Tween coming out

[Anonymous]

If it were a *boy* coming out…

Anyway I think we need to stop completely with us coming out nonsense. just tell me who you’re dating and it’s fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you know if it weren’t for every other 13-year-old girl (including my own) coming out, I would be a lot more supportive. Girls like girls are that age. You know, before anyone is actually having sex. If it were a bit coming out, I’d be more supportive. Many of these girls are suffering from social contagion. Not all, but many. Biologically, I fail to accept that 30% of girls are gay and trans. That’s the breakdown of my daughter’s friends. Big eye roll here.

Haha, this is what I’m seeing as well. I absolutely think some of these girls are truly gay, but many others are just experimenting or getting caught up in the trend. And it IS a huge trend. Not sure why people are denying that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you know if it weren’t for every other 13-year-old girl (including my own) coming out, I would be a lot more supportive. Girls like girls are that age. You know, before anyone is actually having sex. If it were a bit coming out, I’d be more supportive. Many of these girls are suffering from social contagion. Not all, but many. Biologically, I fail to accept that 30% of girls are gay and trans. That’s the breakdown of my daughter’s friends. Big eye roll here.

Haha, this is what I’m seeing as well. I absolutely think some of these girls are truly gay, but many others are just experimenting or getting caught up in the trend. And it IS a huge trend. Not sure why people are denying that.

I just have a hard time believing that there are *so many* girls that are gay compared to the number of gay women. It does seem a bit like a trend. It would be interesting to know how it turns out in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you know if it weren’t for every other 13-year-old girl (including my own) coming out, I would be a lot more supportive. Girls like girls are that age. You know, before anyone is actually having sex. If it were a bit coming out, I’d be more supportive. Many of these girls are suffering from social contagion. Not all, but many. Biologically, I fail to accept that 30% of girls are gay and trans. That’s the breakdown of my daughter’s friends. Big eye roll here.

Haha, this is what I’m seeing as well. I absolutely think some of these girls are truly gay, but many others are just experimenting or getting caught up in the trend. And it IS a huge trend. Not sure why people are denying that.

Yes it absolutely is a trend and there is a social contagion going on. Bisexual and non-binary have become popular things for girls that age to latch onto. Absolutely there are some of them that are truly gay or transgender but I believe it is a small percentage of them. I worry about those that decide to go on hormones prematurely and then later come to regret it.

[Anonymous]

To play the broken record: It is common for girls that age to try and put a label on their sexuality. It is also the same age when boys are kind of gross, for lack of a better word. Easier to hang with your girls and label yourself gay than have your heart outwardly broken by the few non-gross boys. My daughter went through being: abrosexual (had to look that up), pansexual, bisexual, they/them, lesbian, and at 15 1/2 currently is bi-sexual and identifies with she/her. This may be one of those situations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Outside certain very far out “churches,” a 12 year old has no need of a “sexuality.” The demand that people, and increasingly younger people, pick a side and then define their entire life and personality according to that one small aspect of what makes up a complete person is absolutely pernicious and soul destroying.

I tend to agree with this. I am Gen X, and we were all about experimenting and avoiding labels. This generation is the opposite. They have these elaborate terms and labels and feel the need to have it all figured out before high school.

As a Gen X parent of a non-binary child, I say YES! They label everything and everyone and discuss it constantly. I do say, I'm proud of my child for knowing themselves so completely. When I was 12 I was pretty sure the only thing I was aware of was how to use our microwave.

[Anonymous]

Hi folks. I’m the OP of this thread and wanted to check in and thank you all for your input. It’s interesting to see how this thread has evolved. For those who might be interested in an update, I can say that my daughter is happy and thriving. I don’t know where she is going to land on the sexuality continuum — as far as I can tell, she and her friends are all over the map in terms of their identities. I will say that I have reflected on my initial negative reaction and have forgiven myself for it. It was born of our toxic culture and has little bearing on my relationship to my child. It’s the culture that needs fixing, not her. I have processed/continue to process my feelings separately from her. I’ve landed on the position that it’s my responsibility to sort out the cultural BS totally separately from her. I love her to pieces and it breaks my heart to imagine a scenario where she doesn’t feel totally supported by me and her Dad. So I tamp down my base instincts when I worry about her being gay (which I’m not entirely sure she is but is also beside the point), and remind myself that it’s not her it’s our culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi folks. I’m the OP of this thread and wanted to check in and thank you all for your input. It’s interesting to see how this thread has evolved. For those who might be interested in an update, I can say that my daughter is happy and thriving. I don’t know where she is going to land on the sexuality continuum — as far as I can tell, she and her friends are all over the map in terms of their identities. I will say that I have reflected on my initial negative reaction and have forgiven myself for it. It was born of our toxic culture and has little bearing on my relationship to my child. It’s the culture that needs fixing, not her. I have processed/continue to process my feelings separately from her. I’ve landed on the position that it’s my responsibility to sort out the cultural BS totally separately from her. I love her to pieces and it breaks my heart to imagine a scenario where she doesn’t feel totally supported by me and her Dad. So I tamp down my base instincts when I worry about her being gay (which I’m not entirely sure she is but is also beside the point), and remind myself that it’s not her it’s our culture.

