Gay Kids Comg Out Younger, But Parents Ask "How Do You Know?"

Contents:

• GAY TT FOR AG 11 TO 18
• 4 RIDICULO QUTNS PEOPLE ASKED ME WHEN MY 11 YEAR-OLD CAME OUT AS GAY
• ARE YOU GAY, 11-YEAR-OLDS WILL BE ASKED
• GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
• APPLE APPROV 'ONLY GAY SOCIAL APP FOR AG 12 AND UP'
• ‘ARE YOU GAY’ QUIZ FOR 11-YEAR-OLDS
• MY 11-YEAR-OLD WAS JT DUMPED BY HIS BT FRIEND BEE HE'S GAY
• HOW N I MEET OTHER GAY TEENS LIKE MYSELF?
• GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
• 12-YEAR-OLD'S IENDS DIDN'T CELEBRATE AFTER HE ME OUT AS GAY. SO A PARK FULL OF STRANGERS DID

GAY TT FOR AG 11 TO 18

I am also 11, and Im jt feelg odd, Im adopted, 2 tim, a now, im gay, I like give me a feelg, and, they make me really happy, but sometim, girls do, jt nfed, n anyone get back to me?

4 RIDICULO QUTNS PEOPLE ASKED ME WHEN MY 11 YEAR-OLD CAME OUT AS GAY

If I was gay or not? Got bi when I’m gay I’m sorry that I didn’t fd the people attractive the photos they were not my type at all!!! Hi I’m 11 years old and I was a relatnship wh a girl uple months ago but then we thought that we weren’t for Each other bc we did not have a lot mon and I’m not gay bye thanks for readg And I was wh her for four months.

Hi I’m 11 years old and I was a relatnship wh a girl uple months ago but then we thought that we weren’t for Each other bc we did not have a lot mon and I’m not gay bye thanks for readg.

ARE YOU GAY, 11-YEAR-OLDS WILL BE ASKED

That One Gay (75786). I am gay and that's what I am I am not straight I do not like boys I'm a girl I like girls I am gay nobody say that I'm a straight I am gay ok?

I'm gay:] and da bt beg .

GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

I so want to kiss my boyiend I dunno if he’s gay or if he fanci me I jt want to kiss him so much and bee boyiend and boyiend… IM SO GAY. I would really enjoy havg?wh a boy anyway but I’m 100% sure I’m gay too, so thanks dumb tt I didn’t need I’m love wh a boy already but I n’t tell him, “CURSE YOU”.

When my son was 11, he me out to me and my hband as gay. In fact, some of the people askg the qutns are gay or queer themselv. Instead, ’s to expla why some of the mon qutns people may ask are homophobic or heterosexist and/or have a pletely flawed premise to beg wh.

“Do you thk he’s gay? ), their first qutn was whether I thought he was gay. My hband and I were not surprised the least that our son is gay.

APPLE APPROV 'ONLY GAY SOCIAL APP FOR AG 12 AND UP'

” And he also had said and done thgs the past that my our gaydar picked up on. So, if we lived a society that really rporated the ia of sexual fluidy to s unrstandg of what labels like “gay” mean, and also crilly reflected on the difference between inty and behavr, this uld almost be a legimate qutn. It’s basilly sayg his gayns is not “real, ” which is not okay wh me.

Maybe he will intify as gay his whole life, and then one day fall love wh a woman while ntug to intify as gay. Even if he do start to intify as straight a few years, that don’t necsarily make him ls gay now. “Don’t you thk he’s too young to know if he’s gay?

Assumptns about gayns have an experiential element to them that those about straightns don’t. By this I mean that straight people will ask gay people qutns like, “If you never had sex, how do you know you’re gay? “Do you thk he me out bee you guys glorify gayns your hoe?

‘ARE YOU GAY’ QUIZ FOR 11-YEAR-OLDS

There is no straight “basele” om which gayns viat.

In terms of glorifyg gayns, we are generally too by glorifyg oby to glorify gayns, but I gus we n spare the time. Serly though, even if we put a huge premium on gayns (which we don’t — fact, neher my hband nor I are gay), would be a small weight on the sle pared to society’s premium on straightns and heteronormativy. In fact, he probably se more sual homophobia than most adults.

Do you know how many tim they e “gay” as a slur, or even say “fag”? If anyone has every centive to not intify as gay, is a sixth-gra boy. ” Rather, I believe the are mon qutns most folks would have when an 11 year-old out as gay.

