10 year old Dd says she's a lesbian.

[Freeasabird76]

My 10 year old Dd came to me this evening with her friend on a WhatsApp call saying her friend had something to tell me,as she passed me the phone she cuddled up to my side and looked scared,her also 10 year old friend said quite matter of factly,Dd is afraid to say it but wants you to know that shes a lesbian.
At this time my Dd broke down in tears,I told her friend thank you for telling me but I had to hang up now to comfort Dd.
I obviously comforted her and told her like I have before that she should never be afraid to tell me ANYTHING and like I've said in the past I love you no matter who you like,be it girls,boys or girls and boys or neither.
I asked her how long she'd wanted to tell me this and she said a long time.Now I honestly do not care one bit if she likes girls,all I care about is her happiness.
I have questions though,there's been a lot of talk in Dds class this year about girls being lesbian boys being gay etc,obviously different generations so I dont have any experience of this,when I was a child this didnt come up until we were at least say 15.How sure can you be at 10 about your sexuality? I dont recollect being so self aware at that age.

That isn't supportive though?
Restricting her internet use and telling her teachers would be perceived as a big punishment to a ten year old.
Plus, nothing is "happening" besides the fact that children at primary school are now allowed to explore who they're attracted to rather than assuming that opposite sex attraction is "normal" and that they have a guilty secret they need to keep.

I think it's more talked about and understood by youngsters now. My son is 10 and gay. My other son is 16 and bi.
They talk about their friends who are gay, bi, pan, demi etc. It's just normal chat to them.
When I was at school I knew one lad that was gay. Obviously, there were loads more than that but they didn't come out until we'd left school. People were scared to come out. Now they're not.
I think this is a good thing.
And yes as pp above ^^ if doesn't matter if they're gay and then realise they're not or vice versa. Sexuality is fluid. It's not set in stone. Just because you have an attraction to a specific sex, don't be stubborn to think that it couldn't change. It might, it might not, it might change, then change back. Whatever, just go with the flow.
And, it's OK.
Be accepting. That's all.

Thank you everyone.

My crushes wasn’t towards other females. I knew from a young age that I was attracted to males, but suddenly a child thinking they have a same sex attraction is something that will ‘fizzle out’. Ok. Homophobia still strong here.

Just tell her that's fine and please don't focus on the fact she may still change her mind. You would not suggest that is she had a crush on a boy.

This. I can't believe some of the comments.

With my eldest a group friends all girls 6 - 2 of them at 12 came out & 1 said she was bi.

My daughter is autistic (we didn’t know this at the time) and struggled a little with her own identity at the time and got in a pickle about it all. we sat down and said we love you no matter what but let’s not stick labels on yourself at such a young age - just be.

They are 19 now - Out of the 6 - 1 is an lesbian and the other 2 deny ever saying they where a lesbian or bi. My daughter has been in two long term relationships with boys - we spoke recently about the conversation we had 7 years ago & she says she was just very confused by all the emotions and wanting to just fit in and not be excluded from the friendship group.

"Okay darling There's plenty of time to choose whatever you want in life. When I was 9 I wanted to be a girl called George who had her own boat, dog and island. "

Choose?

Wtf

Please don’t do this OP

I would be shocked if my ten year old fancied girls or boys to be honest. And I'm a bit uneasy about the idea that children under ten "fancy" (ie are sexually attracted to) anyone, it seems to play into an idea they are more mature (and capable of consent) than they actually are.

My daughter’s only 8 and recently said one of her friends was her girlfriend and she wanted to marry a girl when she grew up. I’ve just said “ok that’s nice”. I figure she’ll either be a lesbian when she’s grown up or she won’t. It doesn’t really make a difference at this age when “going out” with someone seems to literally mean announcing that you’re going out with them and then announcing that you’ve broken up with them 5 minutes later.

I don't think its homophobia as suggested above to say that intense female friendships and girl crushes can happen with a huge amount of girls. I would imagine the same is with boys, although as a female I don't have first hand experience. I (probably controversially) think that sexuality is pretty fluid through puberty and teens, and its important for children and young people not to label themselves or be labelled.

