As others have noted, gender (gender fluidity, non-binary, being trans) is a distinct concept from sexuality. Both are stigmatized, but gender nonconformity is less well understood. My kid is a senior in HS & has been out as queer (their word) since age 12. They are now non-binary, which is newer. They are age 18 so a legal adult and I am so grateful that they are open with us as they figure out their journey.

As PPs have noted, adolescence & young adulthood are times of identity development & evolution. I think my child has ideas and language that never would have even occurred to me at their age. And, I am grateful for the freedom kids have nowadays to self define, which gives my child the power to be able to better embrace their authentic self. For those who complain about navel-gazing, I would just say that it's developmentally appropriate.

Finally, I'll say that being a feminist is one way to react to societal enforcement of limiting or unhealthy gender roles. Being non-binary is another.

I've found 3 free online courses to help me educate myself about gender:

Queering Identities: LGBTQ+ Sexuality and Gender Identity
University of Colorado (Coursera)
[url]https://www.coursera.org/learn/queeringidentities#about
[/url]

What does it mean to identify as Transgender or Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC)?
University of Minnesota (Coursera)
[url]https://www.coursera.org/learn/tgnc-gender-identity-social-change
[/url]In the last decade transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) individuals have become increasingly visible in our families, culture, and public discourse. This course explores the concept of gender identity for people who are curious about the nature of gender, the process of gender affirmation, or changing social dynamics. Participants will learn the unique challenges faced by the TGNC population as well as develop the skills to build inclusive spaces in all spheres of their life. This course was developed under the Joycelyn Elders Chair in Sexual Health Education at the University of Minnesota.

Sexual & Gender Identities
MIT (open courseware)
[url]https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/womens-and-gender-studies/wgs-110j-sexual-and-gender-identities-spring-2016/index.htm
[/url]This course offers an introduction to the history of gender, sex, and sexuality in the modern United States, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. It begins with an overview of historical approaches to the field, emphasizing the changing nature of sexual and gender identities over time. The remainder of the course flows chronologically, tracing the expanding and contracting nature of attempts to control, construct, and contain sexual and gender identities, as well as the efforts of those who worked to resist, reject, and reform institutionalized heterosexuality and mainstream configurations of gendered power.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Girls like attention and claiming to be different in a fundamental way, especially a socially acceptable one for the time period, is a GREAT way to get attention and kudos in your social circles. In the 90s, a WHOLE bunch of girls claimed to be "depressed and suicidal" a la Kurt Cobain and would walk around literally talking all day about how sad and depressed they were. Magically this mostly went away in the 2000s when it was no longer en vogue to act like a crazy suicidal person. Bisexual was all the rage in the 2000s and all the girls were flaunting that they kissed their best female friend or whatever. Now it's parasexual transfluid whatever. I have no doubt that some people are literally gender nonconforming for valid biological or psychological reasons but I guarantee you 95% of these girls are just attention seeking. I have a colleague whose daughter claimed to start living her life as a man when she was 13, changed her name and everything. By 17 she was done with it. "just a phase bro"

+1 For many of these girls, it is just a phase. I don't see any harm in it... just continue to be supportive and loving. As an interesting side note, from my experience as a high school teacher in FCPS (so I've taught about 2200 students over the past 15 years), most of these girls are white. FWIW, our school population is about 30-35% white. This also makes me think it is a trend rather than truly biological or psychological.

Couldn't it also be that gender nonconformity has more of a stigma generally among nonwhites?

For sure! But I see a lot of freshman girls enter high school as LGBTQ+ and then graduate as mostly cis-gendered heterosexual females. And again, I just encourage all parents to be loving and supportive as students explore their sexuality.

+2 I also want to suggest, though, that we see lots of kids enter high school as "jocks" or "goths" or "theater nerds" and graduate as some other identity/presentation entirely. If you give your child room to explore, they will eventually figure out which identity actually fits.

