Gay Kids Comg Out Younger, But Parents Ask "How Do You Know?"

Contents:

• APP DETAIL » GAY USERNAM FOR KIK & SNAPCHAT - MEET & DATE APP
• GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
• MY 14 YEAR OLD GAY SON IS SEEING A 17 YEAR OLD
• I THK MY 14 YEAR OLD IS GAY

APP DETAIL » GAY USERNAM FOR KIK & SNAPCHAT - MEET & DATE APP

A., Gay Pri Month, tak place June to memorate the 1969 Stonewall rts. Craig Rodwell: Found the Osr Wil Memorial Bookshop voted to gay and lbian thors and anized the first gay pri para. Dannielle Owens-Reid and Krist Rso: Founrs of Everyone Is Gay, which supports LGBTQ (the Q stands for “Qutng”) youth at high schools and llege mp across the natn.

In 1971, he beme the first openly gay polician to n for Congrs. Harvey Milk: Former Navy litenant and first openly gay man to serve a public office California. Jse Tyler Fergon: Plays Mchell Prchett on ABC’s Morn Fay and started Tie the Knot, a nonprof chary “to advote for the civil rights of gay and lbian Amerins throughout the Uned Stat and beyond.

Victor Fehrenbach: Highly rated officer and the hight-rankg openly gay member of the U. Why LGBT teens are turng to dgsHow to help gay teens fd their wayParentg a gay child.

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. 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.

MY 14 YEAR OLD GAY SON IS SEEING A 17 YEAR OLD

" 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. Not only were there creasgly accurate and posive portrayals of gays and lbians popular culture, but most teenagers were by then regular Inter ers.

I THK MY 14 YEAR OLD IS GAY

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. " 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. '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?