October 13, 2025 • 22 mins
It’s happening in classrooms everywhere — groups of 10- and 11-year-old girls suddenly identifying as lesbian or non-binary. Parents are confused, scared to say the wrong thing, and desperate to understand what’s driving it.
In this episode, Justin and Kylie unpack the growing trend of early identity labels, how sexualised content and peer influence shape confusion, and what parents can do to respond calmly, wisely, and with compassion.
This conversation isn’t about labels — it’s about protecting childhood and keeping connection strong through one of the hardest parenting conversations of our time.
KEY POINTS:
- Why clusters of identity declarations in tweens are often driven by social contagion, not self-discovery.
- How pornography, anime, and online content are confusing kids about sexuality.
- The crucial difference between a physiological response and actual orientation.
- Why automatic affirmation can harm — and what supportive curiosity looks like.
- Setting firm, loving screen boundaries to protect emotional and sexual development.
- Helping kids feel safe in uncertainty, without locking in an identity.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
“Our kids don’t need labels at 11. They need parents who can hold space for curiosity without rushing to define them.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
- Happy Families Podcast – Submit a Question
- Miss-Connection by Dr Justin Coulson
- Australian Psychological Society guidelines on gender and identity
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS:
- Limit exposure – No unsupervised screens or smart devices for under-13s.
- Stay curious, not panicked – Ask open questions like “What made you start thinking that?”
- Teach body literacy – Help kids understand physiological responses vs orientation.
- Normalise uncertainty – Remind them it’s okay not to know who they are yet.
- Stay connected – Keep talking, keep listening, keep calm.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to the Happy Families podcast. Quick heads up.
While not explicit, the content of today's podcast does touch.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
On things that are sexual in nature.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
That means that if you're listening with younger kids, you
might want to press pause, find something else for them
to listen to, and come back to this one a
little bit later.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Just a heads up.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
The content of today's podcast, while not explicit, does include
some discussion of things that are slightly sexual in nature. Okay,
so what do you do when your eleven year old
daughter announces that she's a lesbian at the same time
that five of her friends have all announced that they
are It's all happening in the same month. A listener
(00:46):
said us a voice note and asked if we could
please discuss something that schools won't talk about and most
parents are too afraid to mention girls, pornography and the
mass confusion happening right now around sexual identity. Noticed this
pattern if you've felt not in your stomach watching it
and fold and thinking they're too young, do they really
know what they're doing? Why is it all happening to
(01:08):
so many of them at once rather than just one
here and one there. If you've wondered whether you're the
only one seeing it. You're not alone, and we will
talk about it. Stay with us every Tuesday on the
Happy Families podcast. We answer your tricky questions and today
it's a doozy. Oh my goodness, what do you do
when you're eleven year old tells you that she's identifying
(01:28):
as a lesbian. Hello and welcome to the Happy Family's podcast,
Real Parenting Solutions every Day. This is Australia's most downloaded
parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Coulson. Tricky questions,
we'll answer anything, or do our very best to do
that sensitively, carefully and appropriately, considering your child's developmental circumstances,
your family and everything else that we can, recognizing that
(01:49):
the answers are general in context. If you'd like to
submit a tricky question, we've got a super simple system
for you. Just go to Happy Families dot com dot
you scrolled out of podcasts, click the record button and
start talking. Or alternatively, you can send us a voice note,
which is exactly what Melia did when she asked us this.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Hi, Justin. I'm trying to keep this really short, but
it's almost impossible. I just want to talk about girls
and pornography. There's so much going on about boys right now,
but there's stuff going on at the moment, especially through
our school that's not being talked about. You have so
many girls identifying as lesbians or binary. These girls are
watching so much same sex anime on their devices that
(02:31):
they are having normal body reactions to seeing sexual content.
It is normal for a woman to have a sensation
or a bodily reaction to same sex pornography. But because
we've got material, brains and adults, we know that we're not.
So it is happening a lot. I don't think it's
talked about the link between girls watching female pornographies, especially
(02:54):
in anime, and then then being confused with their own identity,
which is then causing anxiety, depression, self harming. It's happening
so much, and I honestly personally know about probably eleven
girls that were at ten eleven year old saying that
they were lesbians. I think it needs to be talked
about more. I hope all this makes sense.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Thanks, Okay, Kylie.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
There's a lot there to unpack, and I want to
make this as helpful as I possibly can, because it's
clear that there's a lot of emotion as well. Is
there anything that jumps out at you straight away?