And so many enter HS cis-gendered but graduate and move on and are LGBTQ+ for the rest of their lives.

Yes, that does happen as well. But there are certainly fewer of those cases.

Actually the opposite... especially in rural areas.

+1
Its not even close. You think there are more experimental but closeted cis-hetero kids than closeted gay or trans kids in HS?

I'm also so very happy that gender nonbinary has become more mainstream. For all those who have panic about kids being trans but changing their mind and worry about if kids (not their own mind you) are being prescribed gender medication/hormone blockers etc...you should be the ones letting kids know there is a "third way". I would be willing to bet that future research shows there are a lot more gender nonbinary people in the world than people who identify as trans. But since that never seemed to be a viable option- to just be between genders or float back and forth probably a lot of nonbinary people felt compelled to choose or felt committing to being trans was their only option. Living in such a binary culture can be really damaging.

Anonymous wrote:Here is what this boils down to for me. I have no problem with my kids wanting to be and try different things with their gender or sexuality because of trends or because of a choice they are making. I don't need my kid (or any queer person) to tell me they feel they were "born this way", even though many, many, many people are and having that feeling as well- I just don't think it is invalid to say that if someone wants to make choices for their sexuality and gender that they might not keep forever that its somehow the wrong way to do things.

My life is full of people who are LGBTQ in several iterations that live just normal, functioning, happy albeit usually kind of ordinary lives. The world doesn't stop turning. When its not a boogey man, it makes it easier to just not worry.

Yes!

DD had a non-binary teacher for two years. I didn’t even know until the second year. The kids didn’t care. The teacher was excellent. Like other teachers, they didn’t discuss their sex life.

Here is what this boils down to for me. I have no problem with my kids wanting to be and try different things with their gender or sexuality because of trends or because of a choice they are making. I don't need my kid (or any queer person) to tell me they feel they were "born this way", even though many, many, many people are and having that feeling as well- I just don't think it is invalid to say that if someone wants to make choices for their sexuality and gender that they might not keep forever that its somehow the wrong way to do things.

My life is full of people who are LGBTQ in several iterations that live just normal, functioning, happy albeit usually kind of ordinary lives. The world doesn't stop turning. When its not a boogey man, it makes it easier to just not worry.

^^^^ That makes much more sense. Thanks for clarifying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to.

Me either. What I do think is weird, is when a child that has been cruising along as the gender assigned at birth with crushes and romances on the opposite sex, suddenly change and do the opposite.

Another thing, when you teach children that not being comfortable in your own body is a 'sign' that you are not your birth gender, it is going to confuse them when puberty hits. How many girls are comfortable with surging hormones, breasts, hair in new places, body odors, your first period, and everything else that comes with puberty? It is 100% normal and natural not to feel comfortable in your own skin at this time... it does not make you trans/pans/etc. It makes you a normal kid. God help you if you are an early bloomer and do not have a comrade in puberty to go through it with - it is a lonely, confusing time. This little vessel that has been your body for 10-14 years is all of a sudden betraying you.

I am sorry, maybe I am not woke enough to be a parent today or hang out on this board. But it makes me sad to see my child, who was so confident and secure in who she was, all of a sudden filled with self doubt and gender confused. She was the first girl in her school to start puberty and she hates her body now. I blame a lot of it on the schools that are going overboard in trying to make everyone feel included, our culture that has made it taboo for parents to guide their kids, and the Internet that is just full of stuff that is in many cases just not accurate.

Your body is not "betraying" you and that is never, ever a message that a child should hear. It is developing naturally, as is intended. They are growing up. This is what happens.

-- a pedicatrician

Oh FFS. Since you are a pediatrician, I would hope you have a good enough bedside manner to understand human speech and phrasing. Do you really not get what the PP was trying to say?

