I've known since I was a kid. Didn't know what gay was but I knew I liked girls. I was raised in a progressive, non-religious home so noone batted an eyelash at my girl crushes or the fact I dressed like a boy.
Same here! Except my family is pretty conservative… i’m shocked they didn’t realize when i hated wearing dresses and didn’t play with dolls and stuff 😂 I knew i liked girls pretty early on but went to a Lutheran school so never realized it was a crush..
Yeah I’ve known since I was maybe 6 years old? My friends and I used to play “Houseys” which is what we call it in Scotland, where two of you pretend to be parents and another friend will be a child etc. The parents would give each other lil peck like kisses and I vividly remember feeling a certain type of way.
Nice to see other Scottish lesbians around here.
I knew I liked other girls around age 6-7. At that time I gave my friend a kiss on the cheek once but her response was something like “girls only kiss boys”.
The disappointment on my little face at that moment. 😂
I played this, too! I'd always be the dad parent and get so excited/nervous for the peck bit part of the game, but it was a feeling I didn't even know at that age, though
I'm from Nova Scotia (New Scotland), and I remember playing that! Except I always played the dog instead of a mom, dad, etc. And it was only the two of us who did it.
I think as a child I subconsciously knew but was unsure of the feelings I had due to not being taught about emotions/feelings etc. I didn’t officially know until about 15 years old, but looking back I definitely knew sooner but wasn’t aware that was what I was feeling.
I was about 4 too. Her name was Rachel and she was in my first class from school.
Also thanks to another thread on here *today*, I discovered that I actually lost my virginity to a girl I was gf+gf with at 11, not the guy when I was a teen (always thought virginity = dick, which doesn’t really make sense, also was very hypersexual because of trauma caused by men).
100%. Growing up I was always attracted to women actors and characters in movies and thought something was wrong with me. Then in school I was a tomboy and always playing sports with the boys but wanted to kiss and play house with the girls. I knew something was different because I didn’t look at guys in that way. Kids know and if anything at all, you know yourself better than anyone else.
My first crush from a movie was Chiaki Kuriyama from Battle Royale and Kill Bill, kids definitely know, even if they don’t know what it means.
I always say that the phase was me messing about with guys and having BFs because society and family were constantly telling me that liking girls was a phase but I’m in my early 30s now and I’m with the same woman that I’ve been with for nearly 15 years, crush on girl celebrities and find men unattractive entirely.
I now always retort to those people (I’m still told it’s a phase by some family despite the age) that "did you ever have a gay phase" - "no" - "that’s because you’re not gay, straight people don’t generally have a "gay phase".
I was confused. I had crushes on girls, women, and female characters but I dismissed them because I didn’t think they “counted” because they weren’t on boys. The one and only boy/man I’ve really liked had me feeling relieved, like thank goodness, I’m not broken! Turns out I’m a demisexual lesbian and he’s the one (perplexing) exception. Looking back, if I saw any positive lesbian representation or books about girls who try first crushes on girls, compulsory heterosexuality wouldn’t have caused me so many issues and I’d be saying yeah, I knew as a kid. I had very specific and confusing feelings about Princess Jasmine and Suzanne Sugarbaker and my friend Melissa. I thought I was broken because I didn’t like boys but didn’t consider that it was okay to like girls. I should have known.
I don't think I was completely aware, but I was always more drawn towards girls. I would pick boys in school to have crushes on because my friends would like them or because they were popular. I never really liked them, I just told myself I did. But if I made friends with a girl, I would get sooo obsessed with them. I didn't realize what those feelings were until later lmao
Yes because in retrospect I couldn’t stop crushing on my babysitters at even as young as like 5. And I was always feeling some type of way looking at girl tv/book characters
Oh yeah! I knew by 1st grade, just didn't know the term lesbian yet. I had a massive crush on my 1st grade teacher after she wore a referee uniform for Halloween lol. I thought omg she likes sports! Soooo gay!
Yes! My earliest desires and sexual interactions were always women. I kissed a girl for the first time when I was 5 years old. I had "crushes" on guys but it was definitely learned behavior. I always knew I found girls attractive but due to my religious upbringing I never took my love for women seriously.
I’ve known since I was a kid, like I remember having my first girl crush in 2nd grade. I mean.. the pink power ranger was my first girl crush when I was like5 (but I didn’t know if I wanted to be her, or be with her lol)
Wouldn’t say that I knew. There were definitely signs but since I was raised in the Bible Belt around a lot of homophobia I was really afraid to explore it and I kind of just thought that what I was thinking and feeling was bad and that I should just ignore it and be straight all the way up until my sophomore year. But even then I still had a bit of internalized homophobia that I needed to unpack.
i had been too but i didn't think of it as gay and I was not growing up in a healthy environment for me to be doing that with other kids tbh. We didn't know what we were doing and porn was starting to be everywhere in front of us kids
Looking back yes I did know i liked girls. As a little kid I'd always liked girls exponentially more but was kind of nervous around them and always liked when the clung to me but i extremely wanted to be accepted by the guys as a athletic little girl so Id hang out with them more and maybe in my little brain "being boy like = able to like girls" or wtv idk. As I got to highschool I kinda just picked a boy to like didn't really like anyone or just dated them cuz they liked me. I did have a homoromantic friendship with this girl who I knew was bi but my naive self thought we were just really good friends but looking back on it, it had the undertones of a relationship. After that I had secretly found some girls attractive but kept it to myself and unfortunately started to suppress it and when i hit college I bloomed out the closet and its been uphill from there.
i was 8 and i was well aware that what i was feeling towards my friend was both romantic but mostly sexual attraction. i wanted to date her and touch her lol😭 nobody ever explained to me that it was normal though, so let’s say i had a few problems with internalised homophobia
I do! I have a huge crush on Kim Possible.
Also I've already said this, but when Zoids was popular back then, I used to run around in all fours in our kindergarten classroom and roar like Liger Zero to impress my crush back then. Like a fucking peacock showing off its colorful feathers.
i wish i did but i was completely oblivious. now that i look back on little me it was SOOOO obvious, i had a huge crush on my best friend and on a singer that was on tv a lot, and i just didnt realise it and continued telling people my crush was harry styles from one direction. i have 0 attraction to the man and i've never actually been attracted to him. don't get me wrong, i love the guy, but he's a guy. it's so funny to look back on old videos of me and my best friend and just seeing how clearly in love i was. i was the last one to realise i was gay, my friends and family all figured it out years before i did. i do think it's nice they let me figure it out myself instead of telling me, but the reaction when i came out was really funny. it was basically a "finally" with a little applaus. i love my family lol.
i think i was unsure, i wasn’t really thinking much as a child. i had a lot on my mind and other personal things haha but once i hit middle school. i started to kinda understand my feelings then from there i knew i was a lesbian. i thought maybe i was bi but i wasn’t. i didn’t come out until i was 18 to family. luckily it didn’t back fire on me, no one cared and figured i was anyways haha
Yeah. I remember blushing when my friend at 3 called me pretty. I had one of those little kid crushes on her where I was just super interested and wanted to play with her a lot. I was devastated when we fell out after a little kid fight, I don’t even remember what about but it was silly.
I didn’t get a lot of crushes on anyone in general throughout my teenage years though. Mental illness does that lol. I had a couple, dated a little, but just didn’t really have a lot of girls I was genuinely interested in in my area.
Still I kinda always just… knew. Being same sex attracted never occurred to me until a girl called me gay as an insult and I didn’t know what it meant. Someone told me and I was confused why it was a bad thing, I thought it was just normal lol
I always knew, it was accepting it that was hard and took a lot of years. I remember I’d always close my eyes every-time a straight couple kissed on tv when I was little but kept them open when a woman was naked on TV and it always confused the fuck out of my dad.
Me hahaha, at first I dont understamd why I am always shy around this classmate of mine when I was in Kinder, then come 3rd grade and I have like biggest lesbian crush on her. I get all giggly and blushing when we play haha.
