[Parmy]

Originally Posted by BBXX

Well it’s unique to the individual when they form this knowledge about their sexuality, as with heterosexuality.

Speaking from experience I was about 8 when I knew there was SOMETHING about males that I felt differently about compared to females. I didn’t know about sex and sexuality or what gay was so couldn’t obviously understand.

Then at 11 when I went to Secondary school I learned what gay was from other kids, realised that was me and was terrified because the only context I heard it being spoken about was as an insult.

When I went though puberty at 12-13 it was obviously then my thoughts about guys became sexual.

There was still little to no mainstream representation, still negatively charged language surrounding it and so I spent the next 6-7 years hiding it and therefore when I did come out I had a decade of internalised homophobia to unpack.

Now representation is much improved, language is more more positive and I know if that 13 year old me went to a pride event today and saw the positivity and celebration and fun and joy that it shows then I would have felt safe to come out a lot earlier and wouldn’t have had a lot of self hate to deal with later in life.

It’s why representation matters so much, from a young age, so there is basicalevel of understanding of someone else existing alongside you. Kids seeing a film about two princes falling in love isn’t going to make them gay, in the same way watching almost every Disney movie ever about a Prince and Princess didn’t make me straight. But it WILL help a kid understand and reconcile their feelings when they finally do understand.

Thats why I grapple with whether pride should be family friendly or not - it absolutely has its merits of being so (and a lot of the small city ones actually are) but at the same time many gay people have spent many years filtering their authentic self down to fit with what a heterosexual society has deemed to be acceptable for fear of persecution or judgement for their homosexuality, and so it feels wrong to continue to do that during our own event.

Thanks. Very interesting read.

But kids at a pride event would mean the parents taking them along, so surely it would.mean the parents think they are gay, and not so much the 8 yr old.