For most kids, the social prsur of middle school are tough enough. But an creasg number of young teenagers, some as young 10 or 11, are g out as gay or lbian middle school. Beno Denizet-Lewis, who wrote about the trend the New York Tim Magaze, discs what social factors uld be leadg young people to e out earlier.
Contents:
- GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
- GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
- ARE YOU GAY? (FOR BOYS 11-16)
- THE BT GAY-FRIENDLY SCHOOLS
- AM I GAY? QUIZ - FOR MIDDLE-SCHOOL KIDS ?❤️??
- MIDDLE SCHOOL VS. MY GAY KID
GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
* gay middle school boys *
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.
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. 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.
GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
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. * gay middle school boys *
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.
ARE YOU GAY? (FOR BOYS 11-16)
Here, you will see if you are bisexual, gay, or straight. * gay middle school boys *
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 . 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. Our 15 Favore LGBTQ Books for Kids & Teens | Reviews by WirecutterSkip To ContentHome & GarnApplianc & VacuumsBathroomCleangGarn & OutdoorsHeatg, Coolg, & Air QualyHome & DerMovgOfficeSleepKchenCookg & BakgCoffee & DrksGrillgSuppliFood & GroceryHealth & LeisureFnsHealthOutdoorsHobbiTravelPetsTechElectronicsPhon, Tablets, & SmartwatchComputersAudVioSmart HomeCamerasBaby & KidBath & DiapergPregnancy & NursgClothgGear & FurnureSafetySchoolToysTravelStyleApparelShoAccsoriGiftsGifts for Grown-UpsGifts for KidsShoppgDealsBaby and kid15 LGBTQ Books for Kids and Teens Remend by Queer Librarians, Edutors, and Inpennt BooksellersPhoto: Michael MurtghLegislatn like Florida’s Parental Rights Edutn Act—known by crics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law—and creased attempts to ban books censor discsns on sexualy and genr inty wh young people.
Pman, illtrated by Vlet Tobac ($9 at the time of publitn)Also available at BookWoman ($15 at the time of publitn)In the world of LGBTQ picture books, Gayle E. “The book’s characters have a group of iends who are also on the queer spectm, and ’s betiful to see them teract so naturally and fortably, like ’s not even a big al that one’s transgenr or one’s gay, ” Hersh said.
THE BT GAY-FRIENDLY SCHOOLS
" 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.
AM I GAY? QUIZ - FOR MIDDLE-SCHOOL KIDS ?❤️??
" 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. 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. 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").
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. By that pot, I had more or ls ma peace wh my sexualy, but I had cid, like so many tortured 13-year-olds before me, that I wouldn’t be that kd of gay—the wimp, the pansy, the limp-wristed mcer who betrayed his own sex. The are both stereotyp, sure, but many lbians I know today had distguished sportg reers as teenagers, and most gay men still reil at the offer of a pickup basketball game.
At my school, the very place that I first observed queer cursy, I was sred to e out, fearg my own physil and emotnal wasn’t jt the school locker room where I heard homophobic remarks.
MIDDLE SCHOOL VS. MY GAY KID
Perhaps was the support of iends, nts, and those around me that ma me not want to feel ashamed about myself anymore, even if that meant God damng me to the begng of senr year, I went om “I’m gay” to whoever asked, to “Can you stop sayg faggot please? A month later, I cid to no longer participate the mentorship program, and every time I was asked why, I ma exc about beg too time, I retreated to my fantasy world, where I was not sixteen and gay a homophobic environment, but a world where I was olr, the future, when I would arrive to a betiful home om a long day at work, and be weled by a hband who lov me and bears my burns on his shoulrs. I was thrilled to be leavg and movg on, but I uld see that many of my fellow graduat were facg siar hurdl, on that I had enuntered, and had only masked their tth wh homophobia.