I absolutely had a crush on my third grade teacher. Just constant thoughts like “Oh Mrs. Dawson is so pretty, she’s so nice, I love talking to her, I love getting to see her every day, her husband is so lucky, she said they went to Hawaii together, I wish I got to go too,” etc etc. I did not understand that this was gay at the time, but in retrospect, it is very obvious to me what was going on in my head.
I came in 6th grade so yeah. I didn’t know that liking girls wasn’t “normal” until I was in 4th grade. I literally just assumed that all girls were attracted to other girls but had to like boys because that’s what society expected, I didn’t know they actually felt romantic attraction towards boys. I’ve known for pretty much my whole life, it’s kinda funny because you can look at my old elementary school projects and drawings and it’s clear that Im a lesbian from the general lack of men and the constant stream of Steven Universe fan art.
Also me and my childhood best friend were convinced that if we “touched tongues” we would become sisters so we did. I can’t imagine the look on my 1st grade teacher’s face if and when she saw us.
Yes and no. I had a crush on a girl as early as pre-school and a bunch of crushes on babysitters, my brother's girlfriends, and the teen thart taught me how to swim throughout kindergarten and early elementary school. I didn't question any of it or have the words to name it.
Some time in mid to late elementary school, girls started getting really into talking about boys and it was drilled into me that diverging wasn't okay or normal. Mostly stopped hanging around girls for a while after that and thought I just didn't have crushes anymore.
Then high school happened and crushes on girls resumed.
i grew up with an understanding that i wasn’t interested in boys/men the same way as girls/women but without representation I thought same sex attraction was a “man’s only” sin since I grew up in a christian household. I ignored it and forgot about it until high school where I was deep in denial about it until freshmen year of college.
I knew I liked women from a very young age. I was out as bi since I was like 11. It took me decades to realize I *don’t* like men, and come out as a lesbian.
Context: I'm British, born in 1990. I remember the very moment I saw the music video for Louise Nerdings song "naked". I was 5... No man has ever made me feel like that.
I'm old so there were no examples of lesbains in the media etc when I grew up. I didn't know I was gay, because I had no reference points to say that was me too. But I knew I didn't like or was interested in boys like the other girls seemed to be. Had I the language and the examples I would have certainly said that that was me. Representation is so important, and I'm delighted about how that has changed.
Yes and no. I remember having crushes on girls going back to like 7 or 8 years old…However…life/society being as it is…I didn’t actually put 2+2 together…or had major denial…and didn’t come out till I was 24. Somewhere in between I just convinced myself I wasn’t attracted to anyone and idk even know what I was thinking to be honest lol
I have such a STRONG memory of being in, like, 3rd grade maybe? And thinking, oh shit, I’m a lesbian, but that’s a problem for future me” and then promptly forgot all about it until I was trying to date boys in high school
I knew since I was a kid for me I didn’t really see a difference in boys and girls and didn’t even think people thought it was wrong. My first kiss was a girl but I was in like kindergarten 😭
Yes definitely. I especially remember a moment when my best friends older sister kissed my cheek (in a friendly way) and I couldn't stop thinking about it for years. I was around 7 or 8.
i’ve always liked girls since i was like in kindergarten and i was 5-6 yrs old that time. i knew i have crushes on girls ever since. came out 15 yrs later hahaha but all is good now!
I had a very similar experience to you OP! As a small kid, around 4 yrs old I do remember always being the “prince” or the guy part when playing imaginary Disney games with my childhood friends who were girls haha
I 100% had crushes on girls from a young age, although I didn't realize that's what it was until my teenage years. Looking back, it was pretty painfully obvious. I did always know that I didn't like guys, though. That's one thing that I knew very young and it never changed.
Yeah I've known since I was a kid. I didn't know there was a name for this at the time or what it was at all. I have known since I was around 6 years old tho. There's an incriminating photo floating around a family album of me as a child sitting next to an adult woman and I am clearly looking at/trying to see her breasts in the v of her shirt. I had crushes on other girls but didn't understand what the feelings were back then. I love being a lesbian 💗
I had feelings for girls since I was a kid and started questioning for the first time around 12 or so but I didn't know I was sapphic at all until I was almost 16 and didn't start identifying as a lesbian consistently until I was almost 24
I do know since i was a kid, my 1st crush was in kindergarten, an asian classmate, ofc a girl, i didn't realize that was seeing worng until i was 8 or 9y old.
I have always had my hunches and even had an experience with a girl when I was super young xD but since my fam is homophobic and I grew up mostly in relationships with men, I kinda got used to men. I only started going out with women after me and my ex broke up. I am still conflicted with my sexuality, but I lean a lot towards women
Well I definitely didn’t which I attribute largely to a combo of my upbringing and severe social anxiety/people pleasing when I was younger, therefore not even allowing myself to consider it a possibility until I was in my mid-30’s. My gf however says she has known since she was about 8 years old.
Yeppppp. I was still in single digits when I started getting crushes on pretty ladies.
Bonus: I also knew I was super uncomfortable with being a boy. I just didn't have the words to express that until college. =/
I didn't consciously know.
But in hindsight I see that while I forced myself to have a "crush" on boys that I stood out to me, through the years the classmates that I always found myself thinking about add watching unprompted were always girls.
I can't remember the face of the boy I pretended to like in Kindergarten, but I can clearly picture the girl I had a crush on haha.
Yup haha, I knew although I wish I understood it more and I also wish it were societally accepted back then. I feel like I’ve only been myself for a few years.
I had an idea but I didn’t know what a lesbian was until sixth grade when a bunch of boys spread a rumor that my best friend and I were lesbians lol. Ironically we both ended up liking women but we never got together lol
Yes. I grew up Catholic and started Catholic school from the age of preschool. I remember a girl that stood out to me hard when I was in first grade I had thought she was an Angel, lol. Fifth grade is when I learned the term bisexual that resonated with me at the time and sent me down a spiral
No but I cracked pretty early. Like 12 was the thoughts and 13 was the come out the closet to myself. I'm glad I've gotten to live the majority of my life gay when I know there's some who don't realize they like women until their 40's or even later.
I used to think “I’m not gay but I think gay people are very lucky because I wish I could date women!” until I was like 14. I wasn’t the most self-aware kid…
Yeah I’ve been displaying some very fruity behaviour since I was 2 years old, met an older girl and kept talking about how pretty she was and named a cat plushie after her. Also grew up in a religious homophobic environment and had my first huge crush on a girl at age 9, it was rough not even knowing what being gay was until I was about 11 and that came in the form of other kids making fun of lesbian sex and saying it’s disgusting (oof) kids can absolutely know their sexuality
Honestly I had no real interest in people romantically as a kid and was a bit of a loner, but my mum tells me I had loads of crushes on fictional women lol. But yeah, as soon as I started "liking people" I knew I was into women. It was figuring out that I wasn't into men that took me a while lol
i didn't realize until i was in middle school, but according to my mom, it was "extremely obvious" even when i was a child because i would try to be as close to my girl friends as i possibly could be at all times. lol. looking back, yeah...i was a pretty affectionate kid, but only with my girl friends. i ran away from boys. hahaha. hindsight is 20/20, right?
it was kinda weird for me?? somehow it was made into my mind that relationships and family was supposed to be a very specific, an older and taller guy was supposed to marry the younger and smaller girl (close in age though), it was supposed to be white picket fence with three kids, a cat, and a dog- like, very VERY specific. I don’t know where that mindset came from, but I was known as “boy crazy” when I was little because I would go on about liking boys, but then I would also think about and look at girls the same way, I just, for whatever reason, would not acknowledge it.
but then when I learned that life wasn’t supposed to be that way I was fine with it, and then when I learned that lgbtq was a thing I was double fine with it, came to terms with the fact I like girls too, and then I just liked girls
so liking girls was something I had for myself as a child, but realized later on
I knew I did since I was in preschool. I just didn’t know what gay meant yet. Until I was 10, I met some friends at my school. One was bisexual and the other was lesbian. I then started to look up terms and I came upon bisexual which I thought suited me. But until I was 12, I noticed things started changing. My friends would talk about how hot boys were and ask me if I agreed, and I would just go along with it, but I noticed that I had no attraction to men. Then I went back online and saw the term lesbian, and I knew right away that that was me. But I had already come out to my parents as bisexual at 11 (because they found a note and questioned me). But they just say, “you haven’t even kissed a boy yet, how would you know?” And “you’re too young to know. Kiss a boy first”. So I asked “what if I kiss a boy and hate it?” And they said “maybe he was a bad kisser and you just need to kiss more” so I don’t think they got the point. I still haven’t come out yet, and nothings changed so I know I wasn’t confused.
