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.
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GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
For most kids, the social prsur of middle school are tough enough. But an creasg number of young teenagers, some as young 10 or 11, are g out as gay or lbian middle school. Beno Denizet-Lewis, who wrote about the trend the New York Tim Magaze, discs what social factors uld be leadg young people to e out earlier. * middle school boys gay *
Are people who e out as gay their teens sted to face rejectn, bullyg and inty crisis? 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.
GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
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. 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 . 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.