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When you grow up immersed in a culture of compulsory heterosexuality and labour under the misapprehension that you must be straight. Het lag typically lasts for years or decades.

It is particularly prevalent among those who do not experience a strong sense of romantic or sexual attraction to any sex or gender, and therefore have less obvious counter-evidence to the assumption of heterosexuality than those who experience strong same-sex/same-gender attraction. This is typically exacerbated by the lack of LGBTQIA+ education in schools and lack of awareness in many communities.

However, it is not exclusively experienced by people who identify under the asexual and/or aromantic umbrellas. Anyone whose sexuality is not the exclusively heterosexual 'default' that widespread social norms teach them to expect may experience het lag.

Originally coined in a tweet by Jared Pechacek (@vandroidhelsing): "Mistyped it as 'het lag' so now we have a term for when you grow up thinking you're straight."

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