A Tennessee mother is facing assault charges after allegedly beating and punching her young son because she believed he was acting “too feminine" and gay.
While details in the case are currently scarce, Jacqueline Alexander has been charged with domestic assault after police discovered that her son had bruises on his face Feb. 17, WREG-TV is reporting.
The boy's name and age have not been released. Reports cite local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocate Will Batts, who noted that the case was upsetting but not unusual.
“We certainly have lots of kids and adults who come into the [Memphis LGBT Community Center] who talk about being abused or hurt in some way by the people who are supposed to be the ones who care most about them,” he is quoted as saying.
Alexander's court date was reportedly set for Feb. 19.
The allegations against Alexander seem eerily similar to the case of Jessica Dutro, an Oregon woman who was found guilty of murder by abuse and second-degree assault last year in the 2012 death of her son, Zachary Dutro-Boggess.
Court documents cited by a number of media outlets at the time described a series of Facebook messages between Dutro and her boyfriend, Brian Canady, in which she said she believed 4-year-old Zachary was gay.
Using an anti-gay slur, she suggested Canady, 24, "work on" her son: “He walks and talks like it. Ugh.”
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