Did you identify as gay early in life? Help me support my kid please.

In My Humble Opinion
21

Eh, if you ask me whether I like blondes I’ll answer no. 99.999999% of blondes (for a very wide definition of “blonde”) leave me completely cold. But if you had invited me to dinner with a young Charlton Heston I would’a beentheresofasttheroadwould’amelted…

The only person she would be betraying if she was “disloyal to her sexuality” is herself, and the only way she will be disloyal to it is if she tries to convince her that she doesn’t like whatever she happens to like. Even if it is (yuck) a blonde.

22

Also, and I’m not trying to offend anybody but I’m sure someone will take offense, I think that American culture tends to hypersexualize relationships. She’s at the age when one starts to figure out the difference between different kinds of “like” while immersed in a culture where the default is “romantic like”, where a coworker asking another one to have lunch feels the need to explain it’s not a request for a date. It’s possible than in a less sex-obsessed culture many of those crushes would have been classified as “like” and not “like-like”, but of course I’m writing from across the ocean, I haven’t had conversations with your daughter, etc.

23

That your son also identified as gay at an early age gives me pause for thought.
Not that I know anything about it, but I do wonder if your unconsciously sending some signals?

Personally, I think she’s too young to know what she wants yet, and I wouldn’t want to in any way shape or form “label” her yet -

24

Yes,see how things evolve…She may identify differently as time goes on. I knew a girl,who was raised by a mom who was SCREAMING gay.(think butch cut,looks at home in the audience of an Indigo Girls concert, etc) H. came out as gay when she was 15,and thought she was gonna be gay for life…then at 17,she fell in love with a boy and was utterly freaked out.

25

Hmmm…signals like what? I’m not sure…of course if they are unconscious I guess I wouldn’t be aware of them. I’m straight, but our family has always been very accepting of different lifestyles, and like I said, very liberal town, etc…
I do try not to over-focus on it, and and we continue instead to spend most of our time talking about school and music and Dr Who and her and her brother’s ongoing obsession with Top Shot. :smiley:

26

I also know nuts about the subject -

It just seems to me that 10 is very young to be “declaring” a sexuality,

You attitude in this thread seems very healthy -

It’s just that two kids, both declaring so young, maybe, just maybe?

27

I pretty much knew when I was five years old - really.
Of course, back then it was not only considered a horrible mental disease, it was also illegal.
As I grew older, I kept thinking this was just a “phase”.
Mind you, there was no Internet back then, and most certainly no supporting groups or TV shows or anything proving otherwise - that I was a sick person.

I remember at about age 10 going to the small town bookstore - there was a thin paperback with some basic definitions from Freud…and one was two pages about “homosexuality”. I stole the book (something I had never done) and read, and re-read, those two pages over and over again. So sad.

Finally, at about the age of 14, I started to realize either this was the longest “phase” in the history of phases, or it was simply true. Problem was, I was pretty sure I was the only one on earth who felt that way.

Luckily for me, Gay Liberation Movement started in the late 60’s and I was able to eventually find myself, and others like me! I cannot begin to tell you the relief and the freedom I felt! In case you wonder about those wild, crazy hedonistic 70’s with Gay disco and sex clubs…envision hiding from your real self your entire life, and then be given a free pass…any questions why Gay guys came bursting out of the closet?!

So yeah - maybe in your daughter’s case it is just a “phase” right now…but in my case, I most certainly would have known it was NOT a phase at that early age.

I consider myself very lucky for being born at pretty much the exact moment to live my life as I wished - but when I think back to those born before me, it still kind of makes me sad to think they spent their entire life in shame and sadness, under scrutiny and perhaps imprisoned or given electro-shock or murdered…sometimes we forgot how far we have come in a relatively short period of time.

I have spoken with my older brother, and we both think one of our great-uncles was probably Gay… he lived a very solitary life and died alone. I shudder when I realize, “That could have been me.”

28

I was 11 when I realized I was different and I basically knew since then that I was gay. As an adult now, I have a hard time thinking a 12 or 13 year old really knows their sexuality, but at the same time I think I knew deep down that this was as permanent a state as anything really could be for me.

In my opinion the best thing to do is treat her seriously but don’t worry about committing to one label.

29

Sounds like my daughter until about junior year of high school. At that point she said it was really difficult for her to get up the courage to tell her mother and me that she was straight. We both looked at her and said, “Duh” in unison.

She was the same about vegetarianism.

30

You are right that you know nothing about this. 10 is not too young to “declare” a sexuality. Straight kids know they are straight at 10, oftentimes younger. The difference is straight kids don’t have to declare it. Most people assume that as the default setting.

31

Shrug, I figured I was straight at 12… right after being told I was “So. Weird” because I found the guys being sold as “sexy” by teen mags as attractive as a shot to the gut.

32

My daughter figured it out around 16 YO.

33

I don’t have any advice from a ‘parent perspective’, rather just some anecdotal remembrances as the older brother, of a gay man.
My brother was ‘different’ than all of the other boys our age, from the time he was about 8-9 yrs old onward, IIRC. (We were 16 months apart, in age.) How he was ‘different’ isn’t really relevant to this discussion, suffice it to say that it was noticeable. I knew (or rather, strongly suspected) from about the time that we were in 8th grade that he was gay, even though it wasn’t something that he openly acknowledged, even to me. (We were always very close, much closer than other pairs of brothers that I had known throughout the years.)
He ‘came out’ right about the time that we graduated from high school together.

Where this is all going, is… Later in life when we were about 30 yrs old or so, I asked him when he knew that he was gay.

His answer was, "Ever since I could remember." :slight_smile:

I’ve always been thankful that my family never ‘questioned’ my brothers sexuality, even after he came out.

The fact that a person finds someone of the same sex sexually attractive, should never be a factor in deciding if someone is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, whether or not they have any ‘morals’, if they’re ‘righteous’ or ‘damned’, etc.

Dedicated to my brother, whom I miss dearly.
Russell Wayne ‘Rusty’ Braswell
(Pinky, to his friends):cool:
b.1962 d.1998

34

It amuses me somewhat that I’m absolutely fine with people being straight, gay, bi, poly, whatever, but the thought of someone crushing on Urkel wigs me out.

35

I don’t remember even thinking about my sexuality before puberty, I wasn’t interested in sex with anyone before that.

36

Of course not. But most of us had crushes on boys or girls or both, and I remember sexual fantasies I had as early as age 7.

37

SO, no LGBTQU groups for you? Damn Urkelsexuals.

38

I’m kind of embarrassed that I even know this, but “Stefan Urkel” was not the nerdy Steve Urkel, he was his suave alter ego. It was the same actor, but his dress, mannerisms, and voice were very different.

39

Oh. That’s okay then. I was seriously worried there for a while that someone could find the Most Annoying Character in the World sexy. That would be like casting Gilbert Gottfried and Fran Drescher as the leads in Romeo and Juliet.

PS Sorry for the hijack. I’m done now.

40

Thank you so much for that imagery. I’ll go twitch now.