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Have you told your kids what "straight' and "gay" mean in reference to people?


poppy
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Not looking for controversy or judgements or anything like that.  Just looking for whether your kids under age 10 understand this term -- from a cultural literacy perspective.

 

My 7 year old casually asked me what "gay" means today while watching a TV show where the term came up.  He does know several gay men and lesbians, but, I don't know how aware he is of that (the way many 7 year olds don't pay attention to adults).  I gave a neutral / simple definition .  I  don't know how it ever came up before, and I'm a little embarrassed.

 

Apologies in advance if this question is insensitive.

 

 

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Sure. Things like that tend to come up in conversation around here. 

 

Actually, it might have been dd who brought it up. She can't have been more than 6 or 7.

 

Her: "Uncle's Friend likes girls." 

Uncle: "Huh? Yeah. Who told you that?"
Her: "No one."

Uncle: "Okay. Well, *launches into a lecture on terminology which dd found very interesting.* "

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My boys have gay relatives and good family friends.  We always told them that some people fall in love with the opposite sex, some with the same sex and some with either, and these are called straight or gay/lesbian relationships.  We also talked about when they would grow up and find a man or woman they wanted to spend their lives with.  They didn't seem to find it a problem.

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Actually, oddly, the first time we had the conversation was NOT as a result of any of our many friends or relatives who are in same sex relationships.  It was because we were at a church which preached a sermon on the evils of homosexuality.  Defining the words was easy.  Explaining why the church hated those people was hard.  And why we left the church.

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I believe we once covered it all at the dinner table during a discussion on Lady Gaga ?

 

Idk. Kids absorb it by osmosis round here. We live in lefty-ville. There's nothing so unusual that it really requires introduction to the concept, maybe to the terms.

 

I think that's why I was surprised my kids didn't know the term, honestly. I thought I didn't have to explain .   But then sometimes, they get things faster and better than I do.  The brain is a funny thing.

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"What does gay mean?"

 

"It means a man who falls in love with a man, or a woman who falls in love with a woman."

 

"Oh. That's weird."

 

She's gay now. So clearly explaining it to her did, in fact, make her gay. ;)

 

(I'm kidding, obviously.)

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From ages 2 - 5, my son attended a daycare center affiliated with one of the Quaker meeting houses in our city.  The school's Founder/Director was a gay man, also one of the most fantastic educators I've ever met, and one of the reasons why the school existed was to serve the LGBT community's children.  Other families were very welcome too of course, and his class had a lovely mix of family compositions.  So my son grew up not ever questioning the idea that families could have one mom (likes ours) or two moms, or a mom and a dad, or two dads, or grandparents raising the kids, and that families could come in different sizes, and races and combinations of races. 

 

And then he went to Kindergarten at a school where he was the only kid whose family didn't consist of one mom and one dad, and some children who matched them (e.g two black parents with black kids, or two white parents with white kids).  

 

One other kid from preschool went to the same kindergarten he did, and they stayed good friends.  One day the two boys were playing and I heard the other boy use the word "gay" in a pejorative way to refer to something that had nothing to do with sexual orientation (e.g  You like ketchup, that's gay.  I like mustard).  So, I sat the boys down and explained that using the word "gay" for something you didn't like was hurtful, because people don't like to be compared to things that people don't like, and that I was sure they didn't mean to hurt their friends and neighbors.  Both boys looked at me like I had grown a second head.  They told me they didn't know any gay people.  

 

So, I asked them "Do you know what gay means?" and they said "It's when men love men or women love women in the 'kissing way'" (that was their term, which they didn't learn from me).  So, I said "I guess so" and said "You know lots of people who are gay.  For example Mary and Kate." Mary and Kate were the parents of one of their best friends, they'd been to their house dozens of times.  Both boys were shocked.  In a few months of kindergarten they had already absorbed this idea that "gay" was bad, and that a man kissing a man or a woman kissing a woman was gross, and since they knew that Mary and Kate weren't bad, they couldn't make the connection.  It was a wake up call that I needed to be more explicit about teaching my values, and not just assume they'd pick the right ones up from the environment, and also that I needed a new school for my kid.

