In the 1990s, more and more gay teenagers are g out of the closet. A natnwi report on their stggle for acceptance.
Contents:
- GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
- TO BE YOUNG & GAY
- A GAY TEEN DISVERS HIMSELF AT SUMMER MP THIS FLAMER FIRST LOOK
- THE DIGAL SEX LIV OF YOUNG GAY TEENAGERS
- IS MY SON GAY OR IS A PHASE?
- LONDON FOR A 15 YEAR OLD GAY TEEN? - LGBTQIA+ TRAVEL FOM
- JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
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. * 15yo boy gay *
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.
TO BE YOUNG & GAY
* 15yo boy gay *
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. 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.
A GAY TEEN DISVERS HIMSELF AT SUMMER MP THIS FLAMER FIRST LOOK
Adolcence n be a ighteng perd for young gay men, who are sudnly faced wh new sexual feelgs that n often nflict wh social prsur placed on them by fay, iends, and the media. Mike Curato explor this tumultuo perd his new Godw Books graphic novel, Flamer, a semi-tobgraphil… * 15yo boy gay *
" 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.
THE DIGAL SEX LIV OF YOUNG GAY TEENAGERS
What to do when your son tells you he's gay. * 15yo boy 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").
IS MY SON GAY OR IS A PHASE?
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].
LONDON FOR A 15 YEAR OLD GAY TEEN? - LGBTQIA+ TRAVEL FOM
To Be Young & Gay. Greg Whg, a fifteen-year-old wh red curly hair and blue fgernails, has e out as gay three tim: once to his parents, once to his school and once to a natnal televisn dience on 48 Hours. Every gay teenager I speak wh has one: For many of them, g out was the most charged few hours of their liv, the moment the theoretil part of homosexualy end, when beg gay was no longer somethg over there, was you.
JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
” This is a distctn I hear often om gay teens: The world is spl not to gay and straight but to open and closed. About a month after Tara told her mother she was gay, the Catholic school that Tara attend lled her parents and explaed that they weren’t fortable havg a lbian nth-grar their stutn. Once a teen out as gay, other stunts are ually eager to remd him of .