>>149243080It is impossible to have a kids story about a child character discovering he's gay without really diving deep into what is the development process behind it.
In the real world, kids are just imitating their parents when they're doing shit like having fake marriages or saying they have a boyfriend. They're not actually a couple, they're not actually dating, it's not a real romance. Yes, heterosexuality is so normal that even playing "pretend" by imitating adults is just a kids subconscious way of preparing for adulthood. The same way that animals rough house and play fight so they can get good at real fighting as adults, kids are kind of doing the same. When little girls play with baby dolls, no one is encouraging teen pregnancy. Women are just naturally inclined to take care of things (animals, a garden, babies) and little girls mimic their moms. So people make toy babies for them to roleplay so they can pretend to be their mom. We also make toy houses, toy cars, toy yard tools, toy doctor tools, and so forth so kids can feel like adults.
So writers will put kids into romance plots because:
1. They're treating the little kids like short adults (The Simpsons+Gravity Falls love this)
2. It's a joke (Chowder and Panini with, "I'M NOT YOUR BOYFRIEND!")
3. It's writer's plot convenience (Bloo tricks Mac into something stupid to impress Frankie)
4. The kid characters are imitating adults (Angelica forcing Chuckie to "marry her" and she starts bossing him around)
So now we have to ask, what is happening that is causing a kid to internally question if they're gay or not? Are they being exposed to something? Did something happen? If you put a random boy alone on an island, he's going to naturally crave female companionship when he gets older. Would an Elio still be gay? Is that 100% "born that way" or is this a product of his environment? Until we can openly discuss it, these stories will seem like weird vanity projects of groomers.