 

I did ask them why they thought Mary and Kate lived together if wasn't because they loved each other, and they told me, absolutely seriously, that since Mary and Kate had adopted the same kid they had to live together, because mommies live with their kid.  I think they thought there was a mix up and the agency let them both adopt the same kid by mistake?  I never did figure it out.

 

 

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My boys have gay relatives and good family friends.  We always told them that some people fall in love with the opposite sex, some with the same sex and some with either, and these are called straight or gay/lesbian relationships.  We also talked about when they would grow up and find a man or woman they wanted to spend their lives with.  They didn't seem to find it a problem.

 

I explained it pretty much the same, with the additional bit of "sometimes you can have a special love for more than one person, and that's poly which is less common, but still okay." 

 

I think dd was about 8 or 9 at the time. 

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Well, my kids have been friends with a number of kids who have 2 parents of a single gender since birth just about so I feel like it's just been part of their experience always.  I don't feel like we needed to talk about it explicitly.  

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Very young, about 4, my eldest encountered it in a a classic audiobook, referring to a character who was a merry-hearted person.

 

She asked specifically about it, which means (I think) that she was aware that there was some complexity of meaning 'out there' that didn't fit the book's contextual use of the word. (She was not in the habit of asking for definitions for every word she encountered.)

 

I first explained the in-book meaning, then the concept of homosexuality (using 'have crushes' and 'want to marry' as definitions for romantic love), then then speculated about the linguistic connection between 'happiness' as a demeanour and homosexual preferences. Then I gently raised the issue that while lots of people are homosexual and we don't concern ourselves other people's choices (other than to make sure they are treated kindly and fairly) -- because of the Bible most Christian believe that Christians ourselves should only date and marry in heterosexual ways.

 

It was a long answer for a small question from a small child! (And I'm not sure I would do it the same way again...)

 

I caught her sister up at about the same age -- maybe younger. (My younger child got a lot of info sooner because I wanted to limit the amount of time that the older one would 'know things' that were not for her sister's ears. Also, conversations were easier the second time!)

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Yep, my kids know. Their Godmother is a bisexual, practicing Buddhist and her last girlfriend hung out with us when we came to visit. I think they had a children's book about all kinds of families that introduced the idea before they could even speak (The Family Book by Todd Parr) and there was a little girl at their private, Christian school with two dads.

Edited by Sneezyone
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My boys have gay relatives and good family friends.  We always told them that some people fall in love with the opposite sex, some with the same sex and some with either, and these are called straight or gay/lesbian relationships.  We also talked about when they would grow up and find a man or woman they wanted to spend their lives with.  They didn't seem to find it a problem.

 

This is about how it went here too.

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Absolutely. It comes up on the radio (NPR), in life, etc. "Most of the time boys fall in love with and marry girls, and girls fall in love with and marry boys. That's sometimes called straight. But sometimes boys love and marry boys, and girls  love and marry girls, and those people are often called gay. "

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The church we attended when our kids were growing up included a large number of lesbian and gay members, both singles and couples. For a good number of years, our minister was among them. It was simply part of life. I don't remember ever defining terms for either of them, and I don't remember when they didn't know.

 

The harder conversations for us had to do with trying to explain to our kids why some people had problems with such people/relationships. 

Edited by Jenny in Florida
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Not looking for controversy or judgements or anything like that. Just looking for whether your kids under age 10 understand this term -- from a cultural literacy perspective.

 

My 7 year old casually asked me what "gay" means today while watching a TV show where the term came up. He does know several gay men and lesbians, but, I don't know how aware he is of that (the way many 7 year olds don't pay attention to adults). I gave a neutral / simple definition . I don't know how it ever came up before, and I'm a little embarrassed.

