When did you first know that gay men existed?

Within a few minutes of discovering pornography. I had to be, like, 7 or 8.

Before that, I knew that some folks enjoyed doing things with people of the same sex, but never gave it much thought.

 

Generally, around eleven years old, I began to mature a bit and became independent. I learned a lot of stuff from that period to now, my current age having learned deeper into the sexualities and genders. While my memories of WHEN are kinda blurred, I definitely found out about it during that period.

 

In a really early age (like 4/5 years old), I remember teasing a gay guy in girl's clothes with my little cousins (sorry!). In about 8-10 years of age, I learned about lesbians.

Then bisexuals, the real meaning of bisexual, just 2-3 years ago. I learned about the true meaning of bisexuality in my Sociology class. Ever since I learned the word bisexual (like 12/13 yrs old), I have been associating it with gay guy acting and looking like a stereotypical straight guy and lesbian acting and looking like a stereotypical straight girl.

I learned about the true meaning of transexuality just here in EC. I only think trans people are those people who undergone sexual reassignment surgery call the others as gay/lesbian.

I also learned about the non binaries here on EC.


As you can see, I have learned A LOT here on EC. And many Filipinos are teaching some other fellow Filipino LOTS of WRONG things when it comes to genders and sexualities. This is something I want to change.

 

I was 4. I have a gay uncle and two lesbian aunts.

 

I was 6, my uncle came out at a family BBQ. I had a lot of questions and my uncle tried to explain the best he could to a 6 yr old.

 

I was about 9 years old when it was revealed to me that Elton John is gay.

 

I don't exactly remember but by the time I was 10 I knew about gay people lol i remember asking my mom how gay people had sex...i was a really curious kid

 

I'm not sure exactly, but I put around 10 because I knew what gay meant... but I do remember being at a science fair as a middle schooler and one of my competitors called me a "gay, lesbian, pervert."

So when he wandered off, I went up to his mom all innocently and was like, "Your son told me I was a gay lesbian pervert... but I'm not really sure what that means?" And she was so angry and apologized a lot~ hahaha~ I'm pretty sure I just looked the words up in a dictionary when I got home XD;;; (I feel so old, haha~ that's also how I learned what "horny" meant XD;;

Thinking back, I was accused of being a lesbian a lot... well, guess they were almost right XD;;

 

I honestly have no idea.

 

I remember seeing a lot of caricatures of gay men on television, but personally? It was used in school as an insult, and even my godfather, who is gay, didn't really give off any strong indicators. Maybe it was my young age combined with obliviousness.

There were rumors in elementary and middle school, but it wasn't until high school and college that I met people who were openly gay. Then came the organizations, events, and clubs.

 

I don't ever remember not knowing.

 

Funny thing, when I first read about Sexual Reassignment on Wikipedia, when I was in, 7th grade , 12 years old ? Then interlinks brought me to all the shit lol, Pansexuality, Homosexuality, Gender fluidity and cis, Transsexuality , Dysphoria (which is transgender-related which I kind of understand. Partly), the list of concepts ran forever, and somehow Necrophilia ( I know ).Lots of big big words for a 12.

Thinking about it, almost all of my knowledge has been coming from the internet. Intercourse, psychological definition, almost every fucking thing. I never had a club, an organization or even a SexEd class. Strange.

 

My mum had a gay friend when I was growing up. I remember knowing what it meant from an early age. The thought of reaching age 10 without knowing that gay people exist confuses me.

 

I don't remember when I first knew that gay men exist. I just know I was 11 or 12 years old when I realised I was crushing on both genders. My memory's kind of messed up around that time. I voted 15 years old because I was writing slash fanfiction by then.

 

I got my first personal computer when I was 10 (hence a more private access to the internet) and discovered slash fanfiction soon after that.
I'm actually pretty grateful to fanfiction. I've always been completely fine with gender and sexuality issues, and I think my exposure to them through fanfiction may have helped with that. It certainly isn't anything my parents taught me.

 

I learned about homosexuality from a book my mom gave me about puberty and sex; I was 10. I got my first period at age 9.

 

I first learned about what homosexuality was when I was about 8ish or so?

 

I think I was around 7 or 8, so I answered "10" in the poll.
I'd never given much thought to people's gender preferences until my little sister told me about two girls in her class who had told their teacher "We're gays", to which she had replied "Only men who date each others are gays, your word is lesbians."
Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure my parents must have explained something about being gay before that, but that's the first time I remember learning the words.

I guess I learned about bisexuality when I was 12, because I was getting curious about my own sexuality and asking people at an online forum if I was a lesbian, and someone introduced me to the word.
Until then, I had thought everyone was bisexual by default, but that girls liked guys (and vice versa) because that's what they saw happened in disney and on tv, not because they were born with that preference. It confused me tremendously, as I suddenly realised *I* was the odd one out.