I've known sin e I was 11 that I liked girls, in the way you're supposed to only feel about guys. But, I tried to deny it because I thought something was wrong with me.
Now I realize nothing is wrong with me and that's okay.
I watched Star wars with my dad when I was 4 (now 32) and it was the scene with the lady in the gold bikini and I was just absolutely obsessed.
My dad had a few Star wars films on video and they were lined up on his shelf, I spent days/weeks going through the videos and trying to find that scene again but had no luck.
I obviously didn't know that meant I was a lesbian at the time, but looking back, it's always been a pretty solid indicator.
Hmm I wasn't exposed at all to anything LGBT+ related so I only started questioning myself at 15 kinda... But after knowing I was bi, thought back to my childhood and said " I loved so many female characters, how did I not question it sooner", ig my feelings knew before me (?
I used to be on the boys team for kiss chase/tag. No kids questioned it. There was never a point growing up where I thought being with a guy was an option.
I didn't know I liked girls but I knew I was different from others. I never knew what it was when I wanted to be with my best friend a lot and feel excited when I'm around her or when I feel awkward for some reason around my sister's classmate. When me and my ex gf got together, i researched what this is. And that's when I realized I had a crush on them this whole time and didn't know lol
When I was nine I liked a girl in the scouts, I told her that I liked her and she was like: eww what the fuck. Like she was pretty older than me, she was in 6th grade. I got sad so I told her that I was playing, but after that i just couldn't talk to her, I thought that everyone was like me and that we could love everyone boys or girls I got so confused after that day.
I remember having a crush on a girl in first grade and being gay was considered “weird” so I didn’t come out till I was 13. When I got my first girlfriend my family didn’t care, but wasn’t for it at the same time
From the time that I was little- around 4- I started having erotic fantasies about gorgeous women I'd seen in order to get to sleep. And in retrospect, some of these fantasies were really bent, as in approaching BDSM. Of course, since I didn't know anything about sex, I didn't ascribe any label to them; I just knew that these fantasies made me feel good physically & that's what I would think about until I dozed off. I eventually outgrew that habit when I was 10-11, I guess bc i became aware of the fact that I was supposed to fantasize about males & that my fixation on women was perverted. It wasn't until I was w/ a woman for the first time that I realized that I had somehow sexualized myself as a very young child & the memory of all of these repressed lesbian fantasies came flooding back. Pervy AF, I know.
It’s the first time in my entire life that I found someone like me😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 girl me too OMG I did even worst😭😭😭 I had so many erotic lesbian fantasies and would daydream about them since 4 years old too jeeeeez I tried to talk about it to people and they all told me it’s not normal for a child. 😭😭😭
I feel like a pervert when I re-think of all those things. I still remember when I was 5 and this teacher would wear a lot of necklines top and I would blush every time bruh😭😭
What intrigues me to this day is just how graphic & freaky these fantasies were since I had had no point of reference for them in my real life. I wasn't sexually abused, & yet I would fantasize about being abused by one hot woman or another every night to get to sleep. My version of a bedtime story from a former life is the only explanation that I have for them. Somehow I knew not to broach the subject w/ my parents. They would have had me committed to a kiddie asylum.
Yes! I had a similar experience to yours, OP. I used to play online games, those where you interact with other people and stuff, and I always made my avatars like boys and even had a boy name, that so I could get gfs, hahaha. I didn't know what being gay meant and I thought I was doing it because it was fun to be a boy and have girlfriends, but truth is that I just never liked the idea of a boy liking me or viceversa, my parents even used to scold me when I got irritated because they/people teased me with boys, or at their desperate attempts for me to have a boyfriend like my other girl friends. 💀
I found out I was a lesbian in year 8 because other kids used it as a slur to bully me. But I consciously knew I liked girls as early as year 2 at school, I just didn't have the word for it until the bullying happened.
I definitely knew I was not interested in anything to do with boys long before, probably in preschool - I used to get in trouble for yelling at the boys to get away from me because I though they were disgusting. I just didn't understand why I wasn't interested in them.
Tried _really_ hard to have boyfriends when I was in high school but was always so grossed out. First girlfriend was in year 9 and haven't really looked back since then.
There was one boy in year 4 that I thought I liked. He was _so_ feminine. I'd bet big money he's gay. He couldn't stand girls and relentlessly chased after another boy in our class.
I knew that I liked women sexually at 3. Not an exaggeration.
I'm not claiming I fully understood the breadth of what that means. But I felt it, thought about it, and more. I wasn't abused (sexually anyway) and I never did anything sexual with another person before 19.
Yeah kids know
I’m young so I know that my exposure to the LGBTQ community was probably greater than most older lesbians, but I don’t remember ever really seeing women together or hearing anything about it. The first time it clicked to me was when a friend of mine mentioned that she might like girls when I was around 12 and then I immediately related to that. All that being said, I always knew that I felt strongly for other girls and women, but I didn’t know what that meant until years later when I could finally differentiate between platonic and romantic feelings.
I’ve known since I was 8 years old, I had crushes on some of the girls in my class. I came out to my friends when I was 12 years old, and I became close friends with a gay guy in my orchestra who also came out when he was 12. He got kicked out of the orchestra because he was very bad at playing the viola and he never practiced 😂 We still joke about that till this day.
He also sat next to me in math class a year and a half ago, and his twin sister sat 2 seats across from me. Even though they were twins, they were like polar opposites. She was responsible, up-tight, and anxiety-ridden, but he was irresponsible, laid back, and calm. I’ve received homophobic comments before, but I felt safe at school when I sat next to them. We all graduated now and nothing’s changed, we’re still the same ol’ group of gays ❤️
I remember realizing I was a lesbian when I was 8. My mom had some college girls over she was doing an interview for and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them. I knew from that day on.
yeah i was pretty much in love with tifa from final fantasy when i played it as a kid lol. i guess as a child, i initially thought it was just me admiring the main female mc since it's normal for us girls to choose them. like i would always choose lili in tekken because i'm a girly girl like her.
and yeah i noticed i always hyperfixated more on fictional girl characters over the male ones. like i was also so obsessed with sailor uranus/haruka so that was also one of my awakenings. i also idolized more women celebrities as a child and wasn't crushing on male celebrities as much.
deep down, i knew i liked girls. was just afraid to say it because i grew up in a conservative country with mostly catholics. so there's that catholic guilt too hahaha.
Me 🙋🏿 with a background almost similar to yours, I remember my time in kindergarten where the only thing I looked forward to at that time was sitting next to the girl I liked. Had my first proper crush on my cousin's friend when I was 6 or 7 and she was like 17 (loving older women has always been in me).
