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.

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 9 year old love is what you feel for your family and pets, not a romantic partner or sex buddy. I find it strange how some people encourage their kids to deal with topics that are beyond the developmental stage. I suppose letting your dc watch Love Island doesn't help. And YouTube ads prompting you to take 'how gay are you' quizzes. There'll be a lot of are you gay /trans on TikTok too especially with Pride month. Regardless of straight or gay, no 9 year old needs to define their preference, it just means they've been exposed to this prematurely. Poor children.

@blite Exactly.

If a child that age had been 'exposed' to the idea of heterosexuality, would you say they'd been 'exposed' to that prematurely?

@BritInAus that's not what I'm saying is it?

I completely agree with @theclangersarecoming

Especially

It isn’t all just some romantic idea of having sweet preteen crushes. It can also be heavily bound up with premature sexualisation of children into social and sexual roles that aren’t healthy and shouldn’t be normalised.

I personally don't support preteen crushes and luckily my dc were more into their hobbies and books than romantic relationships in primary school. There is plenty of time for them to explore their relationship preferences and sexuality, the teen years are long and hormones usually are the natural driving factor, not adults on a sex positive mission.

As it happens we have several L&G couples who we socialise with and a few of my dc's primary school teachers were/are in same sex relationships, which is how dc are exposed to same sex relationships, just as they are exposed to hetero relationships by other couples around them.

I find the boyfriend / girlfriend stuff in primary very cringe and silently judge parents who promote 'sweet preteen crushes'.

They tend to talk about crushes lots in Y6 at school with friends but it's usually driven by the kids who have been exposed to lots of media that's not really for their age group or have older siblings. No need to rush anything.

My thoughts exactly. Few would question this if she'd said she liked boys much less get the school involved. By that age I knew I liked girls and boys.

See my post above, I'll quote again

It isn’t all just some romantic idea of having sweet preteen crushes. It can also be heavily bound up with premature sexualisation of children into social and sexual roles that aren’t healthy and shouldn’t be normalised.

Let kids be kids, not mini adults. Talking about relationships and consent including same sex at primary age is fine but not focusing on same sex or gay 'love' and attraction . Focusing on the latter is premature sexualisation.

Bullshit. There's no such thing as a trans child. Just irresponsible adults who are pushing an agenda and encouraging behaviour by giving it a name that is beyond damaging. I was a tomboy back in the 70's. If I'd have had stupid parents, no doubt I would have become a boy because that's what I liked looking like - when I was a child . I still have more affinity for male friends than female friends because frankly I find women hard work (this thread is no exception!)

Let children be children. They should've have their heads filled with ideas of gay/lesbians/trans - do you know why? Because they are children not adults.

It's as simple as that.

Thank you. Finally some other voices of reason on this thread.

When I was a child my RSE focused on straight couples being in love as a reason to get married, how I was awfully sexualised.

How do you explain 'being in love' to a young child who hasn't experienced these feelings yet due to them being a child @Simonjt?

Love is a big word that means many different things for many different people. The way 'love' is being used in the last few years is heavily associated with sex positivity it probably had a much less sexualised connotations when you were a kid.

No need to explain the concept of sexual or romantic attraction to a young child. It's not necessary or appropriate.

@Blite

Talking about relationships and consent including same sex at primary age is fine but not focusing on same sex or gay 'love' and attraction . Focusing on the latter is premature sexualisation.

So they should talk about relationships without mentioning love or attraction?

How does that go then?

You don't need to put the word love in quote marks after the word gay btw...

@wellhelloitsme

I wrote same sex or gay 'love' and attraction

Have you omitted same sex before 'love' on purpose when quoting me ?

Huh? Same sex attraction and love is gay attraction and love, no?

And again, how should a teacher / adult talk to a child about about relationships (which you said was fine) without mentioning love or attraction (which you said wasn't)?

It's too beautiful a day to be arguing with sex positives on the Internet.

I believe my posts upthread are quite clear. I don't engage with posters who pick holes for a sport, it's a dumb way of conversing or debating.

Make your own constructive points instead of ping ponging mine to childishly invalidate a well articulated opinion.

It's funny with some posters, they never focus on the developmental needs of children, only their own projected wants and have to haves. Off to soak up some lovely sunshine.

I do apologise!!! Yes that was a typo or unfocused typing, thank you for pulling that out actually.

I wrote
Talking about relationships and consent including same sex at primary age is fine but not focusing on same sex or gay 'love' and attraction

That should definitely have been

Talking about relationships and consent including same sex at primary age is fine but not focusing on either straight or gay 'love' and attraction [Envy] .

No idea what went through my mind there 🤔

I believe my posts upthread are quite clear. I don't engage with posters who pick holes for a sport, it's a dumb way of conversing or debating

Make your own constructive points instead of ping ponging mine to childishly invalidate a well articulated opinion.

As you've now just mentioned, it was your typo that caused your post to be unclear and poorly articulated.

Not me being dumb or trying to invalidate your opinion. Which wasn't well articulated after all.

Enjoy the sun.

As you've now just mentioned, it was your typo that caused your post to be unclear and poorly articulated.

Not me being dumb or trying to invalidate your opinion. Which wasn't well articulated after all.

I still haven't seen a constructive argument, just picking things apart but I appreciate I mistyped and caused some confusion in one single sentence, like I said, it's great to highlighted that but that doesn't make the rest of your posts particularly original, convincing or helpful.

But it’s okay to fill their heads with heterosexual ideas and bombard them with heterosexual relationships from the moment they’re born?

Let’s not pretend that children aren’t constantly exposed to heterosexuality on the TV, in films and books etc.

Heaven forbid they learn that gay people exist though, got to protect their innocent minds from being corrupted or they might end up gay themselves 🙄

@Elsiebear90. Being heterosexual is the norm, most people are heterosexual, which is why homosexuals have been historically oppressed (and are still oppressed in many parts of the world). Obviously children are going to be exposed to heterosexual ideas and heterosexual relationships as they see heterosexual couples all the time. Nowadays, they are also exposed to homosexual couples and families so that normalises homosexuality. Young kids don't need to know about sexual attraction or sex, straight or gay, there are many more interesting and relevant things for them to discover at that age. Sex comes later, no need for grown ups to pre-empt or meddle. It's part of normal human development to become interested in sex at some point during puberty, gay or straight. What isn't normal is for grown ups to invest so much time and effort in interventions to indoctrinating children about sex, whether gay or straight, it's illiberal and inappropriate. Have you been to any of the larger book store recently? Their youth sections are crammed with books about homosexuality and trans. It's definitely being pushed at youngsters, with concerted effort.

we must go to very different book shops

You don’t need to explain to me why gay people are oppressed, I’m gay myself, my issue is people describing anything that isn’t heterosexual as perverted or too sexual and therefore automatically unsuitable for children. Yet children are bombarded with heterosexual material (that definitely is about sex) from an extremely young age, yet this doesn’t seem to concern people quite as much, or the threshold for being concerned is much higher. It’s double standards and blatantly homophobic.

I feel like I've just witnessed what I can only describe as straightsplaining...

😂😂😂

I must be very unkind to my DD as all her “crush” chat aged 8, 9, 10 onwards was dismissed by me telling her she didn’t need to be thinking about all that yet, just have fun with her friends, and when she’s old enough to bother with it then she may well find it’s girls she likes instead/as well. Between her and older DD, I currently know of far more teenager girls having relationships with girls than I do having relationships with boys. Whether it’s a “phase” for any of these kids or not who would know but them but at least they feel free to work out their own feelings.

God,this thread is enough to worry me already that her life is going to be harder just because of whom she chooses to have a relationship with when older.