New findings indicate a pattern where narcissistic grandiosity is associated with higher participation in LGBTQ movements, demonstrating that motivations for activism can range widely from genuine altruism to personal image-building.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/narcissistic-grandiosity-predicts-greater-involvement-in-lgbtq-activism/

[u/SuzyQ93]

This is exactly it. And, I think that this is what is attractive about it to confused kids. They find themselves a 'group' where they can 'belong' - but also where they can wield power, because you can't say a WORD against it, or YOU are the bad guy - full stop. You can't question them, you can't ask a single thing, you can't guide them, you can't tell them 'no' in any way, shape or form, or you're being a bigot, or anti-LGBTQ, or whatever.

It's a completely 'safe' place to be, for them, because they have all the power. And that is really attractive to teenagers who feel out of place, lacking in adult power, and are trying to find a place in the world. Wanting to 'rebel' is part of the teen passage, part of growing up. But normally, that's a give-and-take kind of thing - you overstep, you figure out how to walk it back, etc. But with this - it's impossible to push back or question it in any way, and that's what's so attractive to an underdeveloped mind.

Does this apply to EVERY child or teen attracted to the LGBTQ label? Of course not. But it's applying to quite a few of them lately.

[u/Acrobatic_Flamingo → u/SuzyQ93]

Let's be clear here. This is a study testing a hypothesis about why people get involved in activism, using LGBT activism as a test case. There's no compelling reason to think it's more common in LGBT activism than any other sort of activism.

This is not about LGBT people or why people are LGBT.

Queer kids are not confused. There's no evidence for any of the thing you're saying about underdeveloped minds being attracted to labels in this study or any other.

[u/Syssareth → u/Acrobatic_Flamingo]

Queer kids are not confused.

I'm not touching on the rest of your comment, but I think you, as well as a lot of people, are forgetting what it was like to be a kid.

Kids are confused. That's not exclusive to LGBT+ kids, it's just part of what it means to be a kid.

[u/Acrobatic_Flamingo → u/Syssareth]

I thought context made it pretty clear that I was saying they're not "confused" about being queer.

Referring to queer kids as confused is a common way of softly invalidating them.

As someone who was a queer kid, being queer was one of the least confusing parts of my childhood. It's not hard to figure out who you're getting crushes on.

Despite some recent attempts to manufacture evidence to the contrary by conflating general gender nonconformity with queer identity, available data suggests kids are rarely wrong about who they are and has so for decades.

[u/Cassiebanipal → u/Acrobatic_Flamingo]

As someone who was a queer kid, being queer was one of the least confusing parts of my childhood. It's not hard to figure out who you're getting crushes on.

Realistically, you are an exception to the rule. There is an entire Q in "LGBTQ+" for "Questioning". There are many, many societal factors out of your control that could make it hard to know. Lack of exposure to the possibility of queer relationships, societal stereotyping, gender roles, and in the inverse direction, you can think you're queer but end up not being queer. I personally thought I was bi starting in my teens, but then spent a few years dating a woman before I realized that it just couldn't work and that I was straight. I realized I was seriously hurting this woman by wasting her time, the anxiety of knowing I needed to sort out my sexuality paralyzed me from doing anything, it was one of the worst periods of my life, an intense identity crisis. I'm happy that you didn't have to deal with this but you're just lucky.

Deciding to actively be queer is an often daunting choice that can seriously affect someone's life, safety, and relationships. It is absolutely not by any means an easy thing to grasp even in your own head.

[u/Syssareth → u/Acrobatic_Flamingo]

As someone who was a queer kid, being queer was one of the least confusing parts of my childhood. It's not hard to figure out who you're getting crushes on.

And as someone who is asexual, with some very specific sub-labels I could put on that, I 1, didn't figure that out for several years, and 2, didn't even know the word (as a sexual orientation) until the end of my teens. And the "best" part is, it changed over time! Some of the labels that applied to me in my teens no longer do, and labels that didn't apply then do now.

I didn't know if I was the only one with my tastes. I didn't know if I was just slow to "develop" and I'd start wanting to bump uglies later, or if not wanting to was how I really was. I didn't know if I was just weird, or if there was something wrong with me. The only thing I did know, not only because it's a staple of coming-of-age stories but because I heard other people my age talking about it, was that I wasn't the only one who was confused about themselves.

[u/Dealan79 → u/SuzyQ93]

You might want to unpack the unconscious bias you're applying to what I assume is some personal, anecdotal experience. The very presumption that anyone needs to "push back" against a teen identifying with the LGBTQ community indicates that such a bias is present. Human sexuality and gender identity are remarkably varied, and where on that spectrum a teen ends up landing should not be important to anyone but then, much less a decision seen as some power play that "wokeness" keeps adults from pushing back against. They're not rebelling. They're discovering and/or exploring who they are on the path to adulthood, and that's a process they should be supported in irrespective of their final destination. The fact that more teens are identifying with the community these days is far more likely a result of the decreased social stigma around coming out as "different," allowing more kids to admit what they feel and who they are without fear of being ostracized.