In Hillbilly Elegy he recalls that when he was 8 or 9 years old he thought he was gay because he didn't like girls. A short conversation with his grandmother disabused him of that notion.
I was a dirtball at that age, and I remember grousing to a friend, I can even remember exactly where we were walking (though, oddly, I cannot remember the friend) about how I hated that I had to wash up and wear clean clothes, and my mother told me girls wouldn't like me if I didn't, and I was all bent out of shape and said something like "Pah! Who cares. Why should I care if girls like me or not?"
I continued to think girls were the enemy up until I was in 4th grade and I went to see the movie "Fantastic Voyage" on the Navy base in Yokosuka, Japan...and when I saw Raquel Welch in that skin-tight neoprene suit, I remember thinking maybe girls weren't the enemy after all!