I have a 19 year old son who identifies as an "Ace". (asexual). He has epilepsy and other various developmental issues; so his choices in life right now make sense for him.
We've had lots of conversations in the past 3 to 4 years about the whole homosexuality and transgender social agenda. And make no mistake; it is an agenda. (But that's another issue.)
Anyways, my son talked about having friends who identified as gay and I found that some strategic; but well pointed questions, to find out if he knew what that actually meant were quite enlightening.
A lot of kids repeat stuff that they don't even know what it means. A couple of his friends / classmates were doing this too. One of them at about 13 years old had said he was gay and when I asked him about it; I found out that he actually had no idea what that meant. This other boy whom he'd said was also gay had been the victim of a pedophile. (There's a lot of that going on around this too.)
A fourth classmate / friend of my son was coming over telling us he was bisexual too. And when I questioned him about it; I did find out that he actually knew what it meant and was also the victim of a pedophile. He'd told my son that his boyfriend was one of the people who ran a local gaming store. (He wasn't the store owner; he was an employee, but he was an adult and this kid at the time was 14.)
Before we found out about this; he kept wanting my son to go over to this store.... when it was closed.. ????? And I got suspicious real quick. This kid got a little upset when I told him that my son wasn't going over there with out me going over there with him; because I wanted to know what was going on over there .... when it was closed????
In the end, this kid was telling my son this store employee was his boyfriend. My son had actually recorded part of that conversation on his phone. They were outside playing with squirt guns and the kid suddenly got all paranoid when he thought one of the neighbors heard him say he was bi. So when they came in the house and the kid kept harping on being bisexual; that's when I confronted him about this relationship of his. And I flat out told him where we stood on this as a moral issue.
Well he ran home crying and his mother texted me and was [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]ed at me for "hurting her son's feelings". A couple of days after this; my son had a counseling appointment where he'd disclosed to the counselor that this had happened and what was recorded on his cell phone. At that point we decided to call the police and we made a report. This opened a CPS case; which that family had been subject to several CPS cases because for some "strange" reason; the kids all "kept getting sexually abused".
So yeah, my first piece of advise to any parent is to first find out if your child really understands what this stuff means.
Delineate if they know the difference between having a friend who's the same gender who they may feel really close to; (first example with the one kid) and that being homosexual means wanting to have sex with them. It's an uncomfortable conversation for many adults; but kids need to be armed with as much accurate information as they can handle at what ever age they are.
Feeling preferences for people of the same gender is a developmental thing. Some of it has to do with psychology of gender identity; which is a stage all children go through. First they have to identify with a gender trying to determine their own (that usually happens between 2 and 4 years old) and then they go through the phase of trying to understand what it means to be a boy or a girl. (That's usually 5 to 8 years old.) All of that is psych-developmental and this is where a lot of parents in particular get caught off guard because they don't understand this is a normal developmental stage. So the kid comes home at 12 years old (or younger) and says "I'm gay!" And the parent says - Wait a minute what.... ??? And parents don't know how to handle the gender identity thing because they are not aware that it's a real developmental phase.
I went through this with my son when he was 7. I'd found him in his room one day trying to pull his genitalia off his body because he said he didn't want to be a boy; he'd rather be a girl. He said he wanted to be a girl because "boys are mean"; which actually had nothing to do with "gender identity" but more to do with how his father was treating him. (There are social issues that layer on top of these things too.)
So at that point I talked to my son about "being nice / being mean" did not have anything to do with what gender one was; but was more a moral issue of the individual's accountability before God. God requires the same standard of kindness and compassion from all of us; regardless of being male or female. Than I gave him examples of male teachers that he liked and he could identify that these teachers were kind and other men he knew that he believed were wise; and that the way his dad was acting had nothing to do with gender. The light clicked on and he "got it". Never had an issue with being a boy again. Sometimes the answer is that simple; but as the parent, I don't think it's wise to "let it fester" in the kid and "hope it goes away".
I was always very direct with my son. When he came home in 2nd grade "talking smack" about sex of things he heard other kids saying; I sat him down with a birthing book that actually had photos of babies developing in the womb, the process of child birth; how babies come about. And I explained it all to him in the simplest terms he could understand. We also talked about having respect for our bodies. We don't use derogatory language about men, women and their genitals.
So now the kid armed with correct information felt adequate to address the childishness of what was going on in school. It wasn't any big deal to him because now he knew what it was.
Which, getting back to the kids as they got older; I realized that a lot of them didn't really understand this stuff because their parents never sat down and explained it to them. (What a travesty.) School was not going to fill my kid's head with ideas that were the wrong information.
In the case of the first kid that I'd asked him if he knew what homosexuality actually was; he didn't even know what that meant. When he told me that he was close to this friend but no, didn't want to have sex with him. And he did know technically what sex was at that point. But he'd had no experience. (Which was good.) Suddenly, another kid was armed with correct information! When his mom heard about this; she'd decided that it was prudent to keep a closer eye on him and his other friend because she'd known this friend had been the victim of a pedophile.
A lot of this, I found came to be about protecting our own kids as well as kids in the neighborhood.
Now I know boys perceive things differently and process their emotions different than girls do. But I still advocate for parents being the ones who give their kid correct information before they hear the lies from someone else.
Latter high school age; due to his medical issues, my son was homeschooled and had district provided tutors; so he wasn't around a lot of the nonsense other teenagers are exposed to. Which at this point, I'm very grateful for!
So
@Hope3 - So, not sure if you find any of this information / story on how I dealt with this stuff useful? But keep gathering information and don't be afraid to give your daughter the truth.
I'll be praying for you guys.