I actually do think that is exactly what PPs child thinks; it is very common at that age. I’m saying that PP as mother needs to correct that thinking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am in the same situation as OP. My DD was a girly girl up until changing to a liberal private where they started teaching sex and sexuality in elementary school. Hitting topics like the genderbread person, how we all pick what we identify with, and made it sound really cool to be anything but heterosexual and the gender she was assigned at birth. The class actually had fun discussing what orientation they "wanted" to be and in the course of a few weeks changed their minds several times. It is baffling for us as her parents to watch this and while we were pretty positive she was a straight girl, we wanted to be kind and open "just in case".

During quarantine she and some friends got on tiktok and youtube and discovered tons of propaganda that really pushed the LGBTQ+ movement to the point it became obvious it was an agenda. Now she is all over the place and we are baffled as to how to deal with it. If she is anywhere in the LGBTQ+ family, we totally support her but I also want to guide her so that she does not make a decision in middle school based biased online quizzes, tiktok, or anything other than who she really is.

So be a parent, OP, and take this crap away from her. I am horrified that so many of you simply allow your young teens to wallow in this cesspool of the internet, and think that there will be no consequences to impressionable, bored young minds.

I am neither the OP nor the PP, but am encountering a lot of the same things with my 12 year old, and it’s not necessarily as easy as taking Tik Tok away. My DD doesn’t have a phone, but all of her friends do. She has limited access to Tik Tok, but her friends appear to have unlimited access with little, if any, parental supervision. They talk, they send each other videos. I don’t love the influence they have over her, but they’re her friends and she loves them and I’m pretty sure restricting her access to them would make everything worse.

Pp here snd I agree; I have a phone less 13 YO DS myself. And I’ve seen the Tik Tok influence because his friends send things to my phone, which they think is his.

Constant dialogue is required! We discuss a lot of this in terms of right and wrong. I’m not afraid to call out much of this as pure garbage

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to.

Me either. What I do think is weird, is when a child that has been cruising along as the gender assigned at birth with crushes and romances on the opposite sex, suddenly change and do the opposite.

Another thing, when you teach children that not being comfortable in your own body is a 'sign' that you are not your birth gender, it is going to confuse them when puberty hits. How many girls are comfortable with surging hormones, breasts, hair in new places, body odors, your first period, and everything else that comes with puberty? It is 100% normal and natural not to feel comfortable in your own skin at this time... it does not make you trans/pans/etc. It makes you a normal kid. God help you if you are an early bloomer and do not have a comrade in puberty to go through it with - it is a lonely, confusing time. This little vessel that has been your body for 10-14 years is all of a sudden betraying you.

I am sorry, maybe I am not woke enough to be a parent today or hang out on this board. But it makes me sad to see my child, who was so confident and secure in who she was, all of a sudden filled with self doubt and gender confused. She was the first girl in her school to start puberty and she hates her body now. I blame a lot of it on the schools that are going overboard in trying to make everyone feel included, our culture that has made it taboo for parents to guide their kids, and the Internet that is just full of stuff that is in many cases just not accurate.

Your body is not "betraying" you and that is never, ever a message that a child should hear. It is developing naturally, as is intended. They are growing up. This is what happens.

-- a pedicatrician

Oh FFS. Since you are a pediatrician, I would hope you have a good enough bedside manner to understand human speech and phrasing. Do you really not get what the PP was trying to say?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am in the same situation as OP. My DD was a girly girl up until changing to a liberal private where they started teaching sex and sexuality in elementary school. Hitting topics like the genderbread person, how we all pick what we identify with, and made it sound really cool to be anything but heterosexual and the gender she was assigned at birth. The class actually had fun discussing what orientation they "wanted" to be and in the course of a few weeks changed their minds several times. It is baffling for us as her parents to watch this and while we were pretty positive she was a straight girl, we wanted to be kind and open "just in case".

During quarantine she and some friends got on tiktok and youtube and discovered tons of propaganda that really pushed the LGBTQ+ movement to the point it became obvious it was an agenda. Now she is all over the place and we are baffled as to how to deal with it. If she is anywhere in the LGBTQ+ family, we totally support her but I also want to guide her so that she does not make a decision in middle school based biased online quizzes, tiktok, or anything other than who she really is.

