Gay Youth Comg Out In Middle School : NPR

Contents:

• UNSEEN, PART 3: POPULAR GAY DATG APP GRDR POS EXPLOATN RISK TO MORS
• GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
• WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?
• APPLE APPROV 'ONLY GAY SOCIAL APP FOR AG 12 AND UP'
• MY 14 YEAR OLD GAY SON IS SEEING A 17 YEAR OLD
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• THE DIGAL SEX LIV OF YOUNG GAY TEENAGERS
• 12-YEAR-OLD'S IENDS DIDN'T CELEBRATE AFTER HE ME OUT AS GAY. SO A PARK FULL OF STRANGERS DID
• GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

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

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.

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 study by Northwtern Universy rearchers. Turban recently -published an article 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.

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

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. He says he has received some phback om members of the gay muny about his foc on Grdr, when there are so many s targetg children. 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. He says clicians and fay members should do more to talk to gay youth about the health and safety risks of datg apps. 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. Chavez says he first turned to Grdr middle school hopg to learn om others about what means to be gay, qutns he uldn’t answer at home.

WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?

“Jt bee I was troduced to this one guy who probably isn’t gay and jt is a pedophile, like, don’t mean that that’s how the muny is, ” he said.

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

“That’s the sry part about Grdr, that n be, like, lerally a guy who don’t intify as gay and jt lik kids.

"That’s the sry part about Grdr, that n be, like, lerally a guy who don’t intify as gay and jt lik kids. “When you’re alg wh the vulnerabili of somebody who’s gay and who's velopg our society, ’s tenfold more difficult and more imprsnable, ’’ she said. Kimberly Nelson, a profsor of Communy Health Scienc at the Boston Universy School of Public Health, says s natural for gay teens to head to Grdr to explore their sexualy.

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

”Chris Bat, a Worcter-based traffickg survivor and advote, wish he had been given more warngs about sex traffickg school when he was gay youth livg ral Connecticut. 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. 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.

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

" But she had actually asked At if he was gay when she found out he had lled a gay chat le.

THE DIGAL SEX LIV OF YOUNG GAY TEENAGERS

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").

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

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. And maybe today's gay kids are slowly startg to receive via New York Tim Out In Middle School [NYT Magaze]. A Mnota school district is facg a Department of Jtice vtigatn and a private lawsu over s alleged failure to bat antigay bullyg.

A hefty pile of rearch shows that boys as young as 3 years old who break om tradnal genr rol have a high likelihood of beg gay adults.

GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

) The relatnship isn’t one-to-one, however, and ’s certaly not the se that all boys who love Barbie dolls will later intify as gay. The rrelatn is much weaker the other directn: A disproportnate number of boys who don’t nform to genr stereotyp turn out to be gay men, but lots of gay men played wh G.

Thirty of them beme gay or bisexual adults while jt one child om a 34-member genr-nformg ntrol group turned out to be gay.

The subjects who strayed the most om nventnally boyish behavr were the most likely to be gay.