'The Middle's' Brock Ciarlelli On The Power Of Treatg Beg Gay As 'No Big Deal' | HuffPost Voic

Contents:

• MEET THE MIDDLE'S SUPER-STEREOTYPIL GAY CHARACTER
• 'THE MIDDLE'S' BROCK CIARLELLI ON THE POWER OF TREATG BEG GAY AS 'NO BIG DEAL'
• 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.
• CHILD STAR STGGLED TO E OUT AFTER PLAYG ‘THE GAY KID’ ‘SCHOOL OF ROCK’
• NORTH LAMAR ISD STUNT SAYS HE WAS BEAT UP AT FOOTBALL GAME ‘BEE I’M GAY’
• GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
• MIDDLE SCHOOL VS. MY GAY KID

MEET THE MIDDLE'S SUPER-STEREOTYPIL GAY CHARACTER

Recently, televisn has been pretty good about showg realistic gay characters, but then sometim we are thrown a curveball. Fans have always known, or at least assumed, that Brad, Sue’s optimistic partner--crime (though they’d balk at the word “crime”), is gay. But his homosexualy has never been acknowledged.

'THE MIDDLE'S' BROCK CIARLELLI ON THE POWER OF TREATG BEG GAY AS 'NO BIG DEAL'

They fed Brad as a character via his passns, his terts, his sense of humor, and the kd of iend he is, thgs that are so much more important than the word “gay” uld ever get across, that I didn’t personally need or feel like was necsary for him to e out.

ABC’s The Conners has left hts here and there that Darlene’s (Sara Gilbert) 12-year-old son Mark (Am McNamara) might be gay and om the start of Tuday night’s episo, “A Kiss is Jt a Kiss, ” Mark is seen wearg a skirt over legggs.

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

But ’s when the prcipal lls to rm Darlene that Mark is trouble for kissg a boy at school that we fd out there is no longer any doubt that the young boy is gay. He only told me he was gay last week.

Your kid's not gonna tch beg gay any more than he's gonna tch beg a cranky, old wench like you. Maybe you don't want to accept the fact that your grandkid might be gay, but you srg him to nyg ’s jt gonna his life.

Of urse, the person who is opposed to homosexualy is hateful and cel. They never portray people of Christian fah, for example, who believe homosexualy is a s, but are still kd and lovg to all. Mark: My life would be so much easier if I wasn't gay.

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

I'm glad I'm gay!

But Hollywood is really phg the homosexual angle on children lately.

Last fall ABC had pre-teens e out as gay on This Is Us and A Milln Ltle Thgs. A New Jersey mother is sug a lol school district, claimg that her 12-year-old son took his own life 2017 bee classmat bullied him for beg gay. Tristan Peterson, a stunt at Woodff Middle School Bridgeton the southern part of the state, me out as gay to his peers 2017, acrdg to the lawsu.

CHILD STAR STGGLED TO E OUT AFTER PLAYG ‘THE GAY KID’ ‘SCHOOL OF ROCK’

Former child actor Brian Falduto says that he wasn’t able to e out until his senr year of llege bee of the stggl he faced after beg dubbed “the gay kid” om “School of Rock. “I was so much nial [about my sexualy growg up], ” he said on the “Cooper and Anthony Show, ” “Thk about : I was the fifth gra when this movie me out and I was lled gay, and then someone told me that’s not ol, so I was jt like, ‘Oh, ok, then I’m not gay’.

“So I was nyg before I even had a notn of what [beg gay] was, ” he told rad hosts Cooper Lawrence and Anthony Michaels. Beg known as “the gay kid” om “School of Rock” stopped Brian Falduto om g out for years. “So by the time I realized I was potentially gay, I was already homophobic towards myself, sentially, ” Falduto, who is now an actor, filmmaker, mician and life ach said.

PARIS, Texas (KXII) - A Stone Middle School stunt said he was beat up at the North Lamar High School football game Friday bee he’s gay. “Bee I’m gay and she don’t like me over all. “I don’t thk (me and that girl) had any arguments but I know she spis me for beg gay, ” Yeo said she field a report wh the FBI about her son gettg beaten up.

NORTH LAMAR ISD STUNT SAYS HE WAS BEAT UP AT FOOTBALL GAME ‘BEE I’M GAY’

“They’d always ll me ‘gay boy, gay kid’ and I left bee one of them said that they’d cut my private part off, ” Yeo said he’s also seen iends get bullied at Stone Middle School bee they’re gay.

A gay 14-year-old om Defiance, Oh, was vicly attacked at school last week when draped a Pri flag. "This was my official way of sayg I was gay and not tryg to hi . Are people who e out as gay their teens sted to face rejectn, bullyg and inty crisis?

GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

MARTIN: Now, how did you notice this trend of younger and younger children intifyg themselv as gay? You mentned the piece that you are a gay man.

I read a lot about youth culture and I was talkg to tors and, you know, lears of gay youth groups and they were all sayg the same thg. 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.

You know, recent studi are showg that kids are self-intifyg as gay anywhere om 13 to 16. The other realy is that 's still very difficult for a lot of gay kids to be out middle school. 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.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

You say, look, on the one hand, is an eighth-grar who says he's gay jt experimentg?

If sexualy is so fluid, should he really box himself wh a gay inty? But you say that when to kids who say that they are gay, 's almost like we want to talk them out of .

MIDDLE SCHOOL VS. MY GAY KID

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.

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.

You know, I'm gog to try beg gay for a ltle while. 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 .