 

Apologies in advance if this question is insensitive.

I am pretty sure he knew by 10. Maybe younger. I don't remember it being a big deal conversation.

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Older dd has know what being gay is for as long as she's known what love and marriage are. Since she was little and asked questions about that stuff, we've always said, "Someday you might fall in love with a man or a woman and you might want to get married." Or whatever the context of the conversation was.  I don't know at what point she knew the word "gay," but she's always understood the concept, and I'm sure she knew what the word meant before Kindergarten. Explaining transgender people came a little later- maybe she was six or so? I would have had no problem explaining it sooner if she'd had a transgender friend or seemed headed that way herself.

 

Now that she's nine, we're having conversations about whether people should even have to label themselves "gay" or "straight," which has been interesting. Kids see this stuff so much more clearly than we do.

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I first explained the in-book meaning, then the concept of homosexuality (using 'have crushes' and 'want to marry' as definitions for romantic love), then then speculated about the linguistic connection between 'happiness' as a demeanour and homosexual preferences. Then I gently raised the issue that while lots of people are homosexual and we don't concern ourselves other people's choices (other than to make sure they are treated kindly and fairly) -- because of the Bible most Christian believe that Christians ourselves should only date and marry in heterosexual ways.

 

 

I actually don't think it's most. 

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My kids have never not known. We have lots of friends and loved ones who are gay. 

 

They've never not known that people of the same sex could love each other, get married, raise a family, or they've never not known the word?  

 

I wrote above about my kid learning the word at 5.  He knew the idea long before that.  But he first encountered the word used as a pejorative, which I regret.  

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They've never not known that people of the same sex could love each other, get married, raise a family, or they've never not known the word?  

 

I wrote above about my kid learning the word at 5.  He knew the idea long before that.  But he first encountered the word used as a pejorative, which I regret.  

 

They've always known the word 'gay' and they've always known (and loved) people who love people of the same gender. 

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Our teenage daughter knows, obviously.

 

The younger boys (almost-9 and almost-6), no. I won't tell them. They would offend somebody. They are both autistic (neither considered high functioning at this time), and they have to "practice," apparently, before they used terms correctly (in context). We've had some humiliating fails at trying to socially educate the boys, thus far.

 

The other day we were talking about ninjas. The younger boys were expressing what color ninjas they wanted to be (blue for water ninja, etc.). They named most of the colors between themselves and the rest of us, but Dad asked about brown (because it wasn't mentioned). DS8 proclaimed (loudly) that Dad was a racist for saying the word brown. 

Similarly, DS6 has proclaimed (very loudly) people in stores to be "racist" when they say any color related words that could possibly be applied to skin-tone, although the discussions likely have zero to do with race.

 

In a department store a couple months ago, DS8 started in on me (why so loudly?!) for "misgendering" -- I think I had suggested to DD16 that we look in women's clothing, or something of that nature. (FYI, our DD doesn't identify as other than female.) Not much variation to DS8's comments when I called a salesman "sir" and "he."

 

Obviously we should have saved the racism talk and gender identity discussions for much later, and relied more on their cognitive development (vs. their actual ages). 

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They've always known the word 'gay' and they've always known (and loved) people who love people of the same gender. 

 

How is that possible?  Presumably your kids weren't born knowing how to talk, so at some point they must have learned the word.  Is it that you just don't remember the first time they used it, or indicated understanding?

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It is as natural as brother, sister, niece,nephew in our family.  

 

My kids closest family members include gay, lesbian, androgynous and transgender. My kids could easlliy discuss terms like bisexual, transexual, pansexual, lesbian, gay, queer, butch, curious and various terms related to gender at a young age.  They grew up with the vocabulary and understanding that terms are only words and people are as varied as anyone could ever imagine.  What matters isn't the terms used to define people, what matters is that every person, is a unique person and can be who they want to be.

