Gay Youth Comg Out In Middle School : NPR

Contents:

• GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
• THE LATT PH: "GAY" CLUBS FOR KIDS MIDDLE SCHOOLS. HERE'S HOW THEY GET THEM -- AND WHAT WH THEM.
• AM I GAY? QUIZ - FOR MIDDLE-SCHOOL KIDS ?‍❤️‍?‍?
• WISNS MIDDLE SCHOOL FEATUR 'THIS BOOK IS GAY' LIBRARY, STIRRG ONLE OUTRAGE
• SUPPORTG A GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANCE MIDDLE SCHOOL
• THE BT GAY-FRIENDLY SCHOOLS
• E.J. GAY MIDDLE SCHOOL (CLOSED 2009)
• GAY TEACHER SAYS SHE SUFFERED MONTHS OF HOMOPHOBIC HARASSMENT WH NO END SIGHT

GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

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. 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. 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?

THE LATT PH: "GAY" CLUBS FOR KIDS MIDDLE SCHOOLS. HERE'S HOW THEY GET THEM -- AND WHAT WH THEM.

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.

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 . So, you know, nsequently I sort of went nial mo, which is what a lot of gay kids have done for many years, and then my early 20s and mid-20s and late 20s, as many gay men do who don't e out until late, we sort of try to relive our gay adolcence that we weren't allowed to live. And so what's remarkable, now, is I thk we're gog to see, as more and more kids e out younger and are sort of able to have a normal adolcence the sense that, you know, I talked to kids who were havg arguments wh their parents about gog on dat when they're 15 or 16 or 17 or gog to the prom or sort of, you know, havg their normal adolcence, I thk 's gog to create an entirely different kd of gay and lbian adult the next 10, 20, 30 years.

AM I GAY? QUIZ - FOR MIDDLE-SCHOOL KIDS ?‍❤️‍?‍?

" It stat that "the teachg of history the Uned Stat shall clu a study of the rol and ntributns of lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr people the history of this untry. Dpe this new wave of efforts to tegrate LGBT ntent to the classroom, six stat – Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carola and Texas – still have laws prohibg the "promotn of homosexualy. Alabama law, for example, stat that when discsg sexual health tn, "class mt emphasize, a factual manner and om a health perspective, that homosexualy is not a liftyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual nduct is a crimal offense unr the laws of the state.

Gav Newsom and sla gay rights lear Harvey the ne-hour Temecula Valley Unified meetg, which ran past midnight, some parents spoke support of the nservative majory on the school board and s buckg of state standards for clive and diverse pated Newsom — who plans to send textbooks that reference Milk to Temecula stunts fiance of the board — as a “tyrant” who “forc his le” upon a district he knows nothg about. ”The bate arose after the board rejected proposed stctnal material that mentned Milk, a member of the San Francis Board of Supervisors and the first out gay man elected to public office California, who was assassated 1978.

WISNS MIDDLE SCHOOL FEATUR 'THIS BOOK IS GAY' LIBRARY, STIRRG ONLE OUTRAGE

” Conservative school board Print Joseph Komrosky, who lled Milk a “pedophile” and has been publicly fdg wh Newsom over the issue, asked sheriff puti on Tuday to remove a teacher om the meetg after she lled nservative board member Danny Gonzalez a “homophobe. ” Whout evince, Gonzalez said that proposed stctn would promote pedophilia and said he opposed teachg about the gay liberatn movement that began the 1960s bee ’s “not appropriate to discs sexualy.

Too many tim, episos of bullyg are based around stunts’ perceived sexualy or inti, and as rearch prov, our young people are way schools n bat the attacks is to host a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA).

SUPPORTG A GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANCE MIDDLE SCHOOL

A 2014 study found that “LGBTQ stunts are at higher risk for suici, part bee they are more often targeted for bullyg and discrimatn, but heterosexual stunts n also be the target of homophobic bullyg. Create an articulated program where stunts om the high school program n help those the younger you’re terted learng more about tablishg a GSA your school, check out the Jump Start Gui provid by Gay, Lbian, and Straight Edutn Network. But Mae’s Department of Edutn reports that between 13 percent and 18 percent of public high-school stunts say they’re “lbian, gay, bisexual or unsure” of their sexual inty.

“For me, when a teacher put up that sticker, basilly nveyed the msage that ‘when you e here, you will not be hated for who you love or what you intify as, ’” said Frsto, who is gay.