So be a parent, OP, and take this crap away from her. I am horrified that so many of you simply allow your young teens to wallow in this cesspool of the internet, and think that there will be no consequences to impressionable, bored young minds.

I am neither the OP nor the PP, but am encountering a lot of the same things with my 12 year old, and it’s not necessarily as easy as taking Tik Tok away. My DD doesn’t have a phone, but all of her friends do. She has limited access to Tik Tok, but her friends appear to have unlimited access with little, if any, parental supervision. They talk, they send each other videos. I don’t love the influence they have over her, but they’re her friends and she loves them and I’m pretty sure restricting her access to them would make everything worse.

Anonymous wrote:

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to.

Me either. What I do think is weird, is when a child that has been cruising along as the gender assigned at birth with crushes and romances on the opposite sex, suddenly change and do the opposite.

Another thing, when you teach children that not being comfortable in your own body is a 'sign' that you are not your birth gender, it is going to confuse them when puberty hits. How many girls are comfortable with surging hormones, breasts, hair in new places, body odors, your first period, and everything else that comes with puberty? It is 100% normal and natural not to feel comfortable in your own skin at this time... it does not make you trans/pans/etc. It makes you a normal kid. God help you if you are an early bloomer and do not have a comrade in puberty to go through it with - it is a lonely, confusing time. This little vessel that has been your body for 10-14 years is all of a sudden betraying you.

I am sorry, maybe I am not woke enough to be a parent today or hang out on this board. But it makes me sad to see my child, who was so confident and secure in who she was, all of a sudden filled with self doubt and gender confused. She was the first girl in her school to start puberty and she hates her body now. I blame a lot of it on the schools that are going overboard in trying to make everyone feel included, our culture that has made it taboo for parents to guide their kids, and the Internet that is just full of stuff that is in many cases just not accurate.

Your body is not "betraying" you and that is never, ever a message that a child should hear. It is developing naturally, as is intended. They are growing up. This is what happens.

-- a pedicatrician

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to.

Me either. What I do think is weird, is when a child that has been cruising along as the gender assigned at birth with crushes and romances on the opposite sex, suddenly change and do the opposite.

Another thing, when you teach children that not being comfortable in your own body is a 'sign' that you are not your birth gender, it is going to confuse them when puberty hits. How many girls are comfortable with surging hormones, breasts, hair in new places, body odors, your first period, and everything else that comes with puberty? It is 100% normal and natural not to feel comfortable in your own skin at this time... it does not make you trans/pans/etc. It makes you a normal kid. God help you if you are an early bloomer and do not have a comrade in puberty to go through it with - it is a lonely, confusing time. This little vessel that has been your body for 10-14 years is all of a sudden betraying you.

I am sorry, maybe I am not woke enough to be a parent today or hang out on this board. But it makes me sad to see my child, who was so confident and secure in who she was, all of a sudden filled with self doubt and gender confused. She was the first girl in her school to start puberty and she hates her body now. I blame a lot of it on the schools that are going overboard in trying to make everyone feel included, our culture that has made it taboo for parents to guide their kids, and the Internet that is just full of stuff that is in many cases just not accurate.

Anonymous wrote:I am in the same situation as OP. My DD was a girly girl up until changing to a liberal private where they started teaching sex and sexuality in elementary school. Hitting topics like the genderbread person, how we all pick what we identify with, and made it sound really cool to be anything but heterosexual and the gender she was assigned at birth. The class actually had fun discussing what orientation they "wanted" to be and in the course of a few weeks changed their minds several times. It is baffling for us as her parents to watch this and while we were pretty positive she was a straight girl, we wanted to be kind and open "just in case".