 

Quite literally, my nephew gave birth to a delightful baby this past year. Parents and baby are doing great.  DD11 didn't even question it. LOL  I love the fact that it was so natural to her and speaks volumes about the upcoming generations!  

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I don't think mine knew the term "gay" before they knew about homosexual relationships.  They became aware of some same-sex relationships and mentioned them to me / asked me questions.  I answered in language they would understand, only to the extent they were curious.

 

Recently (5th / 6th grade) they have been hearing stuff from kids at school.  So when they hear the word "gay" in an old book when "gay" didn't mean homosexual, they will react and I explain that gay didn't always mean what it means now etc.  I never actually told them the word "gay" in its current meaning, I don't think.  Yesterday my kid was asking a bunch of questions about sex, and I mentioned "homosexual" and "heterosexual" and then I asked them if they knew what "homosexual" meant.  They said no.  So I told them.  I'm not sure they will remember.  :p

 

My kids don't watch media with a lot of suggestive stuff in it.  Recently they are starting to find stuff on the internet, but under age 10 they would not have been aware of that stuff.

Edited by SKL
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With our older kids, I remember having several conversations about these words (and a few others), probably starting around age 4 or 5? One particularly memorable conversation was when Ds20 came home from 1st grade asking "What does gay mean? Am I gay? Then why do the other boys keep saying I am?"

 

When one of our kids started showing signs that he would eventually identify as LGBT, we began to talk a lot more and a lot more openly about gender and sexuality. Around that time, two of my older nephews came out and we were able to have these conversations in our extended family as well. Within the last few years, two of my own kids have begun to openly identify as gay/bisexual, which means that my younger kids have had a lot of exposure to LGBT people, media, etc. and are a lot more knowledgeable about and comfortable discussing gender and sexuality than the older ones were at their ages. 

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My kids ranging from 6 to 8yo know and have for about a year give or take. We have friends who are in same sex relationships but apparently this didn't make it obvious for them. What actually brought up the questions was a Doctor Who episode when Bill kissed a girl. My boys were pretty unphased but my DD freaked out. It really bothered her and I spent alot of careful time having a pretty serious conversation with her. When I explained our friends were married she was pretty shocked. Now she gets it and it isn't a big deal to her but for some reason she just couldn't wrap her head around it at first.

 

We had a trans conversation actually this past week. At the grocery store one of my boys went into the restroom and came out loudly proclaiming a lady was in the boys bathroom peeing in a urinal. He was pretty confused so we had the conversation. That conversation was a little more challenging for them but all in all it went pretty well.

 

My older boys always knew. My adopted son's biological mother is a lesbian and married to a woman. We spent every holiday with them while the boys were growing up and had other close gay friends. It was always a non issue for them.

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I actually don't think it's most.

I guess Christian is now a broad term, so I guess it depends on the religion....but certainly all the people in my world believe people should date and marry in the heterosexual way.

 

My son does not know a single gay person. Correction....one classmate in vo tec he says.

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According to Pew Research, as of 2015 --

 

Amid a changing religious landscape that has seen a declining percentage of Americans who identify as Christian, a majority of U.S. Christians (54%) now say that homosexuality should be accepted, rather than discouraged, by society. While this is still considerably lower than the shares of religiously unaffiliated people (83%) and members of non-Christian faiths (76%) who say the same, the Christian figure has increased by 10 percentage points since we conducted a similar study in 2007. It reflects a growing acceptance of homosexuality among all Americans Ă¢â‚¬â€œ from 50% to 62% Ă¢â‚¬â€œ during the same period.

 

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/18/most-u-s-christian-groups-grow-more-accepting-of-homosexuality/

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Hey, Scarlett, the people on this board are in your world as well :D

 

(And I bet your son knows more gay people than that. They might not have told him, though.)

 

Ha. Sure....but obviously I was talking about my IRL world.....that I would have to explain to my son.

 

And I guess someone could be hiding that they are gay....but for now Ds only knows one gay person..