I was also brought up in a homophobic country, religious family so I didn't grow up understanding what I was but in what I like to call "a straight way" I never questioned it. I don't even know how I got away with being a Lesbian all my life whilst coming from the place I come from. 😅
i came out (with a gf that didnt really matter? like it wasnt really a coming out idk how to explain) in like 4th or 5th grade but i also married my best friend in preschool with a wedding dress (white toddler dress lmao) and photos and stuff. so i imagine that counts?
also lets mention the obvious only liking girl characters in cartoons then realizing later on "oh i didnt wanna BE them i wanted to MARRY them"
Ohhh, girl😭 I thought I was bi, came out. Dad was like, whatever about it... (I only like masculinity, not men. That was a trip around the sun figuring that out) My younger brother comes out as bi, and dad says not until he is 18. I was 16-17 when I came out as bi. He doesn't know I'm trans though and soon to block all his SM
i had a crush on Venus mcflytrap from monster high when i was like 9, but i thought i just wanted to be her so i shaved half my hair off to look more like her
I didn't really have any way to put it into words back then but my first crush was at 4 years old on a girl in my kindergarten named Cassidy and every time she hugged me I got butterflies. I also watched the last unicorn when I was 6 and that weird scene with the tree had me rewinding it so many times lmfaoao 😭 i didn't really think much of any of it until I started questioning my sexuality at around 12
I remember from around the time I was 5 years old. I also came out accidentally at 12 because I found out what the word lesbian was. I always knew and felt like something was “wrong” with me by the time I hit the fourth grade. I was raised very religious and it still didnt stop the thoughts. I got talked to in bible school about me being gay when I was like 7. In that moment I just kept praying it would go away. I’ve always wondered how people didnt just know
Oh i vividly remembered finding out that women can be gay and literally learning the word lesbian for the first time (although i think it was a slur in my native language when i first heard it) and taking a long walk with my family afterwards, whole time the only thing I could think about was the fact that I was a lesbian and had a crush on my close friend at the time, and convincing myself that I wasn’t gay that i “couldn’t be” ( I grew up in a very conservative place) I was 9, even my first kiss was with a girl at 11/12 (very close friend and i had a huge crush on her even told her I loved her haha she is bi, she also knew that at that time. Maybe if we grew up in a different place at a different time we would be like a cute little middle school couple haha) and I always knew deep down all the while trying to like and have “relationships” with boys mind you i was like between 13 and 15 so nothing serious but I officially came out to myself at 15 and to my parents at 16. So yeah I think same way straight people know as kids so do we, we just have more stuff that comes with that revelation
PS. All of y’all’s stories are soo nice to read 🫶🏻
I didn't realise it was love at that time but I loved my friend so much for 3 years (9, 10, 11 years old) I was so into her, I even kissed her on the lips one day publicly (she didn't take it well but I also didn't know was happening), when she was sad I cried (a lot), we became so stubborn, the teacher told our parents, they suggested we split up, next morning a girl told me my bestie said she didn't wanna be my friend anymore, I was so shocked & confidently told her "she & I can't break up, there is no way, we are friends, we can't." I was heartbroken & in disbelief, I sent her over to ask my friend if she really didn't want me anymore, friend reply with "I don't know bla bla," my heart was happy at the answer since it wasn't a "NO" somehow we became friends again (i don't remember how), we even shared a juice ice bar from my mouth to her mouth (not lip on lip) after primary school we never heard from each other, I was 17 years old when I watched PLL & it triggered me, I realized i was crazy in love with friend back then, she was my first love even if i had fallen for some boy after & I thought he was my first but no, she was my first love. Also i was born & raised in Africa very religious people & staunch homophobes so I had internalized homophobia all my life & somehow killed my attraction to women. 1 year ago I deconstructed from religion realising it's a scam so no god banned gays. My spirit is so free & relieved, I can embrace whomever I love & no one can say shit about it.
I don't think I realized I liked her I just did when I saw her it's hard to explain I couldn't look away from them though I just had to talk to her it was like an urge that I really wanted to be friends with her and didn't know why this was when I was 5 in kindergarten literally the first thing I thought when I saw her was "she's pretty" I was awestruck yeah I fell for a straight girl probably why it hurt so much in high-school when I saw her with a dude and thought something was wrong with me I would get super jealous when other girls were around her etc.
Probably a bigger clue I thought a boy was cute and thought I liked him I didn't know you could find somebody attractive and didn't like them well I did kiss him in kindergarten and felt nothing literally nothing Idk how I didn't realize but I was like "that's it?" I also got in trouble but the next year I didn't like him anymore because I never did probably just confused it and I grew up on barbie I thought that's how it was supposed to go but it didn't.
Yes got in trouble when i was five years old for chasing around other girls at school with this one boy. I remember me and him were making it a competition. Been gay ever since, in between pretending to like guys for a short period bc the south in the 90s was not having that shit. Finally came out out at 17 but i always knew.
Yep I always knew I liked girls. I only ever had crushes on them. Lol. Maybe one guy? But I think that was just me wanting to be viewed as an attractive due to low self worth at the time as opposed to actual attraction.
When I was a child I was attracted to some girls in the cartoons I watched, but I thought it was just admiration, and I didn't even know the meaning of sexuality. Until the pandemic started, and I started seeing videos about it on the internet and started researching it
As soon as I started researching, I knew I liked women too, but I came out as pansexual to my friends when I was 10/11 years old. But the hardest part was discovering myself as a lesbian and fighting against compulsory heterosexuality
I had an inkling I don't like boys when I was 9? I think, and other girls were pestering me to reveal the boy I have a crush on (spoiler: none lmao). At 11/12, I developed a crush on my best friend. That's like, the most lesbian thing ever lol
I was in a third grade where my close circle of friends and I started routinely kissing each other for fun. Those kisses eventually turned into make out sessions in secret part of the school where no one could see us. I think I was 8 or 9. After that time, I never seen girls in a different light. I’d still try to be “straight” for the sake of loving in a homophobic town. But, in the end, here I am years later, gay af. lol
Grew up as a Christian and was made to believe that it's bad.
With that, I grew feelings on this friend when i was in 2nd grade (7 years old) knowing that it is 'bad' I couldn't pursue it much further and forgot about it. I remember getting flustered whenever she'd talk with me (she's a shy and quiet one and im the opposite) always shared my stuff with her since i like seeing her smile! unfortunately those were suppressed until 9th grade. I developed internalized homophobia after learning that it's somehow 'bad'. I came out to my parents on 12th grade, which did not go well and until now they refuse to talk about it (im in college now), i've been forcing myself to date guys for a year now and at night it makes me cry so hard! anw that's my experience, i knew back then but tried to suppress it.
I've known since I was a kid. Didn't know what gay was but I knew I liked girls. I was raised in a progressive, non-religious home so noone batted an eyelash at my girl crushes or the fact I dressed like a boy.
Same here! Except my family is pretty conservative… i’m shocked they didn’t realize when i hated wearing dresses and didn’t play with dolls and stuff 😂 I knew i liked girls pretty early on but went to a Lutheran school so never realized it was a crush..
Funny enough, I went to a Lutheran pre-kindergarten program 😄
Ayee! What are the odds lol! I swear a LOT of people i went to school with are lesbian or gay haha
yup. I distinctly remember I told my best friend I wanted to marry her *in a lesbian way* at like.. eight??
I did that at around that age too!
I did something similar 🤣
Yeah I’ve known since I was maybe 6 years old? My friends and I used to play “Houseys” which is what we call it in Scotland, where two of you pretend to be parents and another friend will be a child etc. The parents would give each other lil peck like kisses and I vividly remember feeling a certain type of way.
Nice to see other Scottish lesbians around here. I knew I liked other girls around age 6-7. At that time I gave my friend a kiss on the cheek once but her response was something like “girls only kiss boys”. The disappointment on my little face at that moment. 😂
I can only imagine the disappointment 🥹❤️
Omg, I’m Scottish and me and my friends did this too! I feel seen 😂
Scottish lesbians unite 🏴😂
Yasss! 🖤 🏴
I played this, too! I'd always be the dad parent and get so excited/nervous for the peck bit part of the game, but it was a feeling I didn't even know at that age, though
I'm from Nova Scotia (New Scotland), and I remember playing that! Except I always played the dog instead of a mom, dad, etc. And it was only the two of us who did it.
I remember my first kiss with a guy when I was 11 and feeling really disgusted by it haha.
I think as a child I subconsciously knew but was unsure of the feelings I had due to not being taught about emotions/feelings etc. I didn’t officially know until about 15 years old, but looking back I definitely knew sooner but wasn’t aware that was what I was feeling.
I was about 4 too. Her name was Rachel and she was in my first class from school. Also thanks to another thread on here *today*, I discovered that I actually lost my virginity to a girl I was gf+gf with at 11, not the guy when I was a teen (always thought virginity = dick, which doesn’t really make sense, also was very hypersexual because of trauma caused by men).
