What's Life Like For Gay Kids In Public Schools? : NPR

Contents:

• GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
• GAY KIDS THE REAL WORLD
• GAY KIDS
• WHAT'S LIFE LIKE FOR GAY KIDS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
• GAY YOUTHS ARE MORE THAN TWICE AS LIKELY TO HAVE SLEEP TROUBLE, STUDY FDS

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.

Enuraggly, beg young and openly gay seems to be gettg easier. 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. " 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.

GAY KIDS THE REAL WORLD

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.

A tellg anecdote om Nadia, the mom of a gay 15-year-old named At. " But she had actually asked At if he was gay when she found out he had lled a gay chat le. 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").

GAY KIDS

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].

"In 20/20's view, Manzie "snapped after a homosexual affair wh an olr man he had met an Inter chat room" - wh the Inter as much implited the tragedy as Steven Simmons, a "nvicted pedophile.

Back 1995, I vised rooms where olr men cise for young men and boys and vice versa (like "BarelyLegalM2M") for a week when I wrote a feature for Wired magaze on gay and lbian teenagers rooms are a theater of archetyp, of men wh nam like "HedCoach" and "LuvDad" exchangg horny msag wh "SwmrDu" and "MclKid.

WHAT'S LIFE LIKE FOR GAY KIDS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

Sometim meetg offle had turned out to be an unfortable experience, but sometim the young man perceived a posive light - an troductn to a larger circle of iends, or an entree to the wir gay world.

For some of the highly telligent, articulate young men, an offle renzvo wh an olr male was a risk that had turned out to be worth tth is, gay teenagers and olr gay men have always found ways to meet, spe every law agast . Those teractns, ght wh risk on every si, prise a kd of iatory procs for young gay men - one ma necsary by the srcy of believable gay role mols for youth films and on TV, and the fact that 's not ol to walk down the hall of high school wh your bt buddy, holdg hands and gog was possible for gay kids to urt one another openly, teenagers would have a lot ls centive to seek out olr men for the kd of adoratn, engagement, and y, sex, that they n't get om their peers.

GAY YOUTHS ARE MORE THAN TWICE AS LIKELY TO HAVE SLEEP TROUBLE, STUDY FDS

Most, though not all, teenagers would rather sleep wh someone their own age the past, a gay kid might go to nsirable lengths to ferret out the lotn of the lol gay bar, and park himself on the siwalk outsi on a Saturday night, tryg to look relaxed, hopg to be noticed. If he was lucky enough to live a cy where there were gay youth anizatns, his chanc of fdg a kdred spir his own age were better.

For every gay teen who has gotten to an unfortable suatn onle, there are thoands of kids for whom the act of buildg a muny wh other gay kids onle has been lerally life-savg.

The onle nnectn has ma much easier for teenagers to reach their peers via such rourc for gay youth as the Be Yourself mailg lists and Oasis our kids really needIf we really wanted to protect kids om those who want to hurt them, we'd make sure that every gay teenager the world had accs to a Net nnectn, gay stunts' anizatns, supportive adult mentors, and the Net-savvy to differentiate between hurtful smmers and potential 'd make sure that gay kids had the same opportuni for joy and the open display of affectn as straight kids: the chance to stroll down Ma Street wh the one you dizzily love, sportg a hickey or two; proud to be part of a uple for the first time your 'd stop participatg the sniggerg mpaigns n by Time and Newsweek, beratg Al Gore as loser-of-the-week for makg a very d statement of support for Ellen DeGener, and realize that gay and straight kids need to see as many diverse mols of thentic human relatnship media as we n we'd stop foolg ourselv and wastg valuable rourc wh showboatg, headle-grabbg opportunism that reassur that we n nct a totally safe world for our children by isolatg evil a certa populatn, makg ever larger and more public databas of that populatn, and keepg those pariahs out of our neighborhoods and off the day, the onle world sends a wake up ll that is as real as the offle world. AllNews'Gay Kids' - 11 News Rult(s). A teenage gay romance story, a but llaborative album om Kanye Wt and Kid Cudi, and other thgs to enjoy this weekend.