During quarantine she and some friends got on tiktok and youtube and discovered tons of propaganda that really pushed the LGBTQ+ movement to the point it became obvious it was an agenda. Now she is all over the place and we are baffled as to how to deal with it. If she is anywhere in the LGBTQ+ family, we totally support her but I also want to guide her so that she does not make a decision in middle school based biased online quizzes, tiktok, or anything other than who she really is.

So be a parent, OP, and take this crap away from her. I am horrified that so many of you simply allow your young teens to wallow in this cesspool of the internet, and think that there will be no consequences to impressionable, bored young minds.

I am in the same situation as OP. My DD was a girly girl up until changing to a liberal private where they started teaching sex and sexuality in elementary school. Hitting topics like the genderbread person, how we all pick what we identify with, and made it sound really cool to be anything but heterosexual and the gender she was assigned at birth. The class actually had fun discussing what orientation they "wanted" to be and in the course of a few weeks changed their minds several times. It is baffling for us as her parents to watch this and while we were pretty positive she was a straight girl, we wanted to be kind and open "just in case".

During quarantine she and some friends got on tiktok and youtube and discovered tons of propaganda that really pushed the LGBTQ+ movement to the point it became obvious it was an agenda. Now she is all over the place and we are baffled as to how to deal with it. If she is anywhere in the LGBTQ+ family, we totally support her but I also want to guide her so that she does not make a decision in middle school based biased online quizzes, tiktok, or anything other than who she really is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pan/Omni is about sexual orientation. This generation of kids is in a much safer space to express where on that scale they fall then we were. My 12 year old is a Lesbian and it is no phase. To say that 12 yr olds don't know what they are attracted to is just wrong. I knew well before 12 that I was attracted to males. Why would it be any different for someone attracted to their same gender or any gender?

As for the gendered expectations comments. Yes women have less gendered expectations but don't ignore that they are still very there. Have you read any thread on here about what makes a woman attractive or how to get a guy? And boys have that even worse. We still have a lot of work to do on this front as a society.

Just be open, accepting and listen.

+1. I wonder if people who think it's weird for 12 year olds to know who they're attracted to remember what their childhoods were like? Maybe they were just later developers. I knew I was attracted to women by fifth grade. These aren't unusual times to have developed an idea of who you're in to.

I don’t think it’s weird at all for any particular 12 year old to know who they’re attracted to. What I do think is weird is when a group of 6 friends from elementary school, who have all had crushes on boys and followed fairly standard gender norms as far as clothing, hit puberty and seemingly overnight 5 out of 6 of them identify as LGBTQ+ (using labels they saw on Tik Tok or something and have to Google themselves to make sure they know what they mean.) Seriously, if you haven’t spent time around adolescent girls lately, I’m not sure you understand what’s happening on a large scale.

This! The same situation is happening in my DD teen group. Statistically, it’s impossible that they are all LGBTQ

That’s not how statistics work.

Umm, that's actually exactly how statistics work. A random sample of any group shouldn't result in a near 100% rate of LGBTQ identification.

There's some big theater kid energy around a lot of these younger girls. I'm sure some of them truly have gender dysphoria and this isn't a pose or phase that they'll drop, but for a lot of them it's exactly that and it will be discarded as they get older and be replaced by something else. Declaring yourself pan/poly/trans is only edgy and cool until every single member of your peer group is doing the same thing. In many cases this is how kids think (and I did it myself when I was younger), that this stance/identification is a fast way to establish a unique personality. When I was younger it was about what kind of music you liked. I still listen to some of the same music from my youth with affection but a lot of it has fallen to the wayside as I got older. It happens.

A group of friends is not a random sampling. Wow.

It's also not true that a random sample won't be nearly 100% LGBT. A large enough random sample means it's very unlikely (although still possible The sample is random after all) but six people isn't even that. You could grab six random people from a middle school and have them a randomly all be anything. It's just intuition that it doesn't seemed right dressed up with the word "statistics" to make it sound scientific.