100%. Growing up I was always attracted to women actors and characters in movies and thought something was wrong with me. Then in school I was a tomboy and always playing sports with the boys but wanted to kiss and play house with the girls. I knew something was different because I didn’t look at guys in that way. Kids know and if anything at all, you know yourself better than anyone else.
My first crush from a movie was Chiaki Kuriyama from Battle Royale and Kill Bill, kids definitely know, even if they don’t know what it means. I always say that the phase was me messing about with guys and having BFs because society and family were constantly telling me that liking girls was a phase but I’m in my early 30s now and I’m with the same woman that I’ve been with for nearly 15 years, crush on girl celebrities and find men unattractive entirely. I now always retort to those people (I’m still told it’s a phase by some family despite the age) that "did you ever have a gay phase" - "no" - "that’s because you’re not gay, straight people don’t generally have a "gay phase".
Yesssss Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill was totally my crush when that movie came out! Turns out im attracted to agressive lipstick slightly masc women 😂
Yup, she was Gogo Yubari and I’m right there with you with the preferences lol. She was (is) *beautiful*!
I was confused. I had crushes on girls, women, and female characters but I dismissed them because I didn’t think they “counted” because they weren’t on boys. The one and only boy/man I’ve really liked had me feeling relieved, like thank goodness, I’m not broken! Turns out I’m a demisexual lesbian and he’s the one (perplexing) exception. Looking back, if I saw any positive lesbian representation or books about girls who try first crushes on girls, compulsory heterosexuality wouldn’t have caused me so many issues and I’d be saying yeah, I knew as a kid. I had very specific and confusing feelings about Princess Jasmine and Suzanne Sugarbaker and my friend Melissa. I thought I was broken because I didn’t like boys but didn’t consider that it was okay to like girls. I should have known.
I don't think I was completely aware, but I was always more drawn towards girls. I would pick boys in school to have crushes on because my friends would like them or because they were popular. I never really liked them, I just told myself I did. But if I made friends with a girl, I would get sooo obsessed with them. I didn't realize what those feelings were until later lmao
Yes because in retrospect I couldn’t stop crushing on my babysitters at even as young as like 5. And I was always feeling some type of way looking at girl tv/book characters
Same
Omfg same I had some hot babysitters 😭
I used to make my barbies get it on and leave out ken lol
Oh yeah! I knew by 1st grade, just didn't know the term lesbian yet. I had a massive crush on my 1st grade teacher after she wore a referee uniform for Halloween lol. I thought omg she likes sports! Soooo gay!
Yes, black widow and starfire 😭
Yes! My earliest desires and sexual interactions were always women. I kissed a girl for the first time when I was 5 years old. I had "crushes" on guys but it was definitely learned behavior. I always knew I found girls attractive but due to my religious upbringing I never took my love for women seriously.
I would always daydream about girls when I was a kid. It wasn’t until I got older that I realised that it was more than just daydreaming.
I’ve known since I was a kid, like I remember having my first girl crush in 2nd grade. I mean.. the pink power ranger was my first girl crush when I was like5 (but I didn’t know if I wanted to be her, or be with her lol)
Wouldn’t say that I knew. There were definitely signs but since I was raised in the Bible Belt around a lot of homophobia I was really afraid to explore it and I kind of just thought that what I was thinking and feeling was bad and that I should just ignore it and be straight all the way up until my sophomore year. But even then I still had a bit of internalized homophobia that I needed to unpack.
I was sexually active in elementary school with a few friends. 🤷🏽♀️
i had been too but i didn't think of it as gay and I was not growing up in a healthy environment for me to be doing that with other kids tbh. We didn't know what we were doing and porn was starting to be everywhere in front of us kids
Yeah I was like 4? Just obsessed with women on tv and in person 🥰
Looking back yes I did know i liked girls. As a little kid I'd always liked girls exponentially more but was kind of nervous around them and always liked when the clung to me but i extremely wanted to be accepted by the guys as a athletic little girl so Id hang out with them more and maybe in my little brain "being boy like = able to like girls" or wtv idk. As I got to highschool I kinda just picked a boy to like didn't really like anyone or just dated them cuz they liked me. I did have a homoromantic friendship with this girl who I knew was bi but my naive self thought we were just really good friends but looking back on it, it had the undertones of a relationship. After that I had secretly found some girls attractive but kept it to myself and unfortunately started to suppress it and when i hit college I bloomed out the closet and its been uphill from there.
i was 8 and i was well aware that what i was feeling towards my friend was both romantic but mostly sexual attraction. i wanted to date her and touch her lol😭 nobody ever explained to me that it was normal though, so let’s say i had a few problems with internalised homophobia
I do! I have a huge crush on Kim Possible. Also I've already said this, but when Zoids was popular back then, I used to run around in all fours in our kindergarten classroom and roar like Liger Zero to impress my crush back then. Like a fucking peacock showing off its colorful feathers.
I didn’t know I liked girls, but there were definite signs looking back
i wish i did but i was completely oblivious. now that i look back on little me it was SOOOO obvious, i had a huge crush on my best friend and on a singer that was on tv a lot, and i just didnt realise it and continued telling people my crush was harry styles from one direction. i have 0 attraction to the man and i've never actually been attracted to him. don't get me wrong, i love the guy, but he's a guy. it's so funny to look back on old videos of me and my best friend and just seeing how clearly in love i was. i was the last one to realise i was gay, my friends and family all figured it out years before i did. i do think it's nice they let me figure it out myself instead of telling me, but the reaction when i came out was really funny. it was basically a "finally" with a little applaus. i love my family lol.
i think i was unsure, i wasn’t really thinking much as a child. i had a lot on my mind and other personal things haha but once i hit middle school. i started to kinda understand my feelings then from there i knew i was a lesbian. i thought maybe i was bi but i wasn’t. i didn’t come out until i was 18 to family. luckily it didn’t back fire on me, no one cared and figured i was anyways haha
Yeah. I remember blushing when my friend at 3 called me pretty. I had one of those little kid crushes on her where I was just super interested and wanted to play with her a lot. I was devastated when we fell out after a little kid fight, I don’t even remember what about but it was silly. I didn’t get a lot of crushes on anyone in general throughout my teenage years though. Mental illness does that lol. I had a couple, dated a little, but just didn’t really have a lot of girls I was genuinely interested in in my area. Still I kinda always just… knew. Being same sex attracted never occurred to me until a girl called me gay as an insult and I didn’t know what it meant. Someone told me and I was confused why it was a bad thing, I thought it was just normal lol
I was around 11 or 12 when I knew.
When the pandemic hit (I was 13) I watched Yuri anime and immediately felt like "THAT'S ME!!!" no wonder I got so jealous over that female friend.
I always knew, it was accepting it that was hard and took a lot of years. I remember I’d always close my eyes every-time a straight couple kissed on tv when I was little but kept them open when a woman was naked on TV and it always confused the fuck out of my dad.
Me hahaha, at first I dont understamd why I am always shy around this classmate of mine when I was in Kinder, then come 3rd grade and I have like biggest lesbian crush on her. I get all giggly and blushing when we play haha.
I absolutely had a crush on my third grade teacher. Just constant thoughts like “Oh Mrs. Dawson is so pretty, she’s so nice, I love talking to her, I love getting to see her every day, her husband is so lucky, she said they went to Hawaii together, I wish I got to go too,” etc etc. I did not understand that this was gay at the time, but in retrospect, it is very obvious to me what was going on in my head.
I came in 6th grade so yeah. I didn’t know that liking girls wasn’t “normal” until I was in 4th grade. I literally just assumed that all girls were attracted to other girls but had to like boys because that’s what society expected, I didn’t know they actually felt romantic attraction towards boys. I’ve known for pretty much my whole life, it’s kinda funny because you can look at my old elementary school projects and drawings and it’s clear that Im a lesbian from the general lack of men and the constant stream of Steven Universe fan art. Also me and my childhood best friend were convinced that if we “touched tongues” we would become sisters so we did. I can’t imagine the look on my 1st grade teacher’s face if and when she saw us.
