My 13yr old Aspie son thinks he's gay

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Apparently a higher percentage of people on the autism spectrum are homosexual than in the NT community, so it's very possible your child IS homosexual. However, at 13 it is also very possible that other factors than sexual preference are at play. I think that calling a local support group for some advice in how to approach this would be a good idea (as others have already suggested). I also think that you should sit down with him, whether he's comfortable or not, and have a very frank conversation about sex. Try to make it clear that a) he's young to be sexually active and you encourage him to wait until he's older, regardless of what gender partner he prefers, and b) that you support him no matter what his sexual preference is. Then be very, very frank about sexually transmitted diseases and make sure he understands EXACTLY what safe sex is.

I can't guarantee, no matter what you do, that your child will actually take the conversation to heart. (My son did, my daughter didn't. She made me a grandma when she was 17. sigh <But I adore my grandson, don't get me wrong there.>) However, at least by having the conversation you can be sure he has the facts, regardless of what he does with them.

Thanks!

some really interesting and helpful responses!

I think it has come as a shock to me as he seemed to be interested in girls and recently went out with a girl a couple of times.

We stay in a rural part of the UK where it can be difficult to be different in any way so I really do worry about him.

We do have a local LGBT Youth support worker so I may put him in touch if he wants. I've talked to his school and they will do what they can to stop bullying. He's such a sensitive boy though and even low level teasing will upset him greatly. I just wish he had talked to me before he announced it on his internet page!

A *lot* of aspies are Gay. I think it's wonderful that he is finding himself.

Where do you get that from?

Does your son view sexuality in terms of being either straight or gay? Personally, I believe that sexuality is a continuum, and that a person can be located at any point on that continuum for any length of time. I believe that while some people may stay at the same point on that continuum for their whole life, other people may move from one point to another. Maybe it might help to explain that there are more kinds of sexuality than just heterosexuality and homosexuality - i.e. bisexuality, asexuality, and pansexuality.

It's pretty much true. over the years i've been posting on here, there has been a giant amount of people in the LGBT community posting here, also many Asexual people.

good for him.

Hmmm, I was thinking a lot about this last night, mostly from the POV of what if my son announced he was gay?

Probably the first thing I would do at 13 is make sure he understands that no 13 year old should be exploring sexuality with other people, whether they are straight or gay. No one ever got pregnant or STDs from masturbation.

Secondly, I agree with a lot of posters who have already posted, that sexuality is not just gay or straight. There is bisexual of varying amounts towards female or male, or asexuality. Some people confuse not liking the opposite sex for homosexuality when in reality their not attracted to either sex.

There is a time and a place for all things, and that time and place is college. I know people who went into college one sexuality and came out a different one, whether straight to gay or gay to straight or bisexual to straight or whatever. He's got a lot of time yet to decide what he wants in life, and there's no reason he needs to pick a "side" so early in life.

I was never aware of having picked a side.

I never came to my mom and said, "I think I might be straight."

Well, I never talked about it to my parents in either way but I've never considered myself 100% straight, I think if I would have found the love of my life to be a woman things might have turned out a lot differently for me. Everyone is different though.

I knew I was different years before I'd ever heard of Asperger's Syndrome. As a little boy, I knew I was different from the other kids on the playground, but I knew not how. Some thing are known in the gut, others in the head.

Hi

I'm feeling much calmer about this now. I've talked to the local LGBT youth support worker.

She will soon be starting a local group, so I will talk to DS and see if he would like to join in.

She was very sensible and said that she talks to her younger lgbt clients a lot about internet safety and safety in general.

I still feel concerned that he has came out so openly about this at such a young age but will support him whatever happens!

There is nothing about being an aspie that means you can't be gay.


Think of the age of your first crush - you could tell long before you were 13 that you were heterosexual.

As for your son going out with girls, I went out with guys who weren't remotely what I was attracted to when I was that age. Also many of the gay guys I knew had girlfriends in their early teens (which could possibly be partially attributed to wanting to hide their gayness, or their own verification of their homosexuality. In one case, I know of a gay guy and a gay girl who were dating each other in high school

Wow. I couldn't even imagine how to handle this. All I can say is...

Homosexuality is not ok with me and if my son or my gf's son (the Aspie) proclaimed to be so I would express my displeasure whether they had Aspergers or not. I would not be ok with this.....AT ALL.

I'm sure I'd get over it eventually, but you should definitely not hold back your feelings simply due to his AS.

Yes, always better to share your hate and make your child feel even more miserable about something that can't be changed than to behave in a manner that shows your love for him is true love and not a kind of love that is contigent on him changing something about himself that is impossible for him to change

Last edited by Triangular_Trees on 08 Oct 2008, 2:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it is possible to share your personal feelings without alienating your child, but that would be very difficult. The first goal of any parent should be to keep the avenues of communication open, and I hope you will give some thought to how you might do that should such a situation ever arise. It's important, I think, for us parents to prepared for who our children are, like it or not, and to know how to keep them in our lives, how to find acceptance, especially when we do NOT like who it turns out they are.

I have never forgotten one conversation I had with my father. He was a very strict person, but he did have a pragmatic side, and when we were teens he basically told us that we should not be afraid to approach him if we found ourselves pregnant. He certainly hoped he had taught us better than that, and we could expect he was going to be angry about it, but he wanted us to know that he would get over it, that he would still love us, and that he would love the baby and help us raise it. He laid out the game plan for if we were to ever make that particular mistake. And I appreciated it. If he hadn't told us that, I might not have known that I could take such an issue to him. Fortunately I never had to, and in many ways knowing the game plan helped with the prevention. I didn't want to disappoint him because I respected him so much.

I think the best answer for a parent who has concerns about a child revealing his homosexuality for religious reasons, for example, is to say simply, "you know that I believe the ACT is a sin, so please don't engage in any sexual activity, at least not yet, you are very young and I would say that no matter what your orientation was. I am going to struggle with this announcement you've given me, but I still love you and believe in you." Not "love the sinner hate the sin" - I am talking more real acceptance than that. Most who are gay feel very strongly that they were born that way, that they did not choose it, and when you say that even the inclination is a sin, if never acted upon, you rip at the core of who they are. I do not believe that is what the Bible teaches, that the being/existence is a sin. I don't know how you personally split the hairs on this, just sharing because it could just come up in your life.

As to the OP, I think you are taking a sound approach.

As I posted earlier, one of the things that concerns me most is that I just don't believe 13 is old enough to "know." Encourage him to keep his options open.