My wife and I have two kids, ages 13(m) and 17(f).  At 13 our daughter (who is 17 now) came out to us as being gay.  We immediately supported her and began researching the do's and dont's of raising a gay child.  We have never openly questioned her on this, but we both had our doubts for a number of reasons, and at the end of the day, we both understand that it doesn't matter what we think, we just need to be loving and supportive, and that is ALL we have ever been.

Fast forward to today... Since that time when she was 13 and came out as gay, the following has happened.

a) Our son also came out as gay.

b) both of our kids have told us they wanted to kill themselves.

Our daughter was first with the suicidal stuff.  We got a call from the school one day, the counselor called us and said a group of kids came to the office to report that our daughter was making comments about taking her life, and even had a time table for when this would happen.  The school didn't give us much choice and recommened we take her to a mental hospital immediately, which we did, and they held her for 7 days.

Back to our son, about 1.5 years ago, told us he was also gay, and that he had been wanting to tell us for a long time.  Again we took the same approach and showed him nothing but love and understanding.  Then about 6 months ago, after getting in trouble for not cleaning his room, told us that he wanted to kill himself, and that we better check him into the mental hospital like we did with his sister, before it's too late (which btw cost us $5000 in hospital bills with our daughter - we are very middle class and it was a devestating bill to pay).  We made a decision to NOT check him in anywhere, and we were very confident he was just using it as a way to get out of trouble.  A decision that, 6 months later, seems to have been the right move.

Now to the reason for this thread.  This is what we have observed from our kids in the last several years:

- Neither of them have had a relationship with a same sex partner.  Our son is really too young, but our daughter at age 17, has had a number of boyfriends.  The first boyfriend she had, we had to ask, "are you still gay", to which she responded that "yes" she was still gay, but likes boys and girls.  So ok, I can understand that.  I understand that sexuality is a spectrum, and people don't always fall into the spectrum on one end or the other.  I get that.

- When our daughter went into the mental hospital, we went through her phone and computer (she was 16 at the time, and although we wanted to give her privacy, we were very concerned with what she was consuming online).  What we found was astounding.  Hateful, disgusting, and racist message boards on discord and other platforms.  A whloe swath of kids communicating online about heavy issues with a certain tone of desenstivity to it all.  It was really jarring for us.  What was also evident, was that ALL of her sexual conversations were with boys only, not a single female.  So ok, maybe she just isn't comfortable with females yet but still it attracted to them.  Moving on...

- Back to my son, who has also told us he is gay.  About a month ago we went through his phone, after we found he was staying up all night on his electronic devices.  Guess what we found?  He is on snapchat telling a bunch of girls how horny he is!  Girls!  NO BOYS AT ALL.

So... We just don't know what to think.  It seems like this culture the kids live in now a days is very strange.  It's almost as though if you are NOT gay, and you DON'T have a mental disorder, that you have something wrong with you.  As if being straight, or mentally healthy, just means you are boring and not fun to be around.  I really feel like both of our kids have felt pressure, from some external source to be this way.

Again - we haven't, and will not be sharing any of these thoughts with our kids.  It's just frustrating as parents to figure all of this out.  We want our kids to embrace reality, and to not be fake to themselves or to others.  We don't want them to feel like they need to conform, to any standard, one way or the other.  We just want them to be themselves, and right now we feel like they are both a couple of fakers on so many levels.

Maybe it's just dealing with teenagers, and not having these issues come up in our own adolencence that makes us feel so unprepared, and blindsighted by these issues.