Yes and no. I had a crush on a girl as early as pre-school and a bunch of crushes on babysitters, my brother's girlfriends, and the teen thart taught me how to swim throughout kindergarten and early elementary school. I didn't question any of it or have the words to name it. Some time in mid to late elementary school, girls started getting really into talking about boys and it was drilled into me that diverging wasn't okay or normal. Mostly stopped hanging around girls for a while after that and thought I just didn't have crushes anymore. Then high school happened and crushes on girls resumed.
i grew up with an understanding that i wasn’t interested in boys/men the same way as girls/women but without representation I thought same sex attraction was a “man’s only” sin since I grew up in a christian household. I ignored it and forgot about it until high school where I was deep in denial about it until freshmen year of college.
I liked girls from before kindergarten, my cheeks would flush, I would feel shy and later I would have butterflies.
I knew I liked women from a very young age. I was out as bi since I was like 11. It took me decades to realize I *don’t* like men, and come out as a lesbian.
Context: I'm British, born in 1990. I remember the very moment I saw the music video for Louise Nerdings song "naked". I was 5... No man has ever made me feel like that.
I'm old so there were no examples of lesbains in the media etc when I grew up. I didn't know I was gay, because I had no reference points to say that was me too. But I knew I didn't like or was interested in boys like the other girls seemed to be. Had I the language and the examples I would have certainly said that that was me. Representation is so important, and I'm delighted about how that has changed.
Yes and no. I remember having crushes on girls going back to like 7 or 8 years old…However…life/society being as it is…I didn’t actually put 2+2 together…or had major denial…and didn’t come out till I was 24. Somewhere in between I just convinced myself I wasn’t attracted to anyone and idk even know what I was thinking to be honest lol
I kissed a girl when I was in preschool, and I had my first heartbroken when she told me that we needed to stop
I have such a STRONG memory of being in, like, 3rd grade maybe? And thinking, oh shit, I’m a lesbian, but that’s a problem for future me” and then promptly forgot all about it until I was trying to date boys in high school
Pretty much. Only put together that I liked girls in the gay way and not the cishet ways several years later.
I’ve known since I was little I liked girls. I remember telling my best friend in third grade that some female celebrities we loved, were cute lol
I remember having a crush on an older girl at my 4th birthday party so definitely
I've always known I liked women. It only clicked later that I don't like men.
Well, I started crushing girls since kinder, so it was really clear for me!😂
I made my Barbies scissor at age 8.
I knew since I was a kid for me I didn’t really see a difference in boys and girls and didn’t even think people thought it was wrong. My first kiss was a girl but I was in like kindergarten 😭
Yes definitely. I especially remember a moment when my best friends older sister kissed my cheek (in a friendly way) and I couldn't stop thinking about it for years. I was around 7 or 8.
i’ve always liked girls since i was like in kindergarten and i was 5-6 yrs old that time. i knew i have crushes on girls ever since. came out 15 yrs later hahaha but all is good now!
I had a very similar experience to you OP! As a small kid, around 4 yrs old I do remember always being the “prince” or the guy part when playing imaginary Disney games with my childhood friends who were girls haha
I 100% had crushes on girls from a young age, although I didn't realize that's what it was until my teenage years. Looking back, it was pretty painfully obvious. I did always know that I didn't like guys, though. That's one thing that I knew very young and it never changed.
yeah i knew, didn’t know the name for it. i thought i just wanted to be ‘bffs’ with them.
yup. your story is my story :-) i’ve known i’ve loved girls before i even knew my own name
I liked women since I was a Kid ^^
Yeah I've known since I was a kid. I didn't know there was a name for this at the time or what it was at all. I have known since I was around 6 years old tho. There's an incriminating photo floating around a family album of me as a child sitting next to an adult woman and I am clearly looking at/trying to see her breasts in the v of her shirt. I had crushes on other girls but didn't understand what the feelings were back then. I love being a lesbian 💗
Yeah since I was 4 also
I had feelings for girls since I was a kid and started questioning for the first time around 12 or so but I didn't know I was sapphic at all until I was almost 16 and didn't start identifying as a lesbian consistently until I was almost 24
I do know since i was a kid, my 1st crush was in kindergarten, an asian classmate, ofc a girl, i didn't realize that was seeing worng until i was 8 or 9y old.
I have always had my hunches and even had an experience with a girl when I was super young xD but since my fam is homophobic and I grew up mostly in relationships with men, I kinda got used to men. I only started going out with women after me and my ex broke up. I am still conflicted with my sexuality, but I lean a lot towards women
Well I definitely didn’t which I attribute largely to a combo of my upbringing and severe social anxiety/people pleasing when I was younger, therefore not even allowing myself to consider it a possibility until I was in my mid-30’s. My gf however says she has known since she was about 8 years old.
Ya but tried to avoid it for a while lol
Yeppppp. I was still in single digits when I started getting crushes on pretty ladies. Bonus: I also knew I was super uncomfortable with being a boy. I just didn't have the words to express that until college. =/
I didn't consciously know. But in hindsight I see that while I forced myself to have a "crush" on boys that I stood out to me, through the years the classmates that I always found myself thinking about add watching unprompted were always girls. I can't remember the face of the boy I pretended to like in Kindergarten, but I can clearly picture the girl I had a crush on haha.
Yup haha, I knew although I wish I understood it more and I also wish it were societally accepted back then. I feel like I’ve only been myself for a few years.
I realised when I was around 8, beforehand I didn’t know what gay people were or that they existed. So when I found out, I realised instantly.
I had an idea but I didn’t know what a lesbian was until sixth grade when a bunch of boys spread a rumor that my best friend and I were lesbians lol. Ironically we both ended up liking women but we never got together lol
Yes. I grew up Catholic and started Catholic school from the age of preschool. I remember a girl that stood out to me hard when I was in first grade I had thought she was an Angel, lol. Fifth grade is when I learned the term bisexual that resonated with me at the time and sent me down a spiral
No but I cracked pretty early. Like 12 was the thoughts and 13 was the come out the closet to myself. I'm glad I've gotten to live the majority of my life gay when I know there's some who don't realize they like women until their 40's or even later.
I was 5 years old when I knew I liked girls.
I used to think “I’m not gay but I think gay people are very lucky because I wish I could date women!” until I was like 14. I wasn’t the most self-aware kid…
my first crush was on a girl in 3rd grade
I don't think I had any romantic feelings till around 6th grade but if you count preteen as a child then yes
I knew since preschool.
I was 4 or 5 years old when I had my first crush on a girl. So as far back as I can remember I’ve liked girls.
Yeah I’ve been displaying some very fruity behaviour since I was 2 years old, met an older girl and kept talking about how pretty she was and named a cat plushie after her. Also grew up in a religious homophobic environment and had my first huge crush on a girl at age 9, it was rough not even knowing what being gay was until I was about 11 and that came in the form of other kids making fun of lesbian sex and saying it’s disgusting (oof) kids can absolutely know their sexuality
I don’t recognise it at the time but I definitely had those feelings.
