• Question: What are your thoughts about being gay at a young age (for example 12 and under? Are they really gay or what?

    Asked by hannahplik to Ed, Katie, Sam, Steve, Vera on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Vera Weisbecker

      Vera Weisbecker answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      You mean before puberty? I am not sure, to be honest, because sexual preferences generally only become an issue for people when they hit puberty. But I can imagine that homosexuality is expressed already in non-sexual ways before puberty, for example in different attitudes to girls and boys. The reason why I think this is because there are some people who are psychologically one sex and physically another – so a person who has a penis is actually a girl in their mind and can only imagine herself as a girl, and vice versa. These people often know from an incredibly early age (like, pre-school) that they are not the gender that people take them for. So I presume with sexual orientation you get a similarly early awareness of where you stand with regards to males and females.

    • Photo: Ed Morrison

      Ed Morrison answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      As Vera says, sexual thoughts and preferences generally emerge just before puberty. So this certainly could be before 12, but is quite rare before 9 or 10. Whether they will turn out to be gay may well have already been set before that age though.

    • Photo: Katie Marriott

      Katie Marriott answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      I really don’t know much about psychology, but the answers Vera and Ed have given make sense!

    • Photo: Sam Tazzyman

      Sam Tazzyman answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Several homosexual people I know say that they knew they were gay even from a young age. But as Ed and Vera said, sexual preferences are expressed at or just before puberty. I’d like to add also that people’s sexual preferences can change throughout their lifetimes, and sometimes people like to experiment while they are younger (though rarely before puberty!) and finding out who they are.

    • Photo: Steven Daly

      Steven Daly answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      That was very interesting to read, because it is one of the things I no very little about, is the workings of the human mind.

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