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My son is 14 years old. Two weeks ago, he asked to speak with me alone. He closed the door to his room, sat on the edge of his bed, and began fidgeting with his hands while avoiding eye contact. I thought he was in trouble at school, that he had been punished, or that he had gotten into a fight with someone. I asked him several times what was wrong, but he didn’t answer. Finally, he said, very quietly, that he likes men. He told me that for a long time he had felt different whenever his classmates talked about girlfriends. Then he confessed that he liked a classmate. After that, he stopped speaking and just stared at the floor, as if he were expecting me to scream or stand up. His hands were shaking and his eyes were red, as though he had been preparing for hours to say those words. He said he had known for over a year. He first started noticing these feelings when he was 13. He had tried to ignore them, searched the internet for answers, and deleted his phone history every day out of fear that his father would check it.