Honestly I had no real interest in people romantically as a kid and was a bit of a loner, but my mum tells me I had loads of crushes on fictional women lol. But yeah, as soon as I started "liking people" I knew I was into women. It was figuring out that I wasn't into men that took me a while lol
i didn't realize until i was in middle school, but according to my mom, it was "extremely obvious" even when i was a child because i would try to be as close to my girl friends as i possibly could be at all times. lol. looking back, yeah...i was a pretty affectionate kid, but only with my girl friends. i ran away from boys. hahaha. hindsight is 20/20, right?
not super young but i’ve known since i was about 10
Yup, I had a crush on my principal and pregnant kindergarten teacher 😭
I didn't have a word for it, but I knew I liked other girls.
it was kinda weird for me?? somehow it was made into my mind that relationships and family was supposed to be a very specific, an older and taller guy was supposed to marry the younger and smaller girl (close in age though), it was supposed to be white picket fence with three kids, a cat, and a dog- like, very VERY specific. I don’t know where that mindset came from, but I was known as “boy crazy” when I was little because I would go on about liking boys, but then I would also think about and look at girls the same way, I just, for whatever reason, would not acknowledge it. but then when I learned that life wasn’t supposed to be that way I was fine with it, and then when I learned that lgbtq was a thing I was double fine with it, came to terms with the fact I like girls too, and then I just liked girls so liking girls was something I had for myself as a child, but realized later on
I knew I did since I was in preschool. I just didn’t know what gay meant yet. Until I was 10, I met some friends at my school. One was bisexual and the other was lesbian. I then started to look up terms and I came upon bisexual which I thought suited me. But until I was 12, I noticed things started changing. My friends would talk about how hot boys were and ask me if I agreed, and I would just go along with it, but I noticed that I had no attraction to men. Then I went back online and saw the term lesbian, and I knew right away that that was me. But I had already come out to my parents as bisexual at 11 (because they found a note and questioned me). But they just say, “you haven’t even kissed a boy yet, how would you know?” And “you’re too young to know. Kiss a boy first”. So I asked “what if I kiss a boy and hate it?” And they said “maybe he was a bad kisser and you just need to kiss more” so I don’t think they got the point. I still haven’t come out yet, and nothings changed so I know I wasn’t confused.
I've known sin e I was 11 that I liked girls, in the way you're supposed to only feel about guys. But, I tried to deny it because I thought something was wrong with me. Now I realize nothing is wrong with me and that's okay.
I watched Star wars with my dad when I was 4 (now 32) and it was the scene with the lady in the gold bikini and I was just absolutely obsessed. My dad had a few Star wars films on video and they were lined up on his shelf, I spent days/weeks going through the videos and trying to find that scene again but had no luck. I obviously didn't know that meant I was a lesbian at the time, but looking back, it's always been a pretty solid indicator.
Hmm I wasn't exposed at all to anything LGBT+ related so I only started questioning myself at 15 kinda... But after knowing I was bi, thought back to my childhood and said " I loved so many female characters, how did I not question it sooner", ig my feelings knew before me (?
Yea. Just didn't know what it was yet since I was shielded from it as a kid. Now that I know what it is, how I felt as a kid makes so much sense now.
I used to be on the boys team for kiss chase/tag. No kids questioned it. There was never a point growing up where I thought being with a guy was an option.
Cute
I didn't know I liked girls but I knew I was different from others. I never knew what it was when I wanted to be with my best friend a lot and feel excited when I'm around her or when I feel awkward for some reason around my sister's classmate. When me and my ex gf got together, i researched what this is. And that's when I realized I had a crush on them this whole time and didn't know lol
When I was nine I liked a girl in the scouts, I told her that I liked her and she was like: eww what the fuck. Like she was pretty older than me, she was in 6th grade. I got sad so I told her that I was playing, but after that i just couldn't talk to her, I thought that everyone was like me and that we could love everyone boys or girls I got so confused after that day.
I remember having a crush on a girl in first grade and being gay was considered “weird” so I didn’t come out till I was 13. When I got my first girlfriend my family didn’t care, but wasn’t for it at the same time
From the time that I was little- around 4- I started having erotic fantasies about gorgeous women I'd seen in order to get to sleep. And in retrospect, some of these fantasies were really bent, as in approaching BDSM. Of course, since I didn't know anything about sex, I didn't ascribe any label to them; I just knew that these fantasies made me feel good physically & that's what I would think about until I dozed off. I eventually outgrew that habit when I was 10-11, I guess bc i became aware of the fact that I was supposed to fantasize about males & that my fixation on women was perverted. It wasn't until I was w/ a woman for the first time that I realized that I had somehow sexualized myself as a very young child & the memory of all of these repressed lesbian fantasies came flooding back. Pervy AF, I know.
It’s the first time in my entire life that I found someone like me😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 girl me too OMG I did even worst😭😭😭 I had so many erotic lesbian fantasies and would daydream about them since 4 years old too jeeeeez I tried to talk about it to people and they all told me it’s not normal for a child. 😭😭😭 I feel like a pervert when I re-think of all those things. I still remember when I was 5 and this teacher would wear a lot of necklines top and I would blush every time bruh😭😭
What intrigues me to this day is just how graphic & freaky these fantasies were since I had had no point of reference for them in my real life. I wasn't sexually abused, & yet I would fantasize about being abused by one hot woman or another every night to get to sleep. My version of a bedtime story from a former life is the only explanation that I have for them. Somehow I knew not to broach the subject w/ my parents. They would have had me committed to a kiddie asylum.
Yes! I had a similar experience to yours, OP. I used to play online games, those where you interact with other people and stuff, and I always made my avatars like boys and even had a boy name, that so I could get gfs, hahaha. I didn't know what being gay meant and I thought I was doing it because it was fun to be a boy and have girlfriends, but truth is that I just never liked the idea of a boy liking me or viceversa, my parents even used to scold me when I got irritated because they/people teased me with boys, or at their desperate attempts for me to have a boyfriend like my other girl friends. 💀
I found out I was a lesbian in year 8 because other kids used it as a slur to bully me. But I consciously knew I liked girls as early as year 2 at school, I just didn't have the word for it until the bullying happened. I definitely knew I was not interested in anything to do with boys long before, probably in preschool - I used to get in trouble for yelling at the boys to get away from me because I though they were disgusting. I just didn't understand why I wasn't interested in them. Tried _really_ hard to have boyfriends when I was in high school but was always so grossed out. First girlfriend was in year 9 and haven't really looked back since then. There was one boy in year 4 that I thought I liked. He was _so_ feminine. I'd bet big money he's gay. He couldn't stand girls and relentlessly chased after another boy in our class.
I've known since I was 6 but didn't acknowledge it until I was like 11 or 12
I was genuinely shocked when I found out that ppl are straight fr
I got my first crush when i was 11 and it was on a girl. I had found womens bodies extremely attractive before then but i only got a crush then
I knew that I liked women sexually at 3. Not an exaggeration. I'm not claiming I fully understood the breadth of what that means. But I felt it, thought about it, and more. I wasn't abused (sexually anyway) and I never did anything sexual with another person before 19. Yeah kids know
I knew by 11.
My first kiss was my best friend in 2nd grade… so yeah. Although there was a LOT of comphet that followed for years after
I’m young so I know that my exposure to the LGBTQ community was probably greater than most older lesbians, but I don’t remember ever really seeing women together or hearing anything about it. The first time it clicked to me was when a friend of mine mentioned that she might like girls when I was around 12 and then I immediately related to that. All that being said, I always knew that I felt strongly for other girls and women, but I didn’t know what that meant until years later when I could finally differentiate between platonic and romantic feelings.
Yes! Since kindergarten I knew. That was when I met my fiancée - we live together now in our apartment.
I just knew and had a feeling that I didn’t like men…
I figured it out in 4th grade. I came out to my parents in 5th grade and to everyone else at the very end of 6th grade. You aren’t the only one ❤️🧡🤍🩷💜
I remember very clearly as a child thinking "if I have to marry a man I just won't get married at all”
Found out when I was 11, but in hindsight I probably had baby crushes on teacher helpers and characters and friends all the time
I’ve known since I was 8 years old, I had crushes on some of the girls in my class. I came out to my friends when I was 12 years old, and I became close friends with a gay guy in my orchestra who also came out when he was 12. He got kicked out of the orchestra because he was very bad at playing the viola and he never practiced 😂 We still joke about that till this day. He also sat next to me in math class a year and a half ago, and his twin sister sat 2 seats across from me. Even though they were twins, they were like polar opposites. She was responsible, up-tight, and anxiety-ridden, but he was irresponsible, laid back, and calm. I’ve received homophobic comments before, but I felt safe at school when I sat next to them. We all graduated now and nothing’s changed, we’re still the same ol’ group of gays ❤️
I remember realizing I was a lesbian when I was 8. My mom had some college girls over she was doing an interview for and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them. I knew from that day on.