Speaker 4 (03:27):
I do love that she's highlighted that there is a
lot of emphasis around pornography and boys, and just her
acknowledgment that girls are having exposure to this kind of
content as well, and just how damaging it is to
the way they identify as an individual. Let's take gender
out of the equation, let's take preference out of the equation,
(03:49):
but just in general, how they see themselves, how they
respond to the world, and how they're unable to process
it because it's not developmentally appropriate.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, and this is the key thing.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
There are all sorts of questions and challenges and concerns
that we could raise, but fundamentally, when we're talking about
ten eleven year old girls, it is true that even
from a young age, some people will identify with one
or another sexual orientation, but at this age for it
to be clustering and for a whole group to be
identifying the same way, that is unusual, and that certainly
(04:24):
indicates that there's other factors at play. So let's step
into this. First off, I want to highlight from just
just listen to what Melissa says, or the way she's
asked the question. It really does take courage to address
something that a lot of parents are willing to say,
I've noticed it, but they feel afraid to discuss. And
(04:44):
Melissa is identifying something that research has shown is a
real pattern. And therefore, while we live in a pluralistic
society and a society that is very accepting and tolerant,
well generally speaking, at this age, I think that some
can concerned for these young girls is both evident in
Meliss's voice note but also justified. So what's actually happening
(05:07):
unless it's touched on something that deserves I think, really
plain speech, and that is the difference between a physiological
response and a person's actual sexual orientation.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
This is really hard.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
I just as a red blooded male, is it completely
as heterosexual as you can get kind of guy?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I was shocked. I was absolutely stunned.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
When I was doing my psychology degree and the topic
of pornography and pornography research came up and we were
shown evidence that young men who identify as heterosexual experience
higher levels of arousal when they see homosexual pornography than
if they see heterosexual pornography, and so that physiological response
(05:52):
is not a reflection of sexual orientation. It's just that
when you encounter highly sexualized content, what that does is
it gives you an experience, and if it's content that
you're not used to seeing, whether you like it or not,
it creates a stronger physiological response. And so when you've
got ten and eleven year old girls who are who
are being exposed to, whether it's intentional or unintentional explicit
(06:15):
content or whether they're just watching anime and manga that
romanticizes quite a lot of female same sex relationships. And
when girls are seeing this highly sexualized content, they don't
have the developmental maturity, They don't have the sexual maturity
to contextualize what they're experiencing.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
I think one of the most important things we can
do to help our children navigate the space, whether they're
boys or girls, is helping them to understand how their
body responds.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, that's exactly right, Like.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
This is a physiological response. As an eleven year old,
there is no orientation because they're not developmentally ready for that.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
When I was writing My Boy's book, I don't know
we're talking about girls here, but it's the same for
boys or girls. Average agent exposure to pornography. We think
somewhere around about the age of eleven first kiss, usually
somewhere around fourteen or fifteen. Kids are seeing explicit content,
or they're seeing representations of what could be explicit through
manger and anime three four years before they're having their
first sexual contact. Like I said, there are some people
(07:13):
who will say that in their bones, they just knew
that they were either hetero or homosexual from a young age.
I mean, the reality is, statistically speaking, the overwhelming majority
of kids are heterosexual. But there are some people who
will say, even when I was a kid, I knew
that I was gay, for example. But when we are
being exposed to this, it can create.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
This physiological response.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
When our kids are exposed to or it creates a
physiological response that may cause them to question their identity
when they're simply having a physiological response. And that's the
key thing that I want to get across here. I'm
not highlighting that anything is right, wrong, good, bad. There's
no morality in what I'm saying. I'm simply distinguishing or
wanting parents to distinguish between the physiological response to the
sexual imagery the autonomic response and emphasized that it is
(07:57):
not diagnostic, it's not predictive. When eleven year old experiences
aroused from same sex content has no framework to understand it,
then that may lead to her forming conclusions about her identity,
like definitions about her identity, and in the absence of
any adult guidance to help it distinguish between curiosity and
a physiological response and her actual orientation, she's left to
(08:20):
interpret these very complicated feelings in a really unusual context
with the understanding of a ten or eleven year old.
And that's really what my concern is here. This is
where I think the problem lies.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
So I know we're talking about eleven year olds here,
but too many times you hear in cases where there
has been some violation taking place and boys will say
she wanted it because there was a physiological response for resent.
In girls, that meant she she clearly was turned on.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Right, which is int the case.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Just because your body is producing a lubricant, for example,
that does not mean that you are necessarily aroused and
seeking that Like the physiological response and.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
The understanding how our bodies respond to stimulus, regardless of desire,
regardless of orientation, is so imperative and as parents, as
we're navigating the space where our children are living in
a world where they're told they can be anything they want.
It is the most mind boggling place to be as
(09:30):
a little kid experiencing the world for the first time,
let alone having all of the boundaries now removed.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Well, particularly given what some schools are teaching from a
sexual education perspective, it can be very it's a very
very confusing time. That again, though, that idea of what
the body is doing is not a reflection of the desire,
the emotional, the psychological side of things, and they.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Don't have the understanding of the experience to recognize them.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
But that even ties back to what I was talking
about with the young men adult young men who are
exposed to erotic content involving other men. There's no desire
there for them. They identify as heterosexual, but there's still
a physiological response. And yet some of them may start
to go, oh, well, maybe that means that I'm not heterosexual.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Not necessarily the case at all.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Simply the body is having an autonomic response, a physiological
response that's totally different. Right off the break, I want
to talk about what parents can do why it matters,
and also the social contagient element. Stay with us. Okay,
this is the Happy Families podcast. Pretty tough topic today,
(10:39):
a lot to get through in just a couple of
minutes to do it. I want to talk about the
social contagent element of Melissa's question. So, what we're describing
when we see a whole lot of kids clustering with
the same diagnosis, of the same label, the same this
is who I am, the same identity. What we're talking
about here is social contagion much more than orientation itself.