The important thing is to support her and continue to grow as an individual and learn who she is. It's really harmful when family members attempt to repress someone. It's part of the reason depression and suicide are so prevalent in LGBTQ people. We are lucky that the country is evolving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she come out as a lesbian? Honestly I was thrilled when DD came out as a lesbian. I know lesbians struggle in relationships too but if my daughter stays a lesbian, she probably never get date raped, be a victim of domestic violence, or go around trying to get the approval of men who really aren’t that great. I mean I adore my husband and all but sometimes when I look around me I think I got one of the few good men on the planet.

Anyway, the website The Acceptance Project has a lot of really amazing resources. Lots of the stuff feels like it’s being written for not-too-educated homophobic people, but it still has a ton of great information, like dealing with the grief of potentially never having biological grandchildren and stuff.

Very false thinking.

Agreed. Women can be as mean, controlling, violent and aggressive as any man. Men, women, all of the above and everything inbetween-all can be abusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m gay (been out since college, which is when I realized. My dh swears he knew by age 4 at the latest). Anyhow, it’s okay to be sad and supportive. For her life is just beginning. But you can still mourn the life you thought she’d have even if her new life will be just as good or better.

But like trans people, know that the life you are mourning never in fact existed for her. Nonetheless to you it was real.

I like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m gay (been out since college, which is when I realized. My dh swears he knew by age 4 at the latest). Anyhow, it’s okay to be sad and supportive. For her life is just beginning. But you can still mourn the life you thought she’d have even if her new life will be just as good or better.

But like trans people, know that the life you are mourning never in fact existed for her. Nonetheless to you it was real.

I like this.

This is the OP. I was grateful for this compassionate response from this PP many months ago. It was an incredibly helpful framing and a kind and generous response from PP..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you know if it weren’t for every other 13-year-old girl (including my own) coming out, I would be a lot more supportive. Girls like girls are that age. You know, before anyone is actually having sex. If it were a bit coming out, I’d be more supportive. Many of these girls are suffering from social contagion. Not all, but many. Biologically, I fail to accept that 30% of girls are gay and trans. That’s the breakdown of my daughter’s friends. Big eye roll here.

The vast majority of kids identify as hetero and cis gendered. Most kids in school find friends that are similar to themselves. Since you wrongly believe that such a large percent of kids are identifying as gay or trans, that implies that your child's friend group is largely queer and gender non-conforming kids. It sounds like you're in denial.

We live in a time when people feel more comfortable coming out and being themselves. I think this is a great thing. We will have far fewer gay people in unhappy marriages that look hetero on the outside in the coming decades. Obviously it will still happen with the most religious conservative families that will drill into their children's heads that being gay is "wrong".

The most valuable thing my religious conservative family taught me with their hate is that the god they believe in is fake. They live in a hetero normative bubble and ascribe to a religion where they get to decide that they are going to heaven for living the easy life of a cisgendered heterosexual and the people that are gay or bi or trans get to live a much harder life and go straight to hell because their god decided to make them different. It's really no surprise that this country is losing it's religion.

[Anonymous]

I swear it is NOT "the vast majority of kids identify as hetero and cis gendered" at my kids high school. Maybe cis-gendered, but almost all her friend group is queer, whether bi, or gay or lesbian but not hetero. Just saying there has to be some (or a lot) of social contagion, as previous poster suggested. To those who genuinely are, great! But I, like PP, and posters on many on this forum, think there is some sort of fad to this. Sorry not sorry.