Gay 12-Year-Old Tenn. Still Fightg The ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill He Helped Kill

Contents:

• AT WHAT AGE DO KIDS INTIFY AS GAY?
• 12-YEAR-OLD'S IENDS DIDN'T CELEBRATE AFTER HE ME OUT AS GAY. SO A PARK FULL OF STRANGERS DID
• GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
• GAY TT FOR MAL AG 12-16
• AM I GAY? (QUIZ FOR TEENAGE BOYS)
• GAY TT FOR BOYS AG 12 TO 16
• COMG OUT AS GAY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
• GAY TENN. 12-YEAR-OLD STILL FIGHTG THE ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ BILL HE HELPED KILL
• 12-YEAR-OLD BOY ON ‘THE CONNERS:’ 'I'M GLAD I'M GAY!'
• MORE THAN HALF OF GENERATN Z GAY, BISEXUAL TEENAGE BOYS REPORT BEG OUT TO PARENTS
• GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
• APPLE APPROV 'ONLY GAY SOCIAL APP FOR AG 12 AND UP'
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

AT WHAT AGE DO KIDS INTIFY AS GAY?

He go on another vio to try to expla that not all LGBTQ people are gay his own 12-year-old way, but didn’t seem to nvce the other players. One of the ma issu wh trackg when kids start to intify as gay is that most people assume that all kids start out straight.

The realy is that many kids know they are gay at a younger age than you might expect – even elementary school. That beg said, some rearchers om the Sexualy Informatn and Edutn Council of the Uned Stat talked wh llege stunts who intify as gay and bisexual to learn when they were aware of their sexual preferenc.

This data prov the vast majory of LGBTQ+ kids intify as gay before they leave for llege – or intify their sexual preferenc shortly after. “As long as I was the closet, all of my cisns — both nsc and subnsc — were guid by not wantg people to know I was gay, ” Felts told the Washgton Post.

12-YEAR-OLD'S IENDS DIDN'T CELEBRATE AFTER HE ME OUT AS GAY. SO A PARK FULL OF STRANGERS DID

The problem is, even many of those articl are really jt a llectn of stance the Calgary Journal, an article entled, "When do most homosexuals know they're gay? "And then went on wh even more actual facts as they ced a natnal survey of 1, 752 llege stunts:* 48% of self-intified gay and bisexual llege stunts beme aware of their sexual preference high school while 26% found their te sexualy llege.

* 20% of self-intified gay and bisexual men knew that they were gay or bisexual junr high school, and 17% said they knew gra school. * 6% of self-intified gay or bisexual women knew that they were gay or bisexual junr high school, and 11% knew gra school.

'It's outrageoly amazg that this ltle kid, even wh all this adversy, n still be out here'Surprise birthday party shows gay youth he's not Neville lost iends after he me out, so his mom asked others to show support for her 12-year-old son.

GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"

A crowd full of strangers filled a northwt Calgary park to celebrate a boy's rabow-themed birthday durg Pri O'Donnell says when her son Brody Neville me out as gay this sprg, the 12-year-old lost many of his ma the prospect of celebratg his birthday this year a sad one. "I was askg him what he wanted to do for his birthday and he was tears and said sce he me out as gay he lost all his iends, so he didn't even have people who uld e, " O'Donnell said. 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.

GAY TT FOR MAL AG 12-16

" 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. 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. 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?

AM I GAY? (QUIZ FOR TEENAGE BOYS)

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.

GAY TT FOR BOYS AG 12 TO 16

I mean I got straight I'm not surprised tho I do got a girliend if I me out gay I would break up wh her and don't matter if your gay or not your still special.

me out 70% bi 20% straight 10% gayi was spectg that as i have taken 5 tts all say bi apart om 1 which says straight. When he was younger we had spicns he would turn out gay, so we always showsed our support so we knew he’d be fortable if he was, but once he h puberty was clear he was to girls, always talked about them, never showed tert boys romantilly, and started datg a girl a few months back.

COMG OUT AS GAY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

He’s been askg some more qutns about dynamics a gay relatnship, and also been askg about gay history (he’s a very smart boy). ”Dannielle Owens-Reid and Krist Rso, -founrs of Everyone Is Gay and -thors of This Is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids, attribute lower g-out ag to the power of reprentatn.