And so we've got a whole bunch of kids that
(11:00):
are prematurely adopting their sexual identity within their friend group.
When several girls in a peer group suddenly identifies lesbion
or non binary simultaneously, often around the ages of ten
through to fourteen fifteen, we do need to be honest
about what we're witnessing.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Now.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
It's true that one or more of them may actually
be homosexually oriented rather than heterosexually oriented, But what we
if there is a pattern of unrestricted access to sexualized content,
whether it's anime or manger or actually explicit content that's
been designed for adult audiences where there's peer reinforcement, so
adopting the identity brings social status or belonging or a
(11:36):
sense of specialness. We see a lot of that with
some kids who identify as trans and again that clusters
as well if there's a lot of adult affirmation, that
affirmation approach without any questioning, without any inquiry, adults who
are celebrating these declarations, without any kind of questioning about
what the child actually means and understands, and if there's
(11:56):
the absence of any alternative framework, so no one's no
one's telling these girls that confusion around sexual identity can
be quite normal.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
They don't need a label, and that childhood.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Supposed to be a time of not having everything figured out.
If you have those those four or five things occurring
in that pattern, what you're typically going to see is
kids labeling themselves because of a physiological response or because
of their curiosity, driving them to more and more of
that kind of content.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I think it's a really important thing to highlight when.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
I think back to some of the conversations we had
with our kids when they were quite young, coming home
because they were curious. And one day one of our
girls came home and she said mom, two of the
kids at school were sexing and I looked at her
and I said what. And I was ready to get
like really worked up about it. And I said, what's sexing?
(12:48):
And she said, you know, when they're like pushing their
lips together. And I was like, holy smokes, I was
about to launch into this massive conversation with her about
what it all was. Didn't need to know because.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
It wasn't yeah, and she was way too young to know.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
And she was way too young to know. And I
think that when we're talking about ten eleven year and
even twelve thirteen, fourteen year old kids, we actually need
to have conversations with them about how and why, and
we can talk to them about physical body responses and
how our bodies work. Those kinds of conversations are going
(13:23):
to really help us to understand where our children are
at instead of affirming something that we don't actually know
at this point in time.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So let's be really explicit about this. This is not
about invalidating anyone's genuine orientation. What this is about, this
conversation is about protecting children from locking into an identity
label before they've developed the maturity to understand what those
labels really mean and before they understand the social and
the medical pathways that they might be pressured to follow
(13:55):
if they adopt those labels. So the anxiety, the depression
is self harm. That Melissa's talking is often a sign
of really significant confusion in children who have been handed
these adult concepts through the content that they're viewing and
then encouraged to build their identity around them, and then
they're all too often left to navigate the psychological consequences
completely alone. And we are watching mainly girls. It doesn't
(14:18):
happen so much with boys. We're mainly watching girls disappear
into identity confusion at precisely an age where they should
be developing confidence in who they are as people, rather
than these little fragments of I think I'm this because
I'm going to take this sexual label and apply it
to myself.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
So big topic, heavy conversations, but what are parents are
actually supposed to do?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So I always start my response to that question on
this topic by talking about screens. We've got to control
access to devices and me, I mean, we're talking about
ten year olds and eleven year olds here. If you
have a ten year old who has unlimited unfettered, unmonitored
Internet access. What you've done is you've given her a
adore into an adult galaxy with limited supervision. I'm not
(15:03):
talking about being controlling. I'm actually talking about being in controller.
Actually maybe it is a bit controlling. So we need
to make sure that there are parental controls, check them regularly,
keep devices out of bedrooms at night, keep screens in
common areas. Frankly, if you've got a ten year old,
she shouldn't have a smartphone, she shouldn't have a smart device.
Just I don't think that it's appropriate, full stop, end
of story. You're going to get major pushback and you're
(15:25):
going to be told that she's the only one that's fine.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Stand firm. You're the parent.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So that's the first thing. Second thing that I would
say is if these conversations are happening, you want to
have the conversations without judgment, but also without automatic affirmation.
The Australian Psychological Society pushes for affirmation and affirmative responses.
What they argue for I think they're wrong. I disagree
profoundly with that. You're talking about a ten or eleven
year old. You're not just going to say, well, if
(15:50):
that's what you say, then that's what it is. If
your daughter is identifying as lesbian or non binary, you
don't need a panic, you don't need to dismiss it.