MY 11-YEAR-OLD WAS JT DUMPED BY HIS BT FRIEND BEE HE'S GAY

Brish children as young as 11 will now be asked by the untry's equali watchdog, qutns related to their sexual orientatn, a media report children will have to answer a set of qutns that would terme whether they were straight, gay or bisexual, acrdg to the Daily workg schools, health re and youth servic are beg advised to set up pilot studi to monor adolcent sexual orientatn and not dismiss gay feelgs as a "passg phase" Equaly and Human Rights Commissn advot askg children aged 11 bee some "qutn their orientatn as early as eight and may beg to intify as LGB (lbian, gay, bisexual) om early adolcence".

Are people who e out as gay their teens sted to face rejectn, bullyg and inty crisis? MARTIN: Now, how did you notice this trend of younger and younger children intifyg themselv as gay? You mentned the piece that you are a gay man.

I read a lot about youth culture and I was talkg to tors and, you know, lears of gay youth groups and they were all sayg the same thg.

HOW N I MEET OTHER GAY TEENS LIKE MYSELF?

When realy, if you talk to a gay man, you know, many of them lookg back will say, you know, I noticed my same sex attractn, you know, at 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 that ballpark. You know, recent studi are showg that kids are self-intifyg as gay anywhere om 13 to 16.

The other realy is that 's still very difficult for a lot of gay kids to be out middle school. I mean, one of the tertg thgs that we have to look at is this, is that much of the anti-gay bullyg and anti-gay harassment that's gog on middle schools and high school is more about genr non-nformy than really is about beg gay or lbian.

GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"

You say, look, on the one hand, is an eighth-grar who says he's gay jt experimentg? If sexualy is so fluid, should he really box himself wh a gay inty? But you say that when to kids who say that they are gay, 's almost like we want to talk them out of .

Is that beg gay or lbian is still enough of a pariah inty that parents want to take off the table as long as they n, or is jt that parents really feel that all kids are sexualized too early the days, and they don't want their kids at this age thkg about, you know, hookg up? So was really - and a lot of parents, when they heard their kid, their 12-, 13-, 14-year-old say, you know, I'm gay, or I'm bisexual, or I'm lbian, they tomatilly went to oh my god, that means he's havg sex, when realy wasn't about that at all. DENIZET-LEWIS: I thk that there's no doubt that sort of as you have more posive portrayals and, I would say, accurate portrayals of gay and lbian life the media, and kids n go onle and fd all kds of rourc, that there's no doubt that that's gog to have an effect on kids, and that they're gog to possibly e out earlier bee of that.

Now, I don't thk that those posive portrayals of gay life is gog to sort of make a kid who's not attracted to the same sex sudnly say, you know, hey, this seems really ol.

12-YEAR-OLD'S IENDS DIDN'T CELEBRATE AFTER HE ME OUT AS GAY. SO A PARK FULL OF STRANGERS DID

You know, I'm gog to try beg gay for a ltle while. What I thk that the more posive portrayals popular culture has done is 's ma a ltle b safer for kids who do feel that they're gay or lbian to be able to e to their parents or school unselor and talk about the issu, which I thk is a real step forward bee for many years, kids who had same-sex attractn or were nfed, they uldn't talk to anyone about . You know, granted I lived San Francis, but none of my iends were gay, or none of the kids my age were gay.

There were still not a lot of posive portrayals of gay and lbian life televisn. So, you know, nsequently I sort of went nial mo, which is what a lot of gay kids have done for many years, and then my early 20s and mid-20s and late 20s, as many gay men do who don't e out until late, we sort of try to relive our gay adolcence that we weren't allowed to live. And so what's remarkable, now, is I thk we're gog to see, as more and more kids e out younger and are sort of able to have a normal adolcence the sense that, you know, I talked to kids who were havg arguments wh their parents about gog on dat when they're 15 or 16 or 17 or gog to the prom or sort of, you know, havg their normal adolcence, I thk 's gog to create an entirely different kd of gay and lbian adult the next 10, 20, 30 years.

MARTIN: The unique and not-so-unique challeng of raisg a gay teen. It turns out my younger dghter is gay. DEAR iSTRUGGLING: Given that you have already nied your dghter’s (prumably platonic) gay iend accs to an overnight at your hoe, you uld choose to be nsistent regardg your younger dghter.