The next generatn is growg up wh gay characters on their televisns, pansexual rappers on their playlists, and queer micro-muni on their Tumblr the change also means that there is a new generatn of fai scramblg to raise LGBT kids who have specific needs and challeng — kids who are growg up a society that, while creasgly LGBT-tolerant, is still plagued by hate crim, job discrimatn, and the more banal, everyday sort of homophobia borne by sual ignorance.

GAY TENN. 12-YEAR-OLD STILL FIGHTG THE ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ BILL HE HELPED KILL

”Like Kate Ree, Chloe spent early childhood sred and nfed about cshg on girls, pecially after beg lled an anti-gay slur for the first time the fourth gra. They first intified as gay, then, a few months later, also began intifyg as genrls (as a rult, Chloe now prefers “they” and “them” pronouns).

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

Amelia, a Midwtern mother of a 10-year-old boy who first began intifyg as gay when he was 7, said that her son’s unabashed outns tends to startle many adults who would rather not thk about children havg sexual sir. “As a society, if we n open up our ia to what gay means, we n be a lot ls unfortable wh the ia of children intifyg, ” she said. A lot of gay adults say, ‘I knew I was gay when I was krgarten, but I didn’t have the vobulary to scribe what I was.

MORE THAN HALF OF GENERATN Z GAY, BISEXUAL TEENAGE BOYS REPORT BEG OUT TO PARENTS

"A lot of gay adults say, ‘I knew I was gay when I was krgarten, but I didn’t have the vobulary to scribe what I was. ”A uple of years ago, when she was 11, Kate cycled through the non-straight possibili before g out to her fay — was she gay?

“Consirg how much more fluid the younger generatn is about sexualy, ” she said, “[Informatn about and accs to queer culture] shouldn’t only be ma available to gay intified children — should be [available] to all children. ” Kate’s mother, Ey, driv her to a LGBT youth group town, sce there’s no straight or gay alliance at her is proud of Kate for beg vol about her inty and passnate about LGBT issu.

GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

”In Febary, Amelia blogged about the first time her son was met wh anti-gay sentiment: A boy his class told him that beg gay was illegal (somethg that boy picked up om his parents). ” In nversatn wh the Uned Stat Interagency Council on Homelsns, Krehely said that “ some ways, this is a good thg — means they are gettg societal cu that is OK to be gay — but they are not old enough to be able to live penntly yet, and they face rejectn by parents and fai, and emotnal and/or physil abe at school. Ey, who wrote about beg the straight spoe of a recently out gay man, creds the experience wh her abily to be a better mother to Kate now than she otherwise might have been.

Wh the World Wi Web at their disposal, many LGBT kids go beyond googlg gay search terms — some are also g technology to nnect wh, and support, queer youth om around the don’t have many queer iends at home Reno, Nevada, but she has plenty on the ter. Marcel Neergard, a gay 12-year-old om Oak Ridge, Tenn., is still fightg for the right to be today's op-ed for The Huffgton Post, Neergard shar his sometim-paful experienc of beg openly gay elementary school. Neergard had prevly wrten for HuffPo when he protted Republin state reprentative John Ragan's Classroom Protectn Act, an updated versn of the famo, failed "Don't Say Gay" bill.

APPLE APPROV 'ONLY GAY SOCIAL APP FOR AG 12 AND UP'

An otherwise supportive teacher stopped me and told me 'talkg about beg gay the classroom is illegal Tennsee, '" Neergard wr.

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. 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.

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. They never portray people of Christian fah, for example, who believe homosexualy is a s, but are still kd and lovg to all. WASHINGTON — A majory of gay and bisexual Generatn Z teenage boys report beg out to their parents, part of an uptick g out among young people that rearchers have noted recent s, acrdg to rearch published by the Amerin Psychologil Associatn.

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

In the study, published the journal Psychology of Sexual Orientatn and Genr Diversy®, rearchers examed survey data om 1, 194 13-to-18-year-old boys, all of whom intified as gay, bisexual or as beg attracted to people regardls of genr.

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.