To want to nip this in the bud ( LGBTQ views , child )

Nope not at all and thankfully schools won’t tolerate the shunning of children for being gay- because it’s homophobic.

He's 11. If he's not started puberty then his understanding of sex is going to be abstract- he hasn't had sexual feelings so how can he be expected to understand how sexual attraction works?

There's a massive difference between a 13 year old and an 11 year old. I can still remember the shitshow that ensued when my final year primary school class had a sex education lesson and the teacher stood in front of the class and announced "the word sex is nothing to be embarrassed about"- cue 30 ten and eleven year olds in hysterics because the teacher had said "sex". Fast forward a few years and everyone was obsessing about who fancied who and who got off with who at the school disco. Difference: we'd been through puberty and experienced sexual feelings.

The post stated that 11 year olds do not have a concept of being gay. I simply said that I did. But apparently that means I dont believe in freedom of thought.

I didn’t mean to be condescending. Your comment sounded like you thought that because you knew you were gay at 11, that other 11 yr olds must also have a full understanding of sexual orientation and their feelings around it.

If that’s not what you meant then great - we obviously agree that everyone deserves freedom of thought.

Lots of kids get shunned. The non sporty kids, the ginger kids, the neglected kids. It’s not ok to be mean but we also can’t force kids to be friends with people.

You may think you are doing a good thing in demanding that every child must be friends a child that thinks they might be gay but you’re not. You are modelling the bullying behaviour you think you are calling out.

I never said others don't. It was thr poster I was responding to who made the absolute statement, maybe aim your condescending comment at them.

You may have done. Others don’t.

Try and accept that other people have a right to freedom if thought as well as you.

Do you understand what a child is? Why are you putting adult issues and values onto him?

His friend is not sexually active (hopefully) so doesn’t actually know if he is really gay or just trying out ideas. He’s a kid.

I hope some of the adults on this thread with such adult expectations and harsh opinions of children don’t have influence in many kids lives.

Wow. Thats a bit absolutist. What about the mental health of an 11 yr old boy trying to navigate the tricky years of puberty and developing his social skills while being preached to and gaslit by his school and mum on important topics?

Are you saying that only the feelings or thoughts of a gay child have any value to you?

Demonising kids for things they have absolutely no concept of is completely ridiculous.

You cannot force close and genuine friendships.

Schools can insist on politeness between acquaintances and come down hard on bullying, but they cannot insist on anything beyond the surface level amiability you’d expect from coworkers who have to exist in the same space.

My son came out at 11, he said he always knew so the homophobic language he was subjected to at school led to a massive breakdown and need for a lot of support from CAMHS and an LGBT support group. The perpetrators were dealt with severely as there are policies in place and zero tolerance as regards homophobia.

So gay kids get shunned. No not ok at all and no school would think so.

You don't think at 11 year old can have a concept of being gay? I did.

Yes, I agree with this.
Any child, or adult, has the right to withdraw or remove themselves from friends or situations that they aren't comfortable with.
Automatically declaring that this is a phobia is likely to reinforce the negative opinion rather than challenge it effectively.

Tolerance isn’t the same thing as outright acceptance, and sometimes tolerance is the best you’re realistically going to get. You cannot force uniformity of thought no matter how much you may wish to, and trying to is highly likely to result in achieving the exact opposite.

Honestly, just looking at this, expecting an 11 year old to absorb and take all this on seems utterly ridiculous to me.

This 'born in the body' narrative is incredibly problematic.

He is 11. He has no concept of what it even is to be gay.

FFS this is why schools need to stop banging on about this stuff. It's adult stuff. Not kid stuff.

Still be friends but “not as good” because in his own words that friend “chose to be gay & he doesn’t support it”. That’s not tolerance. That’s homophobia. Classic actually.

He's 11.

He is clearly way out of his depth pn all of this, but I can hardly blame him for that. He seems to have been introduced to a lot of information long before he is able to deal with it maturely.

Not when homophobia and the mental health of gay teens are involved, no.

Do you don’t believe in freedom of thought at all?

Ok, so stating that biological sex exists and is sometimes important is ‘transphobic’ by your claim but

Denying that biological sex exists or should be superseded by ‘gender identity’ is homophobic so….

We have agreed on this thread that sexual orientation is not a choice, whereas a persons decision on whether they might be trans is based on many things which could include mental health problems, autism, trauma, excessive porn consumption, desire to kidnap and rape an 11 yr old girl etc.

In fact trans ideology has built in options where people can perfectly legitimately claim to be woman one day and a man the next - so established is this idea that the police will give officers different id badges to suit that days identity.

So if I have to make a choice, I’ll stick with ‘biological sex is real’.

• he believes someone chooses to be gay , they can control it but they choose it
• we can choose who we fall in love with
• if a friend of his told him he was gay he would still be friends with them but not as good because they chose to be gay and he doesn’t support it.

All of the above is homophobic and not ok.And I don’t care how old he is. It’s not ok at any age.

According to the doctrine of trans tour commends are utterly ‘anti trans’.

That is part of the problem - trans ideology doesn’t let us make any distinction between actual women and men who say they are women.