How n I meet other gay teens like myself?

Contents:

• GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
• HOW N I MEET OTHER GAY TEENS LIKE MYSELF?
• THE DIGAL SEX LIV OF YOUNG GAY TEENAGERS
• 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
• I THK MY 14 YEAR OLD IS 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.

Enuraggly, beg young and openly gay seems to be gettg easier.

HOW N I MEET OTHER GAY TEENS LIKE MYSELF?

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.

THE DIGAL SEX LIV OF YOUNG GAY TEENAGERS

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.

WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?

" 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.

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

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").

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

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].

1% of 9- and 10-year-olds say that they may be gay, bisexual, or transgenr, acrdg to a new study published JAMA Pediatrics.

2% of the participants said that they were gay or bi, and 0. 7% said that they were “maybe” gay or bi, and 0. 26% were found to be gay, bi, or transgenr.

I THK MY 14 YEAR OLD IS GAY

Related: Y, a 9-year-old n know they are gay.

7% said that their 9- or 10-year-old child is “maybe” gay or bi, and another 1.