THE BT GAY-FRIENDLY SCHOOLS

“As a gay man wh no children and no real sire to have children, I feel like I should never know the nam of the people on the school board, let alone have to stand up agast them, ” said Zachary Goff of Newberg, who lnched the petn, which has gotten over 1, 000 signatur. And the rult is a list of schools wh great amic standards and a mp atmosphere that is iendly to lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr Our RankgsContributg edor Peter Bernste and rearcher Courtney Kennedy drew on dozens of sourc to pile the rankgs cludg rmatn om the Natnal Center for Edutn Statistics, The Washgton Monthly, and College Prowler. The Universy of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League llege Philalphia is on seven of Newsweek's "bt of" lists, rankg 13th on our list of most sirable lleg; eighth on the list of most sirable urban lleg; send for most sirable large mp; sixth schools bt for future power brokers; first for gay-iendls and diversy; and fally, 18th among the 25 bt lleg for the super-smart.

"Berkeley is home to a proud LGBTIQQ (Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr, Intersex, Queer and Qutng) muny, which has a large prence on mp and mak the environment feel more tolerant, " wr one stunt on public school has an unrgraduate enrollment of jt over 25, 500, 53 percent of who were women the fall of 2009.

E.J. GAY MIDDLE SCHOOL (CLOSED 2009)

"You n fd any kd of background here, whether you are speakg about ethnicy or relign, " wr one stunt on "Addnally, the mp is fely more liberal and is very acceptg to gays and lbians. Thanks to the school's reputatn for gay-iendls upled wh s amic crentials, the school plac nth on Newsweek's list of schools where gays get As, jt one more acla the school has racked up sce s foundg the 40, 000-pl stunts who attend Indiana Universy, more than 31, 000 are unrgrads. 15 on the list of schools for 50/50 genr breakdown, gay-iendly atmosphere, and racially, geographilly and socenomilly mixed stunt body mak Pomona the 20th most diverse school and the thirteenth among the bt gay-iendly schools on Newsweek's lists.

Brown is also the fourteenth bt gay-iendly, gettg through the doors of this cal of tellect and broad-mdns is an elive qut; only around 14 percent of those who apply are accepted. The school is also ranked the 15th bt gay-iendly the a roundup that seems to speak further to UCSC's broad-md atmosphere, the most popular majors the fall of 2008, the most recent year data was available, were psychology, art, bs management enomics, lerature and environmental studi, Universy of California, Santa Cz has an unrgraduate enrollment of jt over 16, 000. If that weren't enough, the school was also ranked by Newsweek as the 16th bt gay-iendly llege the untry and the 21st most sirable school 's clear why: For amics, the llege claims that 87 percent of s stunts ranked the top 10 percent at their high schools, averagg 33 on the ACT and 1520 on the SAT.

GAY TEACHER SAYS SHE SUFFERED MONTHS OF HOMOPHOBIC HARASSMENT WH NO END SIGHT

14—s stunts averaged a 34 on the ACT and a 1540 on the SAT and 90 percent e om the top 10 percent of their high-school Ain-Amerins, Hispanics, and Asians acuntg for nearly 40 percent of s stunt body and an appearance on The Advote's gay-iendly list, De tak eighth place among the most diverse schools the natn and 17th for the bt gay-iendly. 24 on the natn's bt gay-iendly school's 7, 000 unrgraduat make up jt ls than half of the stunt body and attend one of four unrgraduate schools, spread across three mp. 25 for gay iendls; and fally, wh seven senators and ten billnair among s alumni, the school is tenth on the list of lleg bt for future power universy has jt over 5, 000 unrgraduat—99 percent are age 24 or younger.

In pockets of the untry, state tn officials and lol school boards are rpondg to plats om some parents by removg books om schools and nductg wispread ds of school librari, to weed out texts emed appropriate for the efforts have sparked blowback om thors and advocy groups, who say the removals -- which tend to target texts on culturally sensive topics -- risk privg certa stunts om readg books that reflect their own liv and enhance their cultural northern Virgia, a state whose ndidat for ernor sparred this fall over cril race theory, a unty school board member drew attentn this week for suggtg that a book centered on a 10-year-old boy who is sexually abed by an olr man, should be Abuismail, a 24-year-old member of the Spotsylvania County school board, argued a board meetg Monday night that the cln of gay sex the book, "33 Snowfish, " by Adam Rapp, which had brought a plat om one parent that night, disqualified om beg school librari. "The board voted unanimoly to nduct ds of each school's library, vowg to weed out "sexually explic" an terview this week wh ABC News, Abuismail sisted his ments about homosexualy were misstatements, and that the book burng remark was "pletely blown out of proportn. A gay middle school English teacher, Amy Est, said she had to take a mental health leave after stunt harassment grew more and more tense and her school did ltle to migate the problem.

Est said that sce she shar English wh a group of 120 stunts and three other teachers, she suggted that teachers have a nversatn wh the whole group to nfirm that “Y, I’m gay, and you figured out. Thirty-three percent of LGBTQ stunts said they were physilly harassed the past year bee of sexual orientatn and 23 percent were physilly harassed bee of their genr, acrdg to a 2014 survey om the Gay, Lbian & Straight Edutn Network (GLSEN).