Can you really be gay at 7?

[disneydatknee]

So its valentines day. My daughter is 7. I helped her make a card for her friend (on her request) and said friend bought her a rose and a load of sweets. Cute right? I picked my daughter up this afternoon and she said matter of factly, her valentine was her girlfriend and they are both lesbian. School friends have called them gay for exchanging gifts. She insists they are girlfriends and she's asked her out. I've just said OK, I'm glad you have each other. I've pushed it no further. Can you really know at 7 or is this just the age that boys are mean and yucky and girls are just nicer to you?! I'm not holding my breath as she is still little and I would have absolutely no problem with her being gay, it's just shocked me how matter of fact she is so young about it. Is this a sign of things to come or is it nothing? Just mentally preparing myself!

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She didn't 'come out', she just came home after high school one day and introduced X as her girlfriend. I'd have been shocked if she'd come out as straight, tbh!

@SignOnTheWindow Your attitude is lovely and liberating, and I think this is how it should be, but in my experience, the majority of gay people I've known over the years, have 'come out'. I hope it's more like your daughter's experience nowadays.

You can thank social media for all this nonsense age 7.

I remember telling my mum I was going to be a lesbian when I was about 8 and my babysitter got a girlfriend. My mum explained that girls could have girlfriends and that was perfectly fine. So about 35 years ago and nothing to do with social media.

In fact, my best friend at the time and I both said we were going to be lesbians together. I think we essentially just thought it meant we could live together. We knew nothing about sex and mostly thought that sleepovers every single night would be the best thing ever. I'm now asexual and she's straight.

But this is a load of crap – of course kids experience romantic attraction. I didn’t know what sex was at 7 but I’d had ‘boyfriends’ at school and fancied people (in a totally age-appropriate way). (And this was normal across my peers).

What’s wrong with acknowledging stuff that’s developmentally normal.

And also what’s wrong with paying attention to how things ~are~ rather than blindly insisting they are how we want them to be.

The only thing I would add is that at seven I doubt they've labelled their feelings. They just know they want to be X persons girlfriend and maybe want to hold hands or kiss them.

It's not about sex and to them at least it's not gay or straight. Others might label it. Which is a shame as 'straight' isn't usually labelled, I suppose because it's the majority of people.

Ffs no. They can't. Kids say all sorts of stuff when they're young. My ds wanted to marry me when he was young. He doesn't now!!

I don't know how. I am straight but had no interest in either until I was about 14 when I had an unrequited crush on a boy at school.

I'm not saying we're all the same, but you don't have sexual feelings at that age, nor for many years.

Many gay men (not so many women) say they knew from an early age.

I don’t know if it is useful to think of 7 year olds being gay/straight or any other sexuality. Does it even matter what their sexuality is or will be? So long as they are allowed space to decide for themselves and feel safe to be whatever sexuality they end up being?

I agree with this, there's this trope in books and films that someone suddenly "becomes aware of the opposite sex" at some point in later childhood, and I'm sure it's like that for some* but not for many. I can't really remember a time when I didn't "fancy" someone even if it was someone in a film or on kids TV, and I had a crush at infants school - I can still tell you his name!

Obviously I didn't have an idea of what sex was so it was more of a "heart" feeling than a loins feeling - I liked looking at them and thought one of them would be my boyfriend. Can't see why this would be different for gay kids, although I would say that fancying someone in a straight or gay sense as a little kid can hardly be an accurate predictor of future sexuality.

*I do wonder if a lot of this kind of "coming of age"/"omg boys/girls!" stuff dates from eras/cultures where kids were separated more in school and socially? I only ever went to mixed schools and would have had to work very hard not to notice good looking boys of a similar age to me.

Unfortunately I don't think it's that way for boys. At 12 about half of DD's friends are lesbians. The two boys who hang out with the girls' group (who I suspect are gay) aren't saying so.

The male porno gaze has made lesbianism cool and 'acceptable' but gay boys are still firmly closeted by male friends.

I wouldn't think so. Attraction to the opposite sex is later surely.

