9 year old told me he thinks he is gay.

[Spaceprincess]

Hi, just posting for advice really.
My lovely 9 coming on 10 year old son has told me he thinks he is gay.
This is not a shock, I have thought for a long time that he could be , but only because he likes a lot of traditionally feminine things (I know this is not what being gay is) such as dance, musical theatre, my little pony, make up. At the same time I would not have been surprised if he'd grown up to be a straight man who was into these things ifswim.
Over the 6 months he's become obsessed with gay characters in shows e.g Kurt from Glee, and Rupaul's Drag Race.
He's asked a lot of questions during this time about being gay, such as can gay men have children and how they have sex. This was triggered I think by doing sex ed at school.
He's always had things for make celebrities, Tom Holland atm.
About 4 weeks ago he told me he thinks he is gay, and asked if there was any way of "turning back" (becoming straight) and started crying.
I cuddled him , told him that I loved him whoever he loved, and that he was wonderful and precious and thanked him for telling me. He said he knew because he'd had feelings about another boy and dreamed about boys.
Since then hes not really spoke about it. I asked him how he felt and he said hes fine with it, that me knowing and seeing the drag queens makes him feel that it's going to be ok. But that he doesn't want everyone to know yet.
What I'm wondering is do you know if you are gay at 9? Hes 10 in 6 weeks.
I have had same sex relationships but had no concept of sexuality until I was much older. I want to support him as much as I can, do we just assume that's it and he's out now or is he too young?
He is very comfortable with us treating him now as gay (his two older sisters 17/19 know) and talks about boys , getting married to a man one day and lets them do his hair and make up.
I just want to do right by him. Any advice is appreciated.

Eek Drag Race isn't suitable for a nine year old at all - not because of anyone's sexuality on there but because the content itself is inappropriate. Bitchiness, name calling and sexual jokes, innuendo etc.

FWIW I knew at 9 that I liked boys and girls. I think it's worth saying (like you have) that whether he would like to be with a girl or boy when he's older, the time to think about that is a long way off and for now he doesn't need to worry about who he will end up with.

And that he just needs to carry on being himself and can keep talking to you about anything whenever he wants to.

And I should add to my post that my best friends are a gay couple, they both agreed that they "knew" they preferred boys from a young age - not necessarily in a sexual way, just that they found them more appealing.

I can't speak for everyone but I don't think that any one is suggesting that the boys feelings shouldn't be acknowledged - I do think it's a bit odd that he is being "treated as gay". I don't understand what that means but it doesn't sound particularly helpful to a young person who is building on his sense of self.

Mine discussed her feelings about who she felt she was vs who she was born as, when she was 7. This prompted a long chat about sexuality and gender, I told her she doesn't have to decide now, whether she's gay, straight, bi, non binary, whatever. But she's 12 now and she came out as bisexual but leaning more towards gay, when she was still 11.

I always thought she might be LGBT but so are some of our friends and family so it's nothing shocking.

Just keep on doing what you're doing and reaffirming that you are there for him whatever his identity, gay, straight, whatever.

Mine have seen snippets of DragRace but it's a bit too fruity. Specially as my youngest is only year four.

Why is everybody so surprised that he's thinking about his sexuality? Even when you're in primary school, people talk about crushes. Normal ones, celebrity ones, etc. Depending on the child, they can often tell early on. I only little kids, but I have enough friends my age and older to know their kids. Three kids around your DS's age have felt the same, and two out of three didn't really understand the concept of LGBTQ+ but still felt attraction to other kids and celebrities the same gender. One of them is still 10 and is a girl, and she's sure of it too. I think you're doing amazingly. You don't need to talk about it anymore, just let him live as a kid

Lots of these comments are going too far. Four year olds have fake marriages and lots of parents just label that as cute! It's sad to see that so many people still have that connection between homosexuality and sex. I had a boyfriend who I said I was going to marry at 5! Just be supportive if and when he needs it

@PickAChew No it isn’t, by 9 virtually all children will have been asked by adults if they have a girlfriend/boyfriend, played mummys and daddys, had pretend weddings at school etc.

It would be more unusual for a child to get to 9 and not to have experienced any of the above and to not have already had at least one crush.

I knew at about six that I would marry a man and told my teacher during our pretend wedding which earned me a slap (not from the UK) from my teacher and a beating from my parents, at eight I really hoped it would be Aladdin, then a few years later Atreyu from neverending story, what a babe.