Buttigieg and the 9 yr boy (not a scandal)

So, Pete Buttigieg has dropped out of the race.   As I have said, I never saw much of him and didn't work out why a lot of journalists and Democrat sympathisers I follow on Twitter found him so annoying.

I also had missed, until this weekend when I saw it on a Conan O'Brien sketch (which is sort of funny)....




that Democrats had set themselves up for conservative outrage by getting Pete to respond to a 9 year old boy who wanted help to "tell the world" he is gay.  

Maybe I haven't been following conservatives sites closely enough, but it's pretty remarkable that there wasn't some sort of meltdown about this.      

And, to be perfectly honest, it's not unreasonable to have misgivings about it.   Not so much  about Buttigieg's supportive response - he could hardly say anything other than what he did -  but more about the world view of modern liberal identity politics, wherein it is taken as a given that a 9 year old has a sufficient understanding of sexuality such that it is entirely natural that he or she should already have picked out a sexual identity.    

Now, I don't doubt that the following statements are true:

*  there are kids whose parents suspect from a young age will be gay when they grow up;
*  there are kids who know from a young age that they are "different";
*  there are people who work out that, in hindsight, some childhood feelings were consistent with their older sexual feeling;

and yet I still think it's only sensible for adults and parents to teach pre-pubescent kids to be cautious about thinking they fully understand themselves in the matter of sexual and emotional attraction and attachment before their body and life experience is even close to that of an adult yet.   

To my mind, people of any political persuasion should be able to live with something like this as a response:  

"We love you regardless of who you may want to love and be with; and we will support you if anyone gives you a hard time over your identity in future.   But as for deciding on a sexuality identity to tell "the world" right now:   to be honest, both your body and emotions should  be given a bit more time to develop before you say to everyone that you understand yourself in that aspect.  At this stage of your life, worry more about studying hard, treating other people well and just being a good person.   That's what important now."

PS:  I see that they are saying Buttigieg gave up because he was getting no traction with black voters whatsoever.   Given their relative conservatism regarding homosexuality, why on Earth did the people managing the campaign event think it would be helpful to highlight a 9 year old bringing up the topic? 

PPS:  I think I can even claim some support for my take on the matter from this article, written by gay science writer Jesse Bering in Scientific American back in 2010 (and which I had read before, but forgotten) on research into "prehomosexual" behaviour in children.