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Ha. Sure....but obviously I was talking about my IRL world.....that I would have to explain to my son.

 

And I guess someone could be hiding that they are gay....but for now Ds only knows one gay person..

Or it just might have not come up. If someone is not actively dating or in a relationship, it may never have come up in conversation. I work in a fairly small group and two of the people in our group have never mentioned a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, significant other, etc., so I have no idea if they are gay or straight, although I do know both completely support SSM. IĂ¢â‚¬â„¢ve known them for many years and talk with them about all sorts of things five days a week.
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Or it just might have not come up. If someone is not actively dating or in a relationship, it may never have come up in conversation. I work in a fairly small group and two of the people in our group have never mentioned a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, significant other, etc., so I have no idea if they are gay or straight, although I do know both completely support SSM. IĂ¢â‚¬â„¢ve known them for many years and talk with them about all sorts of things five days a week.

 

Yes, or a bi person might be in a straight relationship.  You could have known me for thirty years and not know that I am bi, because I've been with Husband that long and my previous relationships just aren't relevant to my current situation.

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You know, I don't think we've explicitly covered those words with our kids!  Which is interesting to me, because two of them would be considered LGBTQ, one identifying as pansexual and one who thinks labels are stupid.

 

With the recognition and wider acceptance of fluidity in younger people, I'm not sure I want to use simplified terms with my youngest two.   They don't fit in our family, so I wouldn't want to give the impression that they're black and white for anyone else's.  They know people in every "letter category", I just don't recall ever assigning different terms to each situation with them.  They're also big Doctor Who fans, lol.  They know relationships come in all sorts of combinations.

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I actually don't think it's most.

You may be right.

 

It was 10 years ago, and it seemed true at the time.

 

At the time, it also seemed that 'most Christians' thought that homosexuality should be discouraged in society as a whole... you'll notice that I taught the opposite, even then.

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I doubt my under tens know those terms, I don't subscribe to a worldview that believes discussion of all possible human variations on sexuality from a young age is necessary or healthy.

 

They have a gay uncle but he lives on the other side of the country; they haven't seen him often and only recently met his partner for the first time. My olders know they are together as a couple but I doubt the youngers thought about it at all (family gathering with many aunts and uncles and a gazillion cousins, I know they don't keep track of everyone because I regularly have to clarify who is who and who belongs with which other whos. They know the relatives who live in the same state and are close in age.)

Edited by maize
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You know, I don't think we've explicitly covered those words with our kids!  Which is interesting to me, because two of them would be considered LGBTQ, one identifying as pansexual and one who thinks labels are stupid.

 

With the recognition and wider acceptance of fluidity in younger people, I'm not sure I want to use simplified terms with my youngest two.   They don't fit in our family, so I wouldn't want to give the impression that they're black and white for anyone else's.  They know people in every "letter category", I just don't recall ever assigning different terms to each situation with them.  They're also big Doctor Who fans, lol.  They know relationships come in all sorts of combinations.

 

 

Oh, I agree, I'm not saying you should tell the kids to use these terms as identifier. Just , do they KNOW them.

 

We were watching a reality show where a  character said something like "Living as a gay man for the past 30 years, I've seen a lot of changes in the US".  And my kids didn't know what he meant.  It just really surprised me because they do know people in same-sex relationships, but never picked up on that term.

 

I think it's good to understand the label. If someone says "I'm Lutheran" you should know they are referring to being a type of Christian.  If someone says "I'm  vegan" you should know they are referring to diet. If someone says "I'm a libertarian" you should know they are referring to a political view. etc.

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Oh, I agree, I'm not saying you should tell the kids to use these terms as identifier. Just , do they KNOW them.

 

We were watching a reality show where a  character said something like "Living as a gay man for the past 30 years, I've seen a lot of changes in the US".  And my kids didn't know what he meant.  It just really surprised me because they do know people in same-sex relationships, but never picked up on that term.

