Academic scorn for the LGBTQ reading is undeserved. Historical critical scholars point out that readers in the first and second centuries CE would have taken 'pais' as a very probable reference to a sexual relationship. That was the common use of the word at the time.

What's interesting is this: if the man who wrote the story didn't want that meaning to be received, he would have said so pretty explicitly, or at least you'd assume such.

So, at the very least, he didn't have a problem with people reading the story that way, didn't think the message of the text would be disturbed if people did read it that way.

A more likely explanation is that a sexual relation is exactly what he meant, given the common term he used.

But either way, the idea that Jesus wasn't concerned with a potentially sexual relationship comes across loud and clear.