But you also don't have to automatically say, well, if
that's why, but you say you are, then that's what
you are.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
The current script.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Tells us to celebrate it, to affirm it. I think
it's safer too.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
My preference would be to resist initially, But if you're
not comfortable resisting, I'd say, at least ask questions with
genuine curiosity. What does that mean to you? What made
you start thinking about this? How long have you felt
this way? Have your friends been talking about it too?
What do you think being lesbian means? What do you
think being non binary means? And you'll find, just like
(16:31):
you found Kylie with the sexing versus kissing comment, that
what she's saying and what she actually understands usually going
to be two different things.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
But not only that, it's normal.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
To be curious totally.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
It's so normal to be curious. I remember a conversation
we had with our now twenty two year old. She
was six, and she looked at me and she said,
I am never having children, like she was dead serious,
never going to happen. Well, we're now twenty two, we've
had some life life experience, and she's looking forward to
being a mum. But if she'd made.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
A permanent not anytime soon, I'm like, quickly at not
anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
There are no plans in the works.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
But if she'd made a permanent decision as a six
year old to ensure that she didn't ever go down
that road, she would never have the opportunity to mature
and understand and experience life in a different way from
a different viewpoint.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And it's that too though, like six year of course,
But once they get to twelve, thirteen, fourteen, people start saying,
oh no, they can do No, they can't.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
They can't drive, they can't drink alcohol, they can't.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Modify them adults for a reason.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Okay, we've got to I want to run through a
couple more really quickly, and our time is up. So
teach the difference between feelings and identity. What do I
mean by that? I mean help her understand that the
physical response is that she's happening, the attraction, the confusion
that comes and goes, especially during puberty. This is a
time where that happens. Identity is something that develops over
time through and you use these words before, through lived experience.
(17:55):
It's not something that you rush into at eleven based
on a bodily reaction to anime or manga.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
It's interesting to me though, like when I was growing up,
that normal curiosity was there, right.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And everybody said, oh, that's normal to be curious.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
No, but if a girl kissed a girl because she
was curious, it wasn't a knee jerk jump reaction she
must be a lesbian. It was she kissed a girl
because she was curious.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Right.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
But now we're at this point where we have all
of these children confused and trying to work out who
they are in a world that they're not ready to
live in.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
So I'd be saying normalized not knowing, normalize waiting, normalize
the idea that childhood and adolescents are supposed to be
periods of exploration without permanent declarations of identity.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Yeah, we're not saying you are or you are not correct,
but let's just take some time.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah you don't have to lock it in. Yeah, lock
it in, Eddie, lock it in.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Who has to be a millionaire who I could say
something else, but I'm going to move on. There are
two more that I want to highlight. I think that
we've really got to watch for peer influence and address
it directly. So if there's a whole bunch of friends
that are adopting similar identities simultaneously, that is a red
flag and we need to address it. So, I mean,
it's social pressure. It's not organically discovering who I am.
This is social pressure wearing a costume of authenticity and celebration.
(19:13):
Here's a script, gently explore it like this, I've noticed
several of your friends have started identifying as lesbian on
non binary about the same time as you. Why do
you think that is? What's going on with that? Do
you feel like you'd fit in less if you didn't
identify that way? Okay, So there's a script around that
that can be helpful because sometimes just naming the pattern
is enough to help her to see it. And if
(19:34):
you discover that her not being straight is a form
of social currency in the peer group, then it's time
to have bigger discussions, diversify the social circle, find different friends,
or at least have conversations about what's actually going on
in the peer group. Here's the last one that I
want to highlight. We need to limit exposure and be
honest about why. So what do mean by that? Say
(19:56):
something like this, you're not ready for sexual content yet.
It's not because there's anything wrong with you. It's because
your brain still developing.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
And this is.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Material that's been put together to affect adults in certain ways,
and if you encounter it now, it's going to create
confusion that you are just not equipped to handle. When
you're older, you'll have the maturity in the context to
make sense of things that are just going to mess
with your head right now, and you can even encourage
I don't want you to look at it when you're
older either, but at least when you're older, you'll be
you'll have a much greater sense of who you are.
(20:26):
And then you've got to enforce it. Check the browser history,
monitor the apps, know what she's watching. If you discover
that she's been accessing pornography or highly sexualized content through
anime or manga, you've got to address it immediately. You're
not getting it in trouble, you're not stealing devices away. Well,
maybe you are eventually but certainly with clarity about why
it's harmful and what the consequences should be. So they're
(20:48):
kind of my big ideas, Kylie. Ultimately, as a parent,
you've got to set boundaries, especially with kids at a
ten or eleven, but even twelve thirteen, fourteen fifteen, the
pattern exist. Lots of parents are identifying it. I can't
tell you how many parents have sidled up to me
after a presentation and whispered what's going on with this?