Why does it matter whether she thinks she’s gay or not? I told people I was straight at her age and for many more years after that, but deep down I knew I was gay, probably knew since I was around 7/8 and first started having crushes and being curious about things, but was in denial. If she said she was straight no one would bat an eyelid or be dismissive. You don’t need to do anything more than you’ve already done.

She’s probably just confused because it’s being spoken about at school. I didn’t ‘like’ boys until I was about 15. I desperately wanted to be friends with certain girls, I admired them and wanted to hang out with them. If someone had introduced the idea of being a lesbian I probably would have thought I was one. I’m very straight as it turns out. I would just tell her that thinking another girl is amazing and wanting to be close to her doesn’t mean she’s going to be a lesbian when she’s older. She doesn’t need to worry about it or label herself.
Like @Badlifeday i think it’s wrong to assume that it’s attraction in the sexual sense at this age. Infatuations yes but ‘fancying’ nope.

10 is such a tricky age and you just have to reassure her I think. A lot of my 11 year old's friends are talking about being gay but he's more interested in star wars at the moment. My DS1 is 16 and the number of his friends who say they are gay, trans or non binary seems to change on an almost daily basis.

I preferred girls at her age. I had massive crushes on older girls in my early teens. Then at 15 I discovered boys. Been straight ever since.

She's too young to know. I'm guessing that hormones haven't kicked in yet. I'd tell her that she won't know for sure just yet, but it doesn't matter a jot to you.

How much of an influence is the 'friend' just out of interest?
Peer pressure at play after discussion at school?
I remember a high % of our DS's female friends came out as gay/NB between 10-15 yrs. Only one of them still is (NB) at age 19/20!

But she's not too young to know, is she?

Why is it important for children not to label/be labelled?

Essentially kids are exposed to the concepts of sexuality, gender identity etc much younger

Essentially kids are being groomed and it's quiet scary that adults are encouraging it. Same as the shit surrounding trans/gender neutral/etc

FFS. She's not a lesbian, it's fine to like boys and girls. Have as many friends as you like. AND THEN MOVE ON. She's 10. She could be lesbian in the future, as an adult, who knows, but for gods sake, you don't encourage it at this age.

Playground bloody nonsense but then I posted about this recently and was gobsmacked how many adults thought it was ok for children to go around calling themselves a lesbian.

Except many gay people do know at that age.

For one thing, the current obsession in youth culture around labels - especially for gender, sexuality and so on - seems to be very highly correlated with a dramatic rise in anxiety and mental health conditions. I notice this acutely among students and teenagers, where a obsession with labelling seems to go along with a high prevalence of anxiety around who they are “seen” to be by other people.

This trend is still ongoing, but it seems to me part of an unhealthy side to current adolescent culture, which revolves around constant pigeonholing, policing others’ behaviour, anxiety about self-description, and self-performance to others, including fitting into very narrow tick-boxes of “identity”, rather than anything freeing or overtly positive.

Yes but everyone keeps ignoring that fact.

Children being GROOMED, FFS children grow up surrounded by heterosexual relationships, in stories, ads, TV shows and films.

But a child thinking they could be gay is a result of grooming. It's homophobic disgusting.

It isn't just about sex, it's about who you love. And children know from a young age whether they love boys or girls.

For one thing, the current obsession in youth culture around labels - especially for gender, sexuality and so on - seems to be very highly correlated with a dramatic rise in anxiety and mental health conditions.

Do you have any hard evidence, though? I would think it would be very difficult to distinguish between a dramatic rise in anxiety etc., and a rise in diagnoses; I also can't follow how you'd be able to tell whether it was related to labels or not.

The issue I have here, is that these arguments - OMG children are suddenly label-obsessed and mentally ill; OMG children are being groomed to think they can be gay - are exactly the same as what I experienced as a response in the 90s. And I know from gay friends who were older it was the same in the 80s, 70s, 60s ... you name it. It's just homophobia, plain and simple.

'Lesbian' isn't a label any more than 'heterosexual'. They are both fine things to be.