How to tell if your teenage daughter is gay

Adolescence is the dawn of sexual attraction. It happens due to the hormonal changes of puberty. These changes involve both the body and the mind — so just thinking about someone attractive can cause physical arousal.

These new feelings can be intense, confusing, sometimes even overwhelming. Teens are beginning to bring to light what it means to be attracted romantically and physically to others. And recognizing one's sexual orientation is part of that process.

What Is Sexual Orientation?

The term sexual orientation refers to the gender (that is, male or female) to which a person is attracted. There are several types of sexual orientation that are commonly described:

• Heterosexual (straight). People who are heterosexual are romantically and physically attracted to members of the opposite sex: males are attracted to females, and females are attracted to males. Heterosexuals are often called "straight."
• Homosexual (gay or lesbian). People who are homosexual are romantically and physically attracted to people of the same sex: females are attracted to other fema
  

  As I relayed in When Your Child Is Gay: What You Need To Know (Sterling, ), I found out that my son was gay from a note with our son's label entwined with another boy's, surrounded by a heart. I accidentally found that note in his room when I was cleaning.

  I never questioned him about the heart I found on the sly. How would I contain brought it up? Suppose I was wrong? After all, he had a crush on a girl in his class.

  I had suspected at times that he was gay. He only had girls to his thirteenth birthday party. He preferred gentler sports. He was always concerned about how he looked and followed fashion. Were these stereotypical thoughts from a straight mother? You bet, but it was ingrained through the culture's binary system and ideas about how males were "supposed to" behave.

  As it turns out, our son didn't come out until he was 17, was on his own, and brought a boyfriend to visit. Had I asked him if he were gay when he was 13, he probably would have defensively said "No!" He had to labor it out and work through his denial. I'm glad I muzzled myself.

  Susan Berland, the mother o
  
  

  Book Excerpt: Is Your Child Gay?

  Excerpted fromWhy Is the Penis Shaped Like That? … And Other Reflections on Being Human, by Jesse Bering, by arrangement with Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC (North America), Transworld Ltd (UK), Jorge Zahara Editora Ltda (Brazil). Copyright © by Jesse Bering.

  We all know the stereotypes: an unusually light, delicate, effeminate air in a little boy's step, an interest in dolls, makeup, princesses and dresses, and a strong distaste for tough play with other boys. In little girls, there is the outwardly boyish stance, perhaps a penchant for tools, a square-jawed readiness for physical tussles with boys, and an aversion to all the perfumed, delicate trappings of femininity.

  These behavioral patterns are feared, loathed and often spoken of directly as harbingers of adult homosexuality. It is only relatively recently, however, that developmental scientists have conducted controlled studies to identify the earliest and most reliable signs of noun homosexuality. In looking carefully at the childhoods of gay adults,
  
  

  If Your Teenager Is Gay

  Many of us live in what we believe to be a completely heterosexual world, where gays and lesbians are simply people on television. We’re wrong, of course. Everywhere we go, every single day, there are gays and lesbians; we simply don’t realise it. There’s nothing obvious to mark them out, and for the most part we can interact with them and never tell – and it really doesn’t matter.

  But how would you feel if one of those gays or lesbians was your teen? Given that the incidence of homosexuality is believed to be about one in ten, it could be. If you found that out, what would you do and how would you feel?

  Is My Teen Gay?

  Beyond inclinations towards the same sex, there may be no obvious markers that your teen will be a gay or lesbian. Even then, because of societal conditioning, for a number of the teenage years they might live a very straight life, even dating the opposite sex, until they find themselves – they might not even completely realise they’re gay until they’re older.

  One thing you can undertake , if it’s possible, is to voice approval of homosexualit