I admit my life was different but from the time I was five I knew I was attracted to males.  Specifically both sexually and emotionally.   One of the hell spawn female siblings even held me down to pound the point that I was “queer” into me.  I did not understand why it was wrong, after all they were the ones telling me what to do and farming me out to their teen boyfriends.     I craved being held by the boys and not so much the girls.  But all the other gay and lesbian people I have talked to knew early also.  Preteen time frame.  7 or 8 and up they knew they were gay and either knew they had to hide it or knew they couldn’t so had to live with being attacked for it.  These people who think it is a choice, a fad, or a phase need to ask themselves the famous question.  When did they know they were cis and straight and was it a choice they made.  No they just felt it all their lives, they simply knew it.  Same for the LGBTQ+.  The only difference is straight cis kids see themselves everywhere from birth.  Mommies and daddies, they see themselves in the older kids around them, in the news, movies, TV shows, and the books they read.  It feels so natural to them they just don’t question it.  They are lucky.  Until recently like in the last decade LGBTQ+ kids did not see themselves reflected in society.  No movies had kids like them, no books in the library had kids like them.  Some kids did not even know the words for how they felt.  It was changing in the last ten years.  Schools made a push for inclusion and tolerance, movies showed LGBTQ+ kids, books had them as plots or characters.   Kids could see themselves and be proud.  That is what the haters, the anti-trans / anti-gay bigots want to remove.   The ability of kids who are different from the majority to see themselves represented positively in society.  It is why they write and pass don’t say gay bills, and why they ban books.  It is why they try to ban drag shows and pride events.  These people who demand a straight cis world with only them showing in public are terrified of a world where people can be different.  To them those who are the other must be destroyed, ideas of acceptance and tolerance must be erradicated and removed.  All because they don’t feel different from the majority so the difference must not be real.   But it is and we need to realize the scars left on kids who grew up in the times when they never seen themselves represented in society.  We must not go backward in time, regressing to a time of hate.  Hugs

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/05/most-lgbtq-people-knew-their-identities-before-age-14-but-hide-it-for-years/

A new survey asked LGBTQ+ people when they first knew they were queer, and the results are surprising.

Alex Bollinger (He/Him)May 29, 2025, 3:30 pm EDT

LGBTQ+ youth advocates gathered outside the Monmouth County Courthouse in Freehold on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023, where a school policy that would impact lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth was being reviewed in Superior Court. | Amanda Oglesby / Asbury Park Press / USA TODAY NETWORK

A new poll from Pew Research Center sheds some light on just how early LGBTQ+ people are aware of their identities. The study of LGBTQ+ adults in the U.S. found that most respondents understood their identity before the age of 14, with a substantial portion knowing about their identities before the age of 10.

Among gay and lesbian adults, 36% said that they felt they were gay or lesbian before the age of 10 and 35 first felt they were gay or lesbian from ages 10 to 13. Only a minority – 29% – had their first feelings about their sexuality after the age of 14.

The numbers were similar for transgender people. Approximately 33% felt they might be transgender before age 10, and 25% felt the same way between ages 10 to 13. Only 19% had their first feelings about being transgender after the age of 18.

Bisexual people tended to know the latest, but even a majority of bisexual people said that they had their first thoughts about being queer before age 18. Half – 50% – had their first feelings of being bisexual before age 14.

The question often comes up in discussions of LGBTQ+ youth, with many on the right insisting that people can’t know their identities before adulthood. Often, these people claim that only LGBTQ+ people can’t know their identities before adulthood, but then support heterosexuality and cisgender identities in young people.

But these statements fly in the face of LGBTQ+ people’s lived experiences, which often include years of hiding their identities before they create a safer space for themselves to live authentically as adults.

While LGBTQ+ respondents generally first thought about their queer identities when they were very young, most waited until they were older to tell others. While 71% of gay and lesbian people said that they first knew about their sexuality before age 14, only 13% said that they told someone before that age. Approximately 58% of trans people first thought they might be trans before age 14, but only 15% told someone before that age.

This also contradicts the rightwing narrative that young people are saying that they are trans or gay to gain social acceptance and not because they actually identify as such. In reality, young people are saying that they’re straight or cisgender when they actually aren’t, likely to try and get social acceptance.

Pew broke down the results even more and showed that gay men generally felt that they were gay at a younger age than lesbian women, with 40% saying they were younger than 10 years old when they first thought they were gay, as opposed to 29% of lesbian women.

Bisexual women, on the other hand, likely knew earlier than bisexual men. 53% of bi women said they felt they might be bi before they were 14 years old, while just 40% of bi men said the same.

The poll was conducted in January of this year and involved a sample of 3,959 adult LGBTQ+ Americans. The survey asked about a wide variety of topics, including support from family and friends, ties to the larger LGBTQ+ community, and social acceptance.

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