 

I think it's good to understand the label. If someone says "I'm Lutheran" you should know they are referring to being a type of Christian.  If someone says "I'm  vegan" you should know they are referring to diet. If someone says "I'm a libertarian" you should know they are referring to a political view. etc.

 

 

I hear you.  I'm just not sure what degree of accuracy I have to offer them.  If someone self-identifies as gay then, by all means, they're gay!  But 2 (assumed) men in a relationship aren't necessarily "standard definition gay".  So I don't know that I want to tell my 7yo that gay = cis-male + cis-male.  Or cis-female + cis-female.  Or that there even has to be a second person present for it to be a thing, lol.

 

Not that I'm terribly worried about it. I just haven't given it any real thought before this thread.  It's been an interesting thought exercise.

 

I'd say my 10yo is probably capable of some decent conversations around these things, but I don't see much point in labeling Christian sects, dietary choices and needs (beyond allergies), or political organizations with my 7yo yet.  Not that they're taboo subjects, just that "everyone has their way" seems to simplify things at his level.

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I will say I'm surprised when I hear people say this has never come up.  It's like everyone everywhere is constantly talking about it.  To the point one of my kids is literally confused.  He is under the impression that if he likes boys he must be gay.  So he told me he is gay.  Except I honestly do not think he fully understands what exactly that means.  At another point he told me he is bisexual.  Again, because he likes girls and boys.  But "likes" them as friends.  He has not started puberty yet and is rather naive.  I explain stuff in detail because I'm open like that, but he still says goofy stuff leading me to believe he doesn't fully get it.  So whatever.  If he is gay he is gay, but it's like that's what kids are constantly talking about these days.  What sexual orientation they are or what gender they are.  It's good there is conversation, but it feels like stuff has kinda gone off the deep end in some other confusing direction. 

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I don't remember if we used those terms but we did talk about the fact that some people of either sex like only boys or only girls, and some like both. I also don't remember at what age it came up.

 

ETA: I don't think we specifically sat ds down and talked about it. It came up naturally IIRC. He did have a book about puberty when he was around 11 or 12 that discussed it. It was the AMA Boys Guide to Becoming a Teen. The book covered same sex attraction.

Edited by Lady Florida.
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Oh, I agree, I'm not saying you should tell the kids to use these terms as identifier. Just , do they KNOW them.

 

We were watching a reality show where a  character said something like "Living as a gay man for the past 30 years, I've seen a lot of changes in the US".  And my kids didn't know what he meant.  It just really surprised me because they do know people in same-sex relationships, but never picked up on that term.

 

I think it's good to understand the label. If someone says "I'm Lutheran" you should know they are referring to being a type of Christian.  If someone says "I'm  vegan" you should know they are referring to diet. If someone says "I'm a libertarian" you should know they are referring to a political view. etc.

 

Personally I don't categorize people like that in my mind or in my speech.  The only time I would bring it up would be if I thought it had some relevance to my kids.  For example, "she was also adopted from [kids' birth country / region]."

 

If you ask me whether I know any ___ people, I can tell you who is this and who is that as far as sexual orientation as far as I know [or, in some cases, suspect].  But that has nothing to do with my interactions with those people.

 

I wish people wouldn't tell their kids that women living together are probably lesbians (or similar logic).  Let people speak for themselves.  I am living with 2 unrelated adult females and I am not in a sexual relationship with either of them.  I really think it's wrong for people to teach kids to assume what may be going on in other people's bedrooms.

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I don't remember if we used those terms but we did talk about the fact that some people of either sex like only boys or only girls, and some like both. I also don't remember at what age it came up.

 

ETA: I don't think we specifically sat ds down and talked about it. It came up naturally IIRC. He did have a book about puberty when he was around 11 or 12 that discussed it. It was the AMA Boys Guide to Becoming a Teen. The book covered same sex attraction.

 

See that is the difficulty.  "Like".  It's not about liking.  Not that I have a better way of putting it to a kid.  I know what you mean, but they don't always.

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