Gay Youth Comg Out In Middle School : NPR

Contents:

• GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
• MY 14 YEAR OLD GAY SON IS SEEING A 17 YEAR OLD
• ARE YOU GAY? (FOR BOYS 11-16)
• AM I GAY? (QUIZ FOR TEENAGE BOYS)
• GAY TT FOR BOYS AG 12 TO 16
• I’M 14, I’M GAY & I WANT A BOYIEND
• GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
• THE DIGAL SEX LIV OF YOUNG GAY TEENAGERS
• UNSEEN, PART 3: POPULAR GAY DATG APP GRDR POS EXPLOATN RISK TO MORS
• AT WHAT AGE DO KIDS INTIFY AS GAY?
• GAY TT FOR MAL AG 12-16
• WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

MARTIN: Now, how did you notice this trend of younger and younger children intifyg themselv as gay?

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. The other realy is that 's still very difficult for a lot of gay kids to be out middle school.

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

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. 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.

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 .

ARE YOU GAY? (FOR BOYS 11-16)

You know, granted I lived San Francis, but none of my iends were gay, or none of the kids my age were gay.

AM I GAY? (QUIZ FOR TEENAGE BOYS)

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. - 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.

It now reprents more than 67 photographers om 27 untri - cludg Cha, India, Iran, Poland, Rsia and Turkey where gay rights are reprsed and queer liv unr nstant have been onle and physil exhibns, and two sold out BOYS!

GAY TT FOR BOYS AG 12 TO 16

Said:"Dpe the panmic we managed to lnch a new pennt magaze dited to queer and gay photography. It jt go to show that there is a market for a well-produced prt magaze showsg fe art photography by queer and gay photographers that is not jt a dick magaze! Fourteen year old Lee tells about first sex, boyiends, g out, paedophilia, and why an age of nsent of 16 won’t help unr-age gays like him.

The law says that a homosexual act wh a male unr 16 is a ser crime, even if the person mtg the act is himself below the age of 16. Lee is jt one of a growg number of lbians and gays who are g out at an ever earlier age…twelve, thirteen and fourteen is not unmon nowadays. Rearch published by Project Sigma 1993 shows that 9 percent of gay men had their first homosexual experience by the age of 10, 19 percent by the age of 12, and 35 per cent by the age of 14.

I’M 14, I’M GAY & I WANT A BOYIEND

The current of age of 16 (or 18 for gays) means that those who are younger don’t get proper sex tn. Peter Tatchell is the thor of the gay sex tn manual, “Safer Sexy – The Gui To Gay Sex Safely” (Freedom Edns, 1994). 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.

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

" 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. 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 DIGAL SEX LIV OF YOUNG GAY TEENAGERS

" 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.

UNSEEN, PART 3: POPULAR GAY DATG APP GRDR POS EXPLOATN RISK TO MORS

And maybe today's gay kids are slowly startg to receive via New York Tim Out In Middle School [NYT Magaze]. They have failed to protect mors, who simply have to subtract a few years om their birth date to create a om the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn and a new study The Journal of Adolcent Health together suggt that roughly one four gay and bisexual boys aged 14 to 17 the Uned Stat are on gay hookup apps signed for adults (Grdr, Scff, Jack’d, Adam4Adam).

But this brgs up nfintialy risks for gay men who don’t want to be uld also e algorhms to tect nversatns between mors and adults. When I searched onle for “gay chat, ” as a lonely, closeted child might, the first h was #1 Chat Avenue.

AT WHAT AGE DO KIDS INTIFY AS GAY?

Parents also need to stay lm, so that the kids feel fortable g back to them if they ever end up a bad suatn, like if a sry stranger won’t stop a society, we have failed to create enough spac for gay youth to thrive, phg them onle and unrground.

GAY TT FOR MAL AG 12-16

A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 27 of the New York edn wh the headle: Young, Gay and Vulnerable Onle.

A gay 14-year-old om Defiance, Oh, was vicly attacked at school last week when draped a Pri flag.

German Chavez was 14 years old when he first started g a gay datg app lled Grdr to fd adult men to pay him for need to help his troubled sgle mother pay the bills, he said, and had no trouble fdg men to purchase him on the popular lotn-based mobile 25 and years away om the sex tra, Chavez is warng other mors to stay away om Grdr, one of the most popular apps the untry for gay and bisexual men.

WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?

The pany touts s mobile platform as “The World’s Largt Social Networkg App for Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer People” and says s ers have to be 18 years old and the app is teemg wh unrage gay, bisexual and qutng boys, acrdg to rearchers, child exploatn specialists and ers like Chavez who say they n easily lie about their age to ga accs to the LGBTQ teens are seekg nnectn a world that provis few safe spac, rearchers say. More than half of sexually active gay and bisexual boys between the ag of 14 and 17 fd sexual partners on Grdr and other siar apps, acrdg to a 2018.

the Journal of the Amerin Amy of Child and Adolcent Psychiatry timatg that about one quarter of all gay and bisexual adolcent mal are g Grdr and siar apps — likely hundreds of thoands of youth natnwi.

He’s seen gay teens end up at an emergency room Boston — where he worked until last year — crisis after beg sexually exploed by men they met on Grdr yet too ashamed to seek help om other adults. There’s a history of anti-gay propaganda patg gay men as pedophil, he said, when there is no rearch to show they are more likely to be predators than others. But Turban says homophobia is also to blame for why LGBTQ youth have so few outlets to fd timacy and also why their victimizatn is so seldom talked about.

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

He says clicians and fay members should do more to talk to gay youth about the health and safety risks of datg apps. “The wild wt of the gay world”Grdr was created 2009 by Israeli-born, Tufts Universy graduate Joel Simkhai. Bradley Tyrrell, 35, of Newton says the app is a “double-edged sword” — a place to meet gay men but also wh many unknowns.

Kathryn Mapagal, a rearch profsor at Northwtern Universy, says she first asked teens about hook-up apps 2016 when she was preparg a sex tn program for gay and bisexual boys.

Her team nducted more surveys to talk about why they get on the apps — often gay and qutng teens lookg for muny a world that don’t wele them.