And then they've highlighted these kinds of issues and this
(21:09):
has brought up She's sort of said the bit that
you're not supposed to say out loud, out loud, and
hopefully we've been sensitive today and also highlighted that we
want our children to take their time before they lock
in an identity. The girls need parents to be available
to have those hard conversations and guide them carefully.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
We're way over time. We need to wrap it up.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
Bridge Media. Mimhammonds provides additional research, admin and other support.
If you've got a tricky question, hit us with it,
send us a voice note to podcasts at happy families
dot com dot you, or jump onto happy families dot
com dot i U scroll down to where it says podcasts, press.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Record and start talking.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Another tricky question next week on the Happy Families Podcast tomorrow.
And interview with Jackie NeSSI from the Technosapien Substack, my
brand new favorite substack as we talk about kids.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Tech, and more on the Happy Families podcast
Speaker 4 (22:09):
MHM
Hello, and welcome to the Happy Families podcast. Quick heads up.
While not explicit, the content of today's podcast does touch.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
On things that are sexual in nature.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
That means that if you're listening with younger kids, you
might want to press pause, find something else for them
to listen to, and come back to this one a
little bit later.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Just a heads up.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
The content of today's podcast, while not explicit, does include
some discussion of things that are slightly sexual in nature. Okay,
so what do you do when your eleven year old
daughter announces that she's a lesbian at the same time
that five of her friends have all announced that they
are It's all happening in the same month. A listener
(00:46):
said us a voice note and asked if we could
please discuss something that schools won't talk about and most
parents are too afraid to mention girls, pornography and the
mass confusion happening right now around sexual identity. Noticed this
pattern if you've felt not in your stomach watching it
and fold and thinking they're too young, do they really
know what they're doing? Why is it all happening to
(01:08):
so many of them at once rather than just one
here and one there. If you've wondered whether you're the
only one seeing it. You're not alone, and we will
talk about it. Stay with us every Tuesday on the
Happy Families podcast. We answer your tricky questions and today
it's a doozy. Oh my goodness, what do you do
when you're eleven year old tells you that she's identifying
(01:28):
as a lesbian. Hello and welcome to the Happy Family's podcast,
Real Parenting Solutions every Day. This is Australia's most downloaded
parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Coulson. Tricky questions,
we'll answer anything, or do our very best to do
that sensitively, carefully and appropriately, considering your child's developmental circumstances,
your family and everything else that we can, recognizing that
(01:49):
the answers are general in context. If you'd like to
submit a tricky question, we've got a super simple system
for you. Just go to Happy Families dot com dot
you scrolled out of podcasts, click the record button and
start talking. Or alternatively, you can send us a voice note,
which is exactly what Melia did when she asked us this.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Hi, Justin. I'm trying to keep this really short, but
it's almost impossible. I just want to talk about girls
and pornography. There's so much going on about boys right now,
but there's stuff going on at the moment, especially through
our school that's not being talked about. You have so
many girls identifying as lesbians or binary. These girls are
watching so much same sex anime on their devices that
(02:31):
they are having normal body reactions to seeing sexual content.
It is normal for a woman to have a sensation
or a bodily reaction to same sex pornography. But because
we've got material, brains and adults, we know that we're not.
So it is happening a lot. I don't think it's
talked about the link between girls watching female pornographies, especially
(02:54):
in anime, and then then being confused with their own identity,
which is then causing anxiety, depression, self harming. It's happening
so much, and I honestly personally know about probably eleven
girls that were at ten eleven year old saying that
they were lesbians. I think it needs to be talked
about more. I hope all this makes sense.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Thanks, Okay, Kylie.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
There's a lot there to unpack, and I want to
make this as helpful as I possibly can, because it's
clear that there's a lot of emotion as well. Is
there anything that jumps out at you straight away?