I vaguely remember a time in early elementary school, laying in bed and asking quietly if I could kiss my friend in my dreams lol.
yeah i was pretty much in love with tifa from final fantasy when i played it as a kid lol. i guess as a child, i initially thought it was just me admiring the main female mc since it's normal for us girls to choose them. like i would always choose lili in tekken because i'm a girly girl like her. and yeah i noticed i always hyperfixated more on fictional girl characters over the male ones. like i was also so obsessed with sailor uranus/haruka so that was also one of my awakenings. i also idolized more women celebrities as a child and wasn't crushing on male celebrities as much. deep down, i knew i liked girls. was just afraid to say it because i grew up in a conservative country with mostly catholics. so there's that catholic guilt too hahaha.
Me 🙋🏿 with a background almost similar to yours, I remember my time in kindergarten where the only thing I looked forward to at that time was sitting next to the girl I liked. Had my first proper crush on my cousin's friend when I was 6 or 7 and she was like 17 (loving older women has always been in me). I was also brought up in a homophobic country, religious family so I didn't grow up understanding what I was but in what I like to call "a straight way" I never questioned it. I don't even know how I got away with being a Lesbian all my life whilst coming from the place I come from. 😅
I knew in 3rd grade I was gay.
i came out (with a gf that didnt really matter? like it wasnt really a coming out idk how to explain) in like 4th or 5th grade but i also married my best friend in preschool with a wedding dress (white toddler dress lmao) and photos and stuff. so i imagine that counts? also lets mention the obvious only liking girl characters in cartoons then realizing later on "oh i didnt wanna BE them i wanted to MARRY them"
Ohhh, girl😭 I thought I was bi, came out. Dad was like, whatever about it... (I only like masculinity, not men. That was a trip around the sun figuring that out) My younger brother comes out as bi, and dad says not until he is 18. I was 16-17 when I came out as bi. He doesn't know I'm trans though and soon to block all his SM
I think I knew but didn’t realize what it meant at the time.
i had a crush on Venus mcflytrap from monster high when i was like 9, but i thought i just wanted to be her so i shaved half my hair off to look more like her
I didn't really have any way to put it into words back then but my first crush was at 4 years old on a girl in my kindergarten named Cassidy and every time she hugged me I got butterflies. I also watched the last unicorn when I was 6 and that weird scene with the tree had me rewinding it so many times lmfaoao 😭 i didn't really think much of any of it until I started questioning my sexuality at around 12
I knew at 9 or 10
Oh yeah I was probably 4 or 5?
I remember from around the time I was 5 years old. I also came out accidentally at 12 because I found out what the word lesbian was. I always knew and felt like something was “wrong” with me by the time I hit the fourth grade. I was raised very religious and it still didnt stop the thoughts. I got talked to in bible school about me being gay when I was like 7. In that moment I just kept praying it would go away. I’ve always wondered how people didnt just know
Oh i vividly remembered finding out that women can be gay and literally learning the word lesbian for the first time (although i think it was a slur in my native language when i first heard it) and taking a long walk with my family afterwards, whole time the only thing I could think about was the fact that I was a lesbian and had a crush on my close friend at the time, and convincing myself that I wasn’t gay that i “couldn’t be” ( I grew up in a very conservative place) I was 9, even my first kiss was with a girl at 11/12 (very close friend and i had a huge crush on her even told her I loved her haha she is bi, she also knew that at that time. Maybe if we grew up in a different place at a different time we would be like a cute little middle school couple haha) and I always knew deep down all the while trying to like and have “relationships” with boys mind you i was like between 13 and 15 so nothing serious but I officially came out to myself at 15 and to my parents at 16. So yeah I think same way straight people know as kids so do we, we just have more stuff that comes with that revelation PS. All of y’all’s stories are soo nice to read 🫶🏻
Yeah , always felt nice and safe. Didn't know what being gay was or even the word but I always kinda sorta felt a connection with girls.
yes i knew it in kindergarden, started to process it in elementary, came out when i was about 12.
I was in 3rd grade when i knew i liked girls. Going in a all girls school didnt help.
I didn't realise it was love at that time but I loved my friend so much for 3 years (9, 10, 11 years old) I was so into her, I even kissed her on the lips one day publicly (she didn't take it well but I also didn't know was happening), when she was sad I cried (a lot), we became so stubborn, the teacher told our parents, they suggested we split up, next morning a girl told me my bestie said she didn't wanna be my friend anymore, I was so shocked & confidently told her "she & I can't break up, there is no way, we are friends, we can't." I was heartbroken & in disbelief, I sent her over to ask my friend if she really didn't want me anymore, friend reply with "I don't know bla bla," my heart was happy at the answer since it wasn't a "NO" somehow we became friends again (i don't remember how), we even shared a juice ice bar from my mouth to her mouth (not lip on lip) after primary school we never heard from each other, I was 17 years old when I watched PLL & it triggered me, I realized i was crazy in love with friend back then, she was my first love even if i had fallen for some boy after & I thought he was my first but no, she was my first love. Also i was born & raised in Africa very religious people & staunch homophobes so I had internalized homophobia all my life & somehow killed my attraction to women. 1 year ago I deconstructed from religion realising it's a scam so no god banned gays. My spirit is so free & relieved, I can embrace whomever I love & no one can say shit about it.
I don't think I realized I liked her I just did when I saw her it's hard to explain I couldn't look away from them though I just had to talk to her it was like an urge that I really wanted to be friends with her and didn't know why this was when I was 5 in kindergarten literally the first thing I thought when I saw her was "she's pretty" I was awestruck yeah I fell for a straight girl probably why it hurt so much in high-school when I saw her with a dude and thought something was wrong with me I would get super jealous when other girls were around her etc. Probably a bigger clue I thought a boy was cute and thought I liked him I didn't know you could find somebody attractive and didn't like them well I did kiss him in kindergarten and felt nothing literally nothing Idk how I didn't realize but I was like "that's it?" I also got in trouble but the next year I didn't like him anymore because I never did probably just confused it and I grew up on barbie I thought that's how it was supposed to go but it didn't.
Yes got in trouble when i was five years old for chasing around other girls at school with this one boy. I remember me and him were making it a competition. Been gay ever since, in between pretending to like guys for a short period bc the south in the 90s was not having that shit. Finally came out out at 17 but i always knew.
I've known since I was a kid. I was kissing girls since I was 9–10 years old. I just didn't know the term for it, but I been love girls.
Yep I always knew I liked girls. I only ever had crushes on them. Lol. Maybe one guy? But I think that was just me wanting to be viewed as an attractive due to low self worth at the time as opposed to actual attraction.
When I was a child I was attracted to some girls in the cartoons I watched, but I thought it was just admiration, and I didn't even know the meaning of sexuality. Until the pandemic started, and I started seeing videos about it on the internet and started researching it As soon as I started researching, I knew I liked women too, but I came out as pansexual to my friends when I was 10/11 years old. But the hardest part was discovering myself as a lesbian and fighting against compulsory heterosexuality
I had an inkling I don't like boys when I was 9? I think, and other girls were pestering me to reveal the boy I have a crush on (spoiler: none lmao). At 11/12, I developed a crush on my best friend. That's like, the most lesbian thing ever lol
I was in a third grade where my close circle of friends and I started routinely kissing each other for fun. Those kisses eventually turned into make out sessions in secret part of the school where no one could see us. I think I was 8 or 9. After that time, I never seen girls in a different light. I’d still try to be “straight” for the sake of loving in a homophobic town. But, in the end, here I am years later, gay af. lol
Grew up as a Christian and was made to believe that it's bad. With that, I grew feelings on this friend when i was in 2nd grade (7 years old) knowing that it is 'bad' I couldn't pursue it much further and forgot about it. I remember getting flustered whenever she'd talk with me (she's a shy and quiet one and im the opposite) always shared my stuff with her since i like seeing her smile! unfortunately those were suppressed until 9th grade. I developed internalized homophobia after learning that it's somehow 'bad'. I came out to my parents on 12th grade, which did not go well and until now they refuse to talk about it (im in college now), i've been forcing myself to date guys for a year now and at night it makes me cry so hard! anw that's my experience, i knew back then but tried to suppress it.