In the 1990s, more and more gay teenagers are g out of the closet. A natnwi report on their stggle for acceptance.
Contents:
- GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
- 12-YEAR-OLD'S IENDS DIDN'T CELEBRATE AFTER HE ME OUT AS GAY. SO A PARK FULL OF STRANGERS DID
- MY 14 YEAR OLD GAY SON IS SEEING A 17 YEAR OLD
- IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
- IS MY SON GAY OR IS A PHASE?
- WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?
- TO BE YOUNG & GAY
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. But some parents and teachers wonr if the kids are too young to really know their sexual orientatn. * 14 yo boy gay *
As I relayed When Your Child Is Gay: What You Need To Know (Sterlg, 2016), I found out that my son was gay om a note wh our son's name entwed wh another boy's, surround by a heart.
I had spected at tim that he was gay. Had I asked him if he were gay when he was 13, he probably would have fensively said "No!
San Berland, the mother of a gay son who ach parents of LGBTQ kids, utn, "It's not a good ia to ask. Acrdg to my -thor, psychiatrist Jonathan Tobk, "Gay children feel credibly vulnerable when g out to their parents, and tak time to work up the urage to do this. Mol acceptance by not g gay slurs and never tellg gay jok.
12-YEAR-OLD'S IENDS DIDN'T CELEBRATE AFTER HE ME OUT AS GAY. SO A PARK FULL OF STRANGERS DID
Hi my only jt 14 year old son has recently told me he is gay, we have long expected this may be the se. My problem * 14 yo boy gay *
Watch gay-themed shows together such as "The Fosters" and "Will and Grace.
MY 14 YEAR OLD GAY SON IS SEEING A 17 YEAR OLD
What to do when your son tells you he's gay. * 14 yo boy gay *
" How do they pict gay people?
IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
A Mnota school district is facg a Department of Jtice vtigatn and a private lawsu over s alleged failure to bat antigay bullyg.... * 14 yo boy gay *
React kdly to gay people the news or on televisn. In a way, you have an advantage by not knowg; giv you more time to prepare for the day (if ever) when he do reveal he's gay. Gay kids are g out earlier — sometim middle school — and many are fdg acceptance.
IS MY SON GAY OR IS A PHASE?
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. " 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. 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.
WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?
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?
A lawyer Florida argued that gay-straight allianc promote the "premature sexualizatn of the stunts, " and when At started a gay-straight alliance, his Michigan school ma him ll somethg "ls ntroversial" (he chose "Peace Alliance"). Denizet-Lewis reports the hopeful words of velopmental psychologist Rch Sav-Williams: "This is the first generatn of gay kids who have the great joy of beg able to argue wh their parents about datg, jt like their straight peers do.
TO BE YOUNG & GAY
And maybe today's gay kids are slowly startg to receive via New York Tim Out In Middle School [NYT Magaze]. - The world's first fe art photography magaze dited to queer and gay 2 - the Pri Issue featur ten photographers om ne untri: AY (UK), David Charl Colls (Atralia), Matthew Fley (USA), Ashish Gupta (India), Manuel Monyo (Mexi), Juan Anton Papagni Me (Argenta), Sebastian Perotti (Argenta), Mric A.
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