Speaker 4 (03:27):
I do love that she's highlighted that there is a
lot of emphasis around pornography and boys, and just her
acknowledgment that girls are having exposure to this kind of
content as well, and just how damaging it is to
the way they identify as an individual. Let's take gender
out of the equation, let's take preference out of the equation,
(03:49):
but just in general, how they see themselves, how they
respond to the world, and how they're unable to process
it because it's not developmentally appropriate.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, and this is the key thing.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
There are all sorts of questions and challenges and concerns
that we could raise, but fundamentally, when we're talking about
ten eleven year old girls, it is true that even
from a young age, some people will identify with one
or another sexual orientation, but at this age for it
to be clustering and for a whole group to be
identifying the same way, that is unusual, and that certainly
(04:24):
indicates that there's other factors at play. So let's step
into this. First off, I want to highlight from just
just listen to what Melissa says, or the way she's
asked the question. It really does take courage to address
something that a lot of parents are willing to say,
I've noticed it, but they feel afraid to discuss. And
(04:44):
Melissa is identifying something that research has shown is a
real pattern. And therefore, while we live in a pluralistic
society and a society that is very accepting and tolerant,
well generally speaking, at this age, I think that some
can concerned for these young girls is both evident in
Meliss's voice note but also justified. So what's actually happening
(05:07):
unless it's touched on something that deserves I think, really
plain speech, and that is the difference between a physiological
response and a person's actual sexual orientation.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
This is really hard.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
I just as a red blooded male, is it completely
as heterosexual as you can get kind of guy?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I was shocked. I was absolutely stunned.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
When I was doing my psychology degree and the topic
of pornography and pornography research came up and we were
shown evidence that young men who identify as heterosexual experience
higher levels of arousal when they see homosexual pornography than
if they see heterosexual pornography, and so that physiological response
(05:52):
is not a reflection of sexual orientation. It's just that
when you encounter highly sexualized content, what that does is
it gives you an experience, and if it's content that
you're not used to seeing, whether you like it or not,
it creates a stronger physiological response. And so when you've
got ten and eleven year old girls who are who
are being exposed to, whether it's intentional or unintentional explicit
(06:15):
content or whether they're just watching anime and manga that
romanticizes quite a lot of female same sex relationships. And
when girls are seeing this highly sexualized content, they don't
have the developmental maturity, They don't have the sexual maturity
to contextualize what they're experiencing.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
I think one of the most important things we can
do to help our children navigate the space, whether they're
boys or girls, is helping them to understand how their
body responds.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, that's exactly right, Like.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
This is a physiological response. As an eleven year old,
there is no orientation because they're not developmentally ready for that.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
When I was writing My Boy's book, I don't know
we're talking about girls here, but it's the same for
boys or girls. Average agent exposure to pornography. We think
somewhere around about the age of eleven first kiss, usually
somewhere around fourteen or fifteen. Kids are seeing explicit content,
or they're seeing representations of what could be explicit through
manger and anime three four years before they're having their
first sexual contact. Like I said, there are some people
(07:13):
who will say that in their bones, they just knew
that they were either hetero or homosexual from a young age.
I mean, the reality is, statistically speaking, the overwhelming majority
of kids are heterosexual. But there are some people who
will say, even when I was a kid, I knew
that I was gay, for example. But when we are
being exposed to this, it can create.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
This physiological response.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
When our kids are exposed to or it creates a
physiological response that may cause them to question their identity
when they're simply having a physiological response. And that's the
key thing that I want to get across here. I'm
not highlighting that anything is right, wrong, good, bad. There's
no morality in what I'm saying. I'm simply distinguishing or
wanting parents to distinguish between the physiological response to the
sexual imagery the autonomic response and emphasized that it is
(07:57):
not diagnostic, it's not predictive. When eleven year old experiences
aroused from same sex content has no framework to understand it,
then that may lead to her forming conclusions about her identity,
like definitions about her identity, and in the absence of
any adult guidance to help it distinguish between curiosity and
a physiological response and her actual orientation, she's left to
(08:20):
interpret these very complicated feelings in a really unusual context
with the understanding of a ten or eleven year old.
And that's really what my concern is here. This is
where I think the problem lies.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
So I know we're talking about eleven year olds here,
but too many times you hear in cases where there
has been some violation taking place and boys will say
she wanted it because there was a physiological response for resent.
In girls, that meant she she clearly was turned on.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Right, which is int the case.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Just because your body is producing a lubricant, for example,
that does not mean that you are necessarily aroused and
seeking that Like the physiological response and.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
The understanding how our bodies respond to stimulus, regardless of desire,
regardless of orientation, is so imperative and as parents, as
we're navigating the space where our children are living in
a world where they're told they can be anything they want.
It is the most mind boggling place to be as
(09:30):
a little kid experiencing the world for the first time,
let alone having all of the boundaries now removed.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Well, particularly given what some schools are teaching from a
sexual education perspective, it can be very it's a very
very confusing time. That again, though, that idea of what
the body is doing is not a reflection of the desire,
the emotional, the psychological side of things, and they.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Don't have the understanding of the experience to recognize them.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
But that even ties back to what I was talking
about with the young men adult young men who are
exposed to erotic content involving other men. There's no desire
there for them. They identify as heterosexual, but there's still
a physiological response. And yet some of them may start
to go, oh, well, maybe that means that I'm not heterosexual.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Not necessarily the case at all.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Simply the body is having an autonomic response, a physiological
response that's totally different. Right off the break, I want
to talk about what parents can do why it matters,
and also the social contagient element. Stay with us. Okay,
this is the Happy Families podcast. Pretty tough topic today,
(10:39):
a lot to get through in just a couple of
minutes to do it. I want to talk about the
social contagent element of Melissa's question. So, what we're describing
when we see a whole lot of kids clustering with
the same diagnosis, of the same label, the same this
is who I am, the same identity. What we're talking
about here is social contagion much more than orientation itself.
And so we've got a whole bunch of kids that
(11:00):
are prematurely adopting their sexual identity within their friend group.
