Gay kids are g out earlier — sometim middle school — and many are fdg acceptance. But some parents and teachers wonr if the kids are too young to really know their sexual orientatn.
Contents:
- LONDON FOR A 15 YEAR OLD GAY TEEN? - LGBTQIA+ TRAVEL FOM
- GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
- WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"
- 15 YEAR OLD SON HAS JT ANNOUNCED HE IS GAY - ADVICE NEED ON BOUNDARI - LON
- THEY LIVED A 'DOUBLE LIFE' FOR S. NOW, THE GAY ELRS ARE TELLG THEIR STORI.
- GAY AND BISEXUAL ADOLCENT BOYS' PERSPECTIV ON PARENT-ADOLCENT RELATNSHIPS AND PARENTG PRACTIC RELATED TO TEEN SEX AND DATG
- AGE DIFFERENC GAY COUPL
LONDON FOR A 15 YEAR OLD GAY TEEN? - LGBTQIA+ TRAVEL FOM
Denizet-Lewis wr that when he started workg for the gay men's magaze XY 1998, "we received dozens of letters each week om teenagers the pths of spair.
" He explas, That's not to say that gay teenagers didn't still suffer harassment at school or rejectn at home, but many seemed ls burned wh shame and self-loathg than their olr gay peers. Gog onle broke through the isolatn that had been a hallmark of beg young and gay, and allowed gay teenagers to fd rmatn to refute what their fai or church sometim still told them - namely, that they would never fd happs and to the Inter and to creasg cultural acceptance of homosexualy (an crease marred, we should note, by measur like Proposn 8), kids who might once have waed until high school or even llege to e out are now dog so earlier. At least 120 middle schools the untry have gay-straight alliance groups, and others let stunts observe the natnal Day of Silence prott agast anti-gay harassment.
" They were not, however, silent: "Good luck gettg middle-schoolers not to talk, " the school unselor youth of the Webster kids and other gay middle-schoolers is a sign of how far gay rights have e — but 's also the kids' biggt obstacle to acceptance.
GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
The irony of a parent spectg her kid is gay and then refg to believe he uld know his own orientatn highlights how much more difficulty some parents have wh burgeong gay sexualy than they would wh a straight kid's of this may have to do wh the misnceptn that you have to have gay terurse to be gay, or that homosexualy is somehow a more "sexual" orientatn than heterosexualy.
WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"
'Eileen Ross, director of a Mounta View, CA program for gay youth, says that when a 12-year-old boy says he lik girls, "No one says to them: 'Are you sure?
A lawyer Florida argued that gay-straight allianc promote the "premature sexualizatn of the stunts, " and when At started a gay-straight alliance, his Michigan school ma him ll somethg "ls ntroversial" (he chose "Peace Alliance").
15 YEAR OLD SON HAS JT ANNOUNCED HE IS GAY - ADVICE NEED ON BOUNDARI - LON
Denizet-Lewis reports the hopeful words of velopmental psychologist Rch Sav-Williams: "This is the first generatn of gay kids who have the great joy of beg able to argue wh their parents about datg, jt like their straight peers do. Well, my study of 65 fai of gay and lbian youth for the book, Comg Out, Comg Home: Helpg Fai Adjt to a Gay or Lbian Child, I found that some parents get to the pot where they believe that the experience of havg a gay child actually ma them a better person—more open-md and sensive to the needs of others, particularly those other mory groups.
The tstworthy nfidants let them vent but also rrected some of the misperceptns they absorbed om society, such as that gay people are lonely, unhappy, promiscuo, not fay-oriented, unable to have children, or sted for an unhappy life. ”“What bothered me the most was havg to talk to the guys that were beg discharged, and they were not a good state of wellns anyway, bee at that time, was illegal or nsired mental problems to be gay, ” he Cunngham, 82, and Richard Prtt, 78, have llectively spent 115 years the closet. The Amerin Psychiatric Associatn also classified homosexualy as a mental disorr the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs until 1973, when that classifitn was replaced wh “sexual orientatn disturbance.
THEY LIVED A 'DOUBLE LIFE' FOR S. NOW, THE GAY ELRS ARE TELLG THEIR STORI.
” Homosexualy was pletely removed om the manual 1987, but many stat still had sodomy laws on their books until 2003, when the Supreme Court led such laws unnstutnal.
”Cunngham and Prtt met the mid-'90s while workg for a b pany, but they still didn’t e out bee, acrdg to Cunngham, “If you were gay, you were not promoted.
GAY AND BISEXUAL ADOLCENT BOYS' PERSPECTIV ON PARENT-ADOLCENT RELATNSHIPS AND PARENTG PRACTIC RELATED TO TEEN SEX AND DATG
Rearch published the journal The Gerontologist last fall found that lbian, gay and bisexual people have a higher risk of mentia and gnive cle than heterosexual people as they grow olr. The study’s thors found that the creased risk was partially due to higher rat of prsn that olr LGBTQ people experience due to workplace discrimatn, shame and other stigma associated wh their stigma still persists, but the elrs and producers behd “Not Another Send” hope their project n help, even if jt a small Cooper lived her whole life as an openly gay woman New York Cy. wh homosexual fantasi or dreams;when a person realiz she is attracted to someone of the same genr;wh a feelg that she is different om her iends and classmat; orwh a sexual feelgs n e uncertaty for a young person and uld be ma worse by:.
the social stigma that n e wh homosexualy;a lack of knowledge;a lack of homosexual role mols; orfew opportuni to socialize wh other teens who are havg siar n be very difficult for teens to ci to tell their parents about their homosexual inty.
If there is a homosexual theme a ic strip or on a TV show, you n have a discsn about that, hopefully fdg a way to let your son or dghter know that they are loved no matter what their teens will tell a siblg or before they tell a parent, and often they will choose one parent to tell first.
AGE DIFFERENC GAY COUPL
Many Canadian ci have a chapter of Parents and Friends of Lbians And Gays (PFLAG), an anizatn that has helped many parents whose children have ‘e out’ to more rmatnFootnotThis rmatn should not be ed as a substute for the medil re and advice of your may be variatns treatment that your physician may remend based on dividual facts and be reproduced whout permissn and shared wh patients and their available at <>.