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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My 11yo told me she was pansexual and I asked her what that meant to her, and then asked her if she had any feeling of attraction to anyone. She responded “ew, no”, then paused for a beat and said, “I guess I’m nothing sexual”, to which I responded “you’re 11 and that is fine. No need to rush to label yourself”. She then decided that her current sexual orientation is “questioning” which sounds great for a preteen/teen kid who is still figuring it all out. By 15 I expect she may have some answers, but at 11 it’s still really all beyond her. If at 15 she told me she was bi I would say great, thank you for sharing that with me. I hope you find wonderful people to love and who love you. [/quote]

Hasn’t something gone wrong in our world when an 11yo knows the word pansexual, let alone identifies as one?   I think you handled it well, pp, but I just think this celebration of sex and sexuality in elementary and middle schools is less than ideal.  [/quote]

I don’t think of it as something “gone wrong” because it’s always been there but hasn’t been accepted or talked about until very recently. I think it’s great that she knows what pansexual is. Her 7yo brother also knows about the gender and sexuality spectrums and has a best friend who is (by her words) “a girl who likes boy things and may really be a boy but I’m not sure yet”.

I do think there is a lot of unintended pressure that young kids (meaning 10+ Or so) feel these days to come out as something because they perceive it as cool. That doesn’t mean that some of them aren’t going to truly be lgbtq+, some of them are. Some of them are experimenting and trying to “fit in” to the current trends around it, at least in liberal areas where there may be many peers identifying as lgbtq+. A pre-sexual kid may worry that there is something “wrong” with them these days because they are not yet experiencing romantic/sexual feelings (perfectly normal at those ages), while some of their peers are. Yes, many children identify as gay at younger ages but most people simply identify as the “default” (i.e. heterosexual) because it’s the norm - and because they haven’t actually reached the stage of sexual or romantic attraction. Now that more and more people are being vocal and being accepted for being lgbtq+ those kids who aren’t sure what they are yet may feel the need to rush to a label, because they want the same affirmation and attention that their peers are receiving. 
My 11yo (I’m the or) has multiple classmates who identify as gender fluid and even more who identify as lgbtq+, so I think in her case she simply felt like she was left out if she didn’t give herself a label, but then she realized that she doesn’t need to label herself yet. [/quote]

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