When several girls in a peer group suddenly identifies lesbion
or non binary simultaneously, often around the ages of ten
through to fourteen fifteen, we do need to be honest
about what we're witnessing.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Now.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
It's true that one or more of them may actually
be homosexually oriented rather than heterosexually oriented, But what we
if there is a pattern of unrestricted access to sexualized content,
whether it's anime or manger or actually explicit content that's
been designed for adult audiences where there's peer reinforcement, so
adopting the identity brings social status or belonging or a
(11:36):
sense of specialness. We see a lot of that with
some kids who identify as trans and again that clusters
as well if there's a lot of adult affirmation, that
affirmation approach without any questioning, without any inquiry, adults who
are celebrating these declarations, without any kind of questioning about
what the child actually means and understands, and if there's
(11:56):
the absence of any alternative framework, so no one's no
one's telling these girls that confusion around sexual identity can
be quite normal.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
They don't need a label, and that childhood.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Supposed to be a time of not having everything figured out.
If you have those those four or five things occurring
in that pattern, what you're typically going to see is
kids labeling themselves because of a physiological response or because
of their curiosity, driving them to more and more of
that kind of content.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I think it's a really important thing to highlight when.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
I think back to some of the conversations we had
with our kids when they were quite young, coming home
because they were curious. And one day one of our
girls came home and she said mom, two of the
kids at school were sexing and I looked at her
and I said what. And I was ready to get
like really worked up about it. And I said, what's sexing?
(12:48):
And she said, you know, when they're like pushing their
lips together. And I was like, holy smokes, I was
about to launch into this massive conversation with her about
what it all was. Didn't need to know because.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
It wasn't yeah, and she was way too young to know.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
And she was way too young to know. And I
think that when we're talking about ten eleven year and
even twelve thirteen, fourteen year old kids, we actually need
to have conversations with them about how and why, and
we can talk to them about physical body responses and
how our bodies work. Those kinds of conversations are going
(13:23):
to really help us to understand where our children are
at instead of affirming something that we don't actually know
at this point in time.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So let's be really explicit about this. This is not
about invalidating anyone's genuine orientation. What this is about, this
conversation is about protecting children from locking into an identity
label before they've developed the maturity to understand what those
labels really mean and before they understand the social and
the medical pathways that they might be pressured to follow
(13:55):
if they adopt those labels. So the anxiety, the depression
is self harm. That Melissa's talking is often a sign
of really significant confusion in children who have been handed
these adult concepts through the content that they're viewing and
then encouraged to build their identity around them, and then
they're all too often left to navigate the psychological consequences
completely alone. And we are watching mainly girls. It doesn't
(14:18):
happen so much with boys. We're mainly watching girls disappear
into identity confusion at precisely an age where they should
be developing confidence in who they are as people, rather
than these little fragments of I think I'm this because
I'm going to take this sexual label and apply it
to myself.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
So big topic, heavy conversations, but what are parents are
actually supposed to do?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So I always start my response to that question on
this topic by talking about screens. We've got to control
access to devices and me, I mean, we're talking about
ten year olds and eleven year olds here. If you
have a ten year old who has unlimited unfettered, unmonitored
Internet access. What you've done is you've given her a
adore into an adult galaxy with limited supervision. I'm not
(15:03):
talking about being controlling. I'm actually talking about being in controller.
Actually maybe it is a bit controlling. So we need
to make sure that there are parental controls, check them regularly,
keep devices out of bedrooms at night, keep screens in
common areas. Frankly, if you've got a ten year old,
she shouldn't have a smartphone, she shouldn't have a smart device.
Just I don't think that it's appropriate, full stop, end
of story. You're going to get major pushback and you're
(15:25):
going to be told that she's the only one that's fine.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Stand firm. You're the parent.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So that's the first thing. Second thing that I would
say is if these conversations are happening, you want to
have the conversations without judgment, but also without automatic affirmation.
The Australian Psychological Society pushes for affirmation and affirmative responses.
What they argue for I think they're wrong. I disagree
profoundly with that. You're talking about a ten or eleven
year old. You're not just going to say, well, if
(15:50):
that's what you say, then that's what it is. If
your daughter is identifying as lesbian or non binary, you
don't need a panic, you don't need to dismiss it.
But you also don't have to automatically say, well, if
that's why, but you say you are, then that's what
you are.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
The current script.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Tells us to celebrate it, to affirm it. I think
it's safer too.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
My preference would be to resist initially, But if you're
not comfortable resisting, I'd say, at least ask questions with
genuine curiosity. What does that mean to you? What made
you start thinking about this? How long have you felt
this way? Have your friends been talking about it too?
