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

Contents:

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

WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?

When do gay kids start “actg gay”?

A Mnota school district is facg a Department of Jtice vtigatn and a private lawsu over s alleged failure to bat antigay bullyg. When do gay children start exhibg telltale signs?

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

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.

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.

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

Some mothers tell psychologists that they sensed their ltle boy was gay durg fancy. 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.

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.

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

* 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. We already knew She-Ra was queer AF, but seeg two lovg, openly gay parents on a popular animated show ma our hearts swell!

"As a gay man who grew up wh no visible role mols of gay relatnships my muny or entertament ntent, I am grateful that this reprentatn is happeng on Nickeloon, moved by the difference that is surely makg the mds and hearts of children, and grateful to have been a part of this slow but important change, " Dickie told PRIDE. '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. 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.

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

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.

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.

GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

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

Zucker, both psychologists, published a semal paper on childhood markers of homosexualy 1995. So on the basis of some earlier, shakier rearch, along wh a good dose of mon sense, Bailey and Zucker hypothized that homosexuals would show an verted pattern of sex-typed childhood behavrs—ltle boys preferrg girls as playmat and beg fatuated wh their mother's makp k; ltle girls strangely enamored of field hockey or profsnal wrtlg—that sort of thg. Given that a small proportn of the populatn is homosexual, prospective studi require a large number of children.

Although only 12 percent of the women grew up to be genr dysphoric (the unfortable sense that your blogil sex do not match your genr), the odds of the women reportg a bisexual or homosexual orientatn were up to 23 tim higher than would occur a general sample of young women. And the same holds for gay men. Bailey and Zucker, who nducted a retrospective study which adults answered qutns about their past, revealed that 89 percent of randomly sampled gay men relled cross-sex-typed childhood behavrs exceedg the heterosexual median.