Though you can sometimes tell which wee lad is going to turn out gay, strangely enough. Or maybe it was just my mum's talent. She was never negative about it, just said it (privately) as fact. So far she's got 5 outta 5 right. All those boys are now married to men or engaged to be.

I had crushes on boys and girls. I had a huge crush on my friend who had the most gorgeous silky hair. I thought she was sooooo pretty. It wasn't sexual per se, but I remember being enamoured with her.

My friend knew around 7 he didn't like girls.

Of my 2 dds one told me very clearly at 7/8 that she was straight (the context was her asking me about some benign romantic thing she'd seen and me saying when you grow up you may do that with your boyfriend or girlfriend). She's a teen now so who knows but she's had vocal crushes on boys since about that age - Draco Malloy was her first.

My other daughter told me she thought she was a lesbian at about 9. She's never mentioned it again and she's 'gone out' with a few boys in that early secondary way but I think it's fairly likely she will fall towards that end of the spectrum. The girl who taught her the word lesbian in year 5 is now year 9 and is very clearly and openly one.

Can you be straight at 7?

I clearly remember telling my friend when I was in primary school that if girls were allowed to marry girls then I would marry her.

Alas when the law changed I was already happily married to a man.

Anyway I guess if the language and conversations around being gay were as prominent then as they are now (this was mid 90s) then maybe I would have expressed myself differently. I think children are just trying to figure out who they are and often use adult language and relationships to do this. For us who lived through ‘being gay’ being a bigger deal than it is now it probably seems much stranger to hear it from a child but I think that it’s probably the same as 7 yr olds declaring they got married in the playground, that they fancy a boy etc. they’re emulating adult life and I think that’s pretty normal

See I don't think you can be straight at 7 either, I don't think children that young have a sexuality because they have not gone through puberty. 9, 10, that's different because they are starting to have those hormonal changes by then. I think that a lot of 7 year olds, particularly of our generation and older, would assume at 7 that they are straight, because that is heterosexual-as-default which is what our culture strongly expects.

But perhaps I just don't have a clear memory of discovering my sexuality because I'm bi so I didn't have a specific memory of realising that I like X/Y kind of person. I might be totally wrong and people who have a strong preference for one sex or the other know much much earlier.

“mentally preparing myself!”
🤣

"*I do wonder if a lot of this kind of "coming of age"/"omg boys/girls!" stuff dates from eras/cultures where kids were separated more in school and socially? I only ever went to mixed schools and would have had to work very hard not to notice good looking boys of a similar age to me."

Not sure. A former teacher of mine told us how he 'discovered' girls at age 10 when playing kiss chase or similar. Before then, he didn't think girls were useful because in the main they didn't like playing football or any of his other hobbies. He must have been in a mixed school.

"I only ever went to mixed schools and would have had to work very hard not to notice good looking boys of a similar age to me."

I think for me it was a bit the opposite. I kind of decided I 'liked' someone at the end of primary, but I think it was a social pressure thing.

I don't disbelieve you! I'm just thinking, at 7 I knew which boys were good looking, I didn't have sexual feelings for them, or want to touch them.

I also knew which girls were the prettiest though, and the same applied.

I suppose I had some sense of wanting to be pretty so that boys would think I was pretty. Sounds pathetic, written down, but just trying to put it in to the thought processes of a 7 years old.

It obviously varies between individuals and from experience ‘discovering’ girls or bits at 10 is very late! I remember being 8-ish and me and my friends had lists of boys we liked in school. It wasn’t copying adults, we fancied them 🤣 Obviously we weren’t thinking of ‘doing’ anything with them, but we were interested in each other ‘romantically’, and would ask each other out etc.

Bits = Boys 😂😂

I agree that people tend to think it's cure when little kids say they are boyfriend and girlfriend or that they are going to get married one day. They don't think there's anything sexual going on. It's actually good that the idea of two women being partners is becoming more normalised as a possibility among children. It doesn't mean she definitely will be gay but it could do.