Dd, ASD and possibly gay

[AdviceOnLife]

I will start by saying I don't not care if my children are gay or straight as long as they happy and in a loving relationship.

On to the issue.
Dd just turned 12 and has autism.
The girls (including dd) are at the age of having 'boyfriends', silly crushes and spending time together in school but not date or anything advanced like that.
The month of June was obviously pride and the school did a lot for this and dd became somewhat fixated on lgbt as a whole.
She has now asked a girl to be her 'girlfriend' and the girl said yes.
Prior to this she had a 'boyfriend' for about 4 days.
I use the quotes because it's all very immature and child like still.

Dd and I had a really good chat after she told me about her girlfriend. She was quite honest in thinks she has crushes on girls but is very confused and became very upset. She struggles with social aspects of life as it is.

I am doing my best to listen and support.
I adviced her to give herself time, she will work out who she is and she always has me to listen.

I don't want to minimise this as a passing fixation but I also don't want to add anymore confusion into her thoughts.

I guess my fear is it I am not supporting her enough because I don't really know what it is should be doing appart from listening.
Has anyone ben hear and do you please have any advice?
Thank you for reading

You posted this a while back but I'll answer because I think I'm in the same situation with a slightly older DD. It sounds like you're doing a great job. Try to keep talking and be supportive, but don't overdo it.

Part of the reason I posted is that DD kept her thoughts from us and got it into her head that we are homophobic (with no evidence at all as we are really not - that's ASD for you), and she was going online for information. (I was letting her online more because of lockdown.) What was scary about that was that she was being told by adults that her parents are abusive, that she should leave (! this is a vulnerable young teenage girl) and that she is trans. She had no idea how to process this information at all and was taking at face value as good advice. I hope we've caught it early enough to reverse all these thoughts.

So, I guess the moral of this story is be careful where your DD gets her information from. DD knew not to trust strangers online, but couldn't apply that to herself and who she was talking to.