A 12-year-old New Jersey boy was bullied for beg gay, lawsu says. He died by suici.

Contents:

• 12-YEAR-OLD'S IENDS DIDN'T CELEBRATE AFTER HE ME OUT AS GAY. SO A PARK FULL OF STRANGERS DID
• GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
• WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• COMG OUT AS GAY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
• WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"
• 12-YEAR-OLD BOY ON ‘THE CONNERS:’ 'I'M GLAD I'M GAY!'
• A 12-YEAR-OLD NEW JERSEY BOY WAS BULLIED FOR BEG GAY, LAWSU SAYS. HE DIED BY SUICI.
• 12-YEAR-OLD BOY DI BY SUICI AFTER BEG BULLIED BY SCHOOLMAT 'FOR BEG GAY'
• GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

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

“She’s gay and you blatantly said you don’t support gay people, ” he ntu, drivg his pot home. He go on another vio to try to expla that not all LGBTQ people are gay his own 12-year-old way, but didn’t seem to nvce the other players.

@bummblebeo__that’s my boy ##brothers #homophobia ##lgbt ##A+♬ origal sound – LtleCanary. The problem is, even many of those articl are really jt a llectn of stance the Calgary Journal, an article entled, "When do most homosexuals know they're gay? Until you read on and disver that the source for their data is "many the homosexual muny.

"And then went on wh even more actual facts as they ced a natnal survey of 1, 752 llege stunts:* 48% of self-intified gay and bisexual llege stunts beme aware of their sexual preference high school while 26% found their te sexualy llege.

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

* 20% of self-intified gay and bisexual men knew that they were gay or bisexual junr high school, and 17% said they knew gra school. * 6% of self-intified gay or bisexual women knew that they were gay or bisexual junr high school, and 11% knew gra school.

WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?

'It's outrageoly amazg that this ltle kid, even wh all this adversy, n still be out here'Surprise birthday party shows gay youth he's not Neville lost iends after he me out, so his mom asked others to show support for her 12-year-old son.

A crowd full of strangers filled a northwt Calgary park to celebrate a boy's rabow-themed birthday durg Pri O'Donnell says when her son Brody Neville me out as gay this sprg, the 12-year-old lost many of his ma the prospect of celebratg his birthday this year a sad one.

"I was askg him what he wanted to do for his birthday and he was tears and said sce he me out as gay he lost all his iends, so he didn't even have people who uld e, " O'Donnell said. 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.

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

" Three years later, he says, "a new kd of gay adolcent was appearg on the page - proud, rilient, sometim even happy. " 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.

Not only were there creasgly accurate and posive portrayals of gays and lbians popular culture, but most teenagers were by then regular Inter ers.

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.

COMG OUT AS GAY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

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. " But she had actually asked At if he was gay when she found out he had lled a gay chat le.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"

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. '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").

12-YEAR-OLD BOY ON ‘THE CONNERS:’ 'I'M GLAD I'M GAY!'

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. And maybe today's gay kids are slowly startg to receive via New York Tim Out In Middle School [NYT Magaze]. A Mnota school district is facg a Department of Jtice vtigatn and a private lawsu over s alleged failure to bat antigay bullyg.

A hefty pile of rearch shows that boys as young as 3 years old who break om tradnal genr rol have a high likelihood of beg gay adults. ) The relatnship isn’t one-to-one, however, and ’s certaly not the se that all boys who love Barbie dolls will later intify as gay. The rrelatn is much weaker the other directn: A disproportnate number of boys who don’t nform to genr stereotyp turn out to be gay men, but lots of gay men played wh G.

A 12-YEAR-OLD NEW JERSEY BOY WAS BULLIED FOR BEG GAY, LAWSU SAYS. HE DIED BY SUICI.

Thirty of them beme gay or bisexual adults while jt one child om a 34-member genr-nformg ntrol group turned out to be gay. The subjects who strayed the most om nventnally boyish behavr were the most likely to be gay.

There is no magil age at which children adopt stereotypilly gay behavr and keep to adulthood. Some rearchers thk genr nonnformg children e their toys to rehearse for a gay adulthood.

Gay 3-year-old boys n’t verbalize their sire to be wh a man when they grow up—although many such children exhib cshlike behavr toward adult men—but they may be tryg to learn the behavr that will later attract a male partner.

12-YEAR-OLD BOY DI BY SUICI AFTER BEG BULLIED BY SCHOOLMAT 'FOR BEG GAY'

Both lbians and gay men often have a history of cross-sex-typed behavrs: ltle boys beg fatuated wh their mother's makp k; ltle girls enamored of field hockey or profsnal wrtlg. Prehomosexual boys tend to be more attracted to solary sports such as swimmg, cyclg and tennis than they are to rougher ntact sports such as football and soccer.

Children who show pronounced sex-atypil behavrs may have more of a geic loadg to their homosexualy.

GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

The behavral patterns are feared, loathed and often spoken of directly as harbgers of adult homosexualy. It is only relatively recently, however, that velopmental scientists have nducted ntrolled studi to intify the earlit and most reliable signs of adult homosexualy. In lookg refully at the childhoods of gay adults, rearchers are fdg an trigug set of behavral ditors that homosexuals seem to have mon.

Curly enough, the age-old homophobic fears of many parents reflect some genue predictive currency.