian has a fraternal twin brother, only 11% of both male siblings were gay. A very well-known study found that among non-twin brothers of male homosexuals, 9% were also gay; but, most surprisingly, 11% of adoptive brothers were also homosexual. As a result, famed geneticist Terry R. McGuire stated: “the fact that biological brothers and adopted brothers show the same incidence of homosexuality strongly suggests that it is entirely environmental in origin.”

Probably the most grotesque thing that Musk asserted about his son was the boy’s supposed childhood behavior which included saying the word “fabulous” and his love of musicals and theatre somehow proved the child was gay. In the NBC interview, Vivian said this statement was not true. On his “Threads” post, in my opinion, he rightly noticed that these are “gay stereotypes.” Its incredibly tragic that an absentee father would judge a 4-year-old boy, who might have what some would determine as feminine attributes, as gay. The great dancers and choreographers Gene Kelly and Bob Fosse were certainly not overtly masculine, but they weren’t gay; and the more manly appearing and acting Hugh Jackman, presumably because he’s participated as an actor in musical theater – and convincing played a homosexual in “The Boy from Oz,” has been dogged through much of his career about rumors that he’s a homosexual. Dr. Joseph Nicolosi once wrote about how:

…a gender-nonconforming boy can be sensitive, kind, social, artistic, gentle—and heterosexual. He can be an artist, an actor, a dancer, a cook, a musician—and a heterosexual. These innate artistic skills are “who he is,” part of the wonderful range of human abilities. No one should try to discourage those abilities and traits.

Here, I’m reminded of the 2000 film “Billy Elliot,” about a boy who loves to dance, but he must deal with he is his widowed working-calls father. Initially, the father disapproves, but then supports his son’s talent. A subplot involved Billy and his friend: a wayward bullied “gay” boy named Michael. At the end of the movie, years later, Billy’s proud father attends his performance at the ballet; while a gender-bending Micheal (in full make-up) sits nearby. Not surprisingly, Elton John was attracted to the story, and wrote the score when “Billy Elliot” was turned into a stage musical. Of his own father, John said: “You know, my father never came to hear me play. Not ever. He was a tough and unemotional man. Hard…He was dismissive, disappointed, and finally absent.” Again, it sounds all too tragically familiar.

I remember a rather flamboyant friend from my days as a gay man in 1990s San Francisco. As a child, he told me about how he continuously attempted to dress-up like the singer Madonna as he danced about the house in front of his incredulous father who stared endlessly at a TV sports channel. He was trying to get his attention. I never met his father, until his son was dying of AIDS. Unfortunately, that’s what finally got his attention.

Finally, with Elon Musk and the story of his transgender son, I see a confused and hurt father, who refuses to accept any responsibility, and an angry and injured son. In a heartbreaking Instagram post, Vivian shared how he first learned about having another half-sibling – through Reddit. I am sympathetic towards Vivian. Not much towards Musk, because he continues to repeat old mistakes: most shamelessly, by having children with women he never marries. And there is little social pressure on him to reform; for example, the numerous “conservative” influences who congratulated the woman who gave birth to yet another of Musk’s children; the felicitations in this case are uncannily reminiscent of those offered to Dave Rubin when he and his “husband” purchased two humans through IVF and surrogacy. Men have been allowed to check-out in this society, either to physically abandon their kids or to mentally do so by escaping into their “man-caves.” I hope Elon Musk one day apologizes to his son for the pain he caused. Maybe, then, there can be some healing.