This statement is based on the assumption that all kids are naturally straight and can become (or choose to be) gay growing up. That is not the case. Depictions of LGBT people in the media do not encourage kids to become gay, but rather normalize such feelings, if already present.
You can’t choose what you like and whom you are attracted to, just like you can’t choose your favorite foods and music.
LGBT people have always existed throughout history. A certain percentage of kids born is statistically bound to be LGBT. Thus, there’s no need to “turn” anyone, even if that were possible.
LGBT people want to have the same rights as straight / cisgender people; nothing more, nothing less.
There’s no evidence for that. We don’t know what “makes” a person gay, just like we don’t know what makes someone straight. But, hanging out with people who are open about being LGBT could help someone who’s afraid to come out to do so, hence the misconception.
Although some bisexual people may later identify more strongly with either “gay” or “straight,” this doesn’t mean that those attracted to people of different sexes and gender identities are confused. Even if someone’s sexual orientation changes over time, that doesn’t make their initial attraction any less real or valid.
A bisexual person has the potential to be attracted to a person of any sex / gender. They are not more likely to want to be with more than one person at a time. Whether someone cheats on their partner is not related to their sexual orientation.
Sometimes you might successfully guess a person’s sexual orientation by their appearance or mannerisms. But a lot of the time you’d be mistaken, so your impression is only a guess.
It’s almost always the parents that are. Children are typically nonchalant upon learning / seeing that someone is gay or trans—unless they’ve been told before that there’s something wrong with it.
While children don’t experience sexual attraction, crushes are common from the age of 5. Just like some kids get crushes on others of the opposite sex, some get crushes on kids of the same sex.
“Woman” can mean A. a human born with ovaries, or B. the behavioral expectations about how these humans behave. If you say “a man cannot become a woman,” you‘re using definition A. If you disagree, you’re going by definition B.
“Many of the arguments against trans people today are simply recycled homophobia from the ’80s and ’90s. We [were] being told that gay people were predators and lesbians were a threat in single-sex spaces. That wasn’t true of lesbians, bi and gay people then, and it isn’t true of trans people now.”
Homosexuality is routinely observed in many animal species, including humans. It is therefore “natural”, in the sense that it commonly occurs in nature.
People whom we’d label LGBT today have existed either visibly or secretively in societies around the globe since the dawn of history.