What do you think being lesbian means? What do you
think being non binary means? And you'll find, just like
(16:31):
you found Kylie with the sexing versus kissing comment, that
what she's saying and what she actually understands usually going
to be two different things.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
But not only that, it's normal.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
To be curious totally.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
It's so normal to be curious. I remember a conversation
we had with our now twenty two year old. She
was six, and she looked at me and she said,
I am never having children, like she was dead serious,
never going to happen. Well, we're now twenty two, we've
had some life life experience, and she's looking forward to
being a mum. But if she'd made.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
A permanent not anytime soon, I'm like, quickly at not
anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
There are no plans in the works.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
But if she'd made a permanent decision as a six
year old to ensure that she didn't ever go down
that road, she would never have the opportunity to mature
and understand and experience life in a different way from
a different viewpoint.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And it's that too though, like six year of course,
But once they get to twelve, thirteen, fourteen, people start saying,
oh no, they can do No, they can't.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
They can't drive, they can't drink alcohol, they can't.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Modify them adults for a reason.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Okay, we've got to I want to run through a
couple more really quickly, and our time is up. So
teach the difference between feelings and identity. What do I
mean by that? I mean help her understand that the
physical response is that she's happening, the attraction, the confusion
that comes and goes, especially during puberty. This is a
time where that happens. Identity is something that develops over
time through and you use these words before, through lived experience.
(17:55):
It's not something that you rush into at eleven based
on a bodily reaction to anime or manga.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
It's interesting to me though, like when I was growing up,
that normal curiosity was there, right.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And everybody said, oh, that's normal to be curious.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
No, but if a girl kissed a girl because she
was curious, it wasn't a knee jerk jump reaction she
must be a lesbian. It was she kissed a girl
because she was curious.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Right.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
But now we're at this point where we have all
of these children confused and trying to work out who
they are in a world that they're not ready to
live in.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
So I'd be saying normalized not knowing, normalize waiting, normalize
the idea that childhood and adolescents are supposed to be
periods of exploration without permanent declarations of identity.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Yeah, we're not saying you are or you are not correct,
but let's just take some time.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah you don't have to lock it in. Yeah, lock
it in, Eddie, lock it in.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Who has to be a millionaire who I could say
something else, but I'm going to move on. There are
two more that I want to highlight. I think that
we've really got to watch for peer influence and address
it directly. So if there's a whole bunch of friends
that are adopting similar identities simultaneously, that is a red
flag and we need to address it. So, I mean,
it's social pressure. It's not organically discovering who I am.
This is social pressure wearing a costume of authenticity and celebration.
(19:13):
Here's a script, gently explore it like this, I've noticed
several of your friends have started identifying as lesbian on
non binary about the same time as you. Why do
you think that is? What's going on with that? Do
you feel like you'd fit in less if you didn't
identify that way? Okay, So there's a script around that
that can be helpful because sometimes just naming the pattern
is enough to help her to see it. And if
(19:34):
you discover that her not being straight is a form
of social currency in the peer group, then it's time
to have bigger discussions, diversify the social circle, find different friends,
or at least have conversations about what's actually going on
in the peer group. Here's the last one that I
want to highlight. We need to limit exposure and be
honest about why. So what do mean by that? Say
(19:56):
something like this, you're not ready for sexual content yet.
It's not because there's anything wrong with you. It's because
your brain still developing.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
And this is.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Material that's been put together to affect adults in certain ways,
and if you encounter it now, it's going to create
confusion that you are just not equipped to handle. When
you're older, you'll have the maturity in the context to
make sense of things that are just going to mess
with your head right now, and you can even encourage
I don't want you to look at it when you're
older either, but at least when you're older, you'll be
you'll have a much greater sense of who you are.
(20:26):
And then you've got to enforce it. Check the browser history,
monitor the apps, know what she's watching. If you discover
that she's been accessing pornography or highly sexualized content through
anime or manga, you've got to address it immediately. You're
not getting it in trouble, you're not stealing devices away. Well,
maybe you are eventually but certainly with clarity about why
it's harmful and what the consequences should be. So they're
(20:48):
kind of my big ideas, Kylie. Ultimately, as a parent,
you've got to set boundaries, especially with kids at a
ten or eleven, but even twelve thirteen, fourteen fifteen, the
pattern exist. Lots of parents are identifying it. I can't
tell you how many parents have sidled up to me
after a presentation and whispered what's going on with this?
And then they've highlighted these kinds of issues and this
(21:09):
has brought up She's sort of said the bit that
you're not supposed to say out loud, out loud, and
hopefully we've been sensitive today and also highlighted that we
want our children to take their time before they lock
in an identity. The girls need parents to be available
to have those hard conversations and guide them carefully.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
We're way over time. We need to wrap it up.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
Bridge Media. Mimhammonds provides additional research, admin and other support.
If you've got a tricky question, hit us with it,
send us a voice note to podcasts at happy families
dot com dot you, or jump onto happy families dot
com dot i U scroll down to where it says podcasts, press.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Record and start talking.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Another tricky question next week on the Happy Families Podcast tomorrow.
And interview with Jackie NeSSI from the Technosapien Substack, my
brand new favorite substack as we talk about kids.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Tech, and more on the Happy Families podcast
Speaker 4 (22:09):
MHM
Popular Podcasts
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com