How do I explain LBTQ+ club to my year 7 son?

[elliejjtiny]

Ds4 is 11 and in year 7. He likes to go to clubs at lunchtime, mostly because if you are going to a club you can go to the front of the dinner queue. Ds4 is disabled so he usually ends up at the back of the queue otherwise.

Anyway, one of the club's is the LBQT+ club. Only he doesn't understand what the club is. I asked him what they do there and he said they play games, make badges and sometimes there is cake. He has been asking me what the letters mean but I don't know what to tell him. I could explain about families with 2 mum's or 2 dad's but that seems not quite right when the people going to the club are secondary school aged and I would have thought a large proportion of them are there to get out of the cold and for free cake. Also I have no idea how to explain the other letters to a child who doesn't understand the concept of sex/relationships yet. I'm very conscious that whatever I tell him will be repeated and I don't want him accidentally offending anybody.

We don't know any LBQT+ people apart from 2 of his teachers so I can't say that being trans is like uncle Dave who used to be Auntie Davina or explain that being gay is like Amelia from school who has 2 mums.

I knew about sex & relationships when I started secondary school. It was all age appropriate and was certainly never "consistently" thrown at me

Allow me to introduce you to the National Curriculum.

You don't have to be woke to not suggest marriage is the only type of valid relationship, especially when it won't be for a very long time.

This week she tells him that gay people are two boys who want to get married. Next week he talks to two boys who are in a couple and asks them when they are planning to get married. Aside from the fact he's just made them uncomfortable and awkward, when they tell him they have no intention of getting married, he's even more confused than before.

We're talking about a child who has spent 11 years on planet earth without yet understanding the concept of someone being gay, or in a relationship at all, and who has a parent who has never thought to explain it. The last thing he needs is to have it explained to him incorrectly.

You are really over thinking this. Next you will suggest mum gets a consent form !!

No, actually I don't think they need to know.

Not knowing is more of a potential safeguarding issue.
And school LGBT+ clubs don't talk about sex anyway!

They learn this in primary school, or weren't you aware of that?
It's part of the National Curriculum.

Did you keep your child at home when this was covered in primary school?

Eh how's that now? We make all the gay couples hide from your child?

Conflating same sex attraction with the rest of the "alphabet" seems to be the issue as they have nothing in common.

Not at all, but I just wish children could be children without the need to explain sexual preferences to them. Too much too soon imo. Especially teaching of it in schools. I'd pull my child from any school that started spouting on about LQBTQ.

That’s every state school in the country, FYI.

Just wondering if you are married, and if so if you had any children present at your wedding, and what you think a wedding actually is if not a very big and expensive way for the bride and groom to express their sexual preference 🤷‍♀️

Not at all, but I just wish children could be children without the need to explain sexual preferences to them

You do know 11 and 12 year old fancy people yes?

I think you’re getting confused between what fancying someone at 11 or 12 means and sexual preferences which is like the nitty-gritty of genital contact

Yep and they don't need anything explained.

I would prefer my children are taught about how pro creation actually works from a physiological stand point, rather than if Bob wants to become Jane he can 😬😬🙄 you know, the good old days when common sense prevailed.

It wasn't.

It’s definitely best to avoid genital contact if they are nitty, or indeed gritty.

It was. It's in the NC.

Do you think they are being told how to have gay and lesbian sex?!

I hope your children aren’t LGBT because they’ll find it very difficult to come out to you and your relationship will really suffer.

So providing a step towards visibility and equality is 'spouting' . The reason schools have to do this is because there are ignorant parents like yourself.

Do you give out about all the hetro normalisation of the school books- mammy, daddy, the fairy tales of prince and princess?

No then you my dear are a bigot. Children in your school are families of the LGBTQ+ community should they just pretend they aren't when your child is around?

Honestly come up to 2024 it will be a big jump but your child who by the way be a member of the LGBTQ+ community, will be grateful.

Well why don't we let the representatives of the community decide that🤦‍♀️

@Marblesbackagain there is no decision. It's a definition. LGB refers to sexual attraction. The rest of the alphabet does not.

Well I disagree. And the consensus by the community would appear to also

You don't get to tell people how they align. Do you not understand how absolutely inappropriate and condescending it is to tell a community you are doing it wrong 🤷‍♀️🤣🤣

People saying that children don't need to learn about sexual identity and healthy relationships of all kinds are kidding themselves.

Children are not completely blank slates who would have zero concept of, for instance, homosexuality, if they weren't taught about it by adults.

These things are taught in UK schools in age-appropriate ways precisely because children possess innate identities and will need to find their place in the world, and will likely be motivated in due course to form intimate relationships.

Educating and informing them isn't some kind of woke propaganda. It is essential to building healthy self acceptance, self esteem and wider societal tolerance.

I have never understood this mindset that teaching about sex and relationships is foisting ideologies and alternative lifestyles upon young people. I learned French and Geography but I didn't grow up to be a Parisienne oxbow lake.