For most kids, the social prsur of middle school are tough enough. But an creasg number of young teenagers, some as young 10 or 11, are g out as gay or lbian middle school. Beno Denizet-Lewis, who wrote about the trend the New York Tim Magaze, discs what social factors uld be leadg young people to e out earlier.
Contents:
- MEET THE MIDDLE'S SUPER-STEREOTYPIL GAY CHARACTER
- GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
- COLORADO MOM SAYS 9-YEAR-OLD SON WHO CAME OUT AS GAY DIED BY SUICI AFTER SCHOOL BULLYG
- GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
- CHILD STAR STGGLED TO E OUT AFTER PLAYG ‘THE GAY KID’ ‘SCHOOL OF ROCK’
MEET THE MIDDLE'S SUPER-STEREOTYPIL GAY CHARACTER
Recently, televisn has been pretty good about showg realistic gay characters, but then sometim we are thrown a curveball. Wh exaggerated facial exprsns and a proment lisp, The Middle's Brad is that curveball. * gay kid from the middle *
Recently, televisn has been pretty good about showg realistic gay characters, but then sometim we are thrown a curveball. Are people who e out as gay their teens sted to face rejectn, bullyg and inty crisis? MARTIN: Now, how did you notice this trend of younger and younger children intifyg themselv as gay?
You mentned the piece that you are a gay man. 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.
GAY YOUTH COMG OUT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
* gay kid from the middle *
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. You know, recent studi are showg that kids are self-intifyg as gay anywhere om 13 to 16.
The other realy is that 's still very difficult for a lot of gay kids to be out middle school. 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.
You say, look, on the one hand, is an eighth-grar who says he's gay jt experimentg? If sexualy is so fluid, should he really box himself wh a gay inty? But you say that when to kids who say that they are gay, 's almost like we want to talk them out of .
COLORADO MOM SAYS 9-YEAR-OLD SON WHO CAME OUT AS GAY DIED BY SUICI AFTER SCHOOL BULLYG
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.
You know, I'm gog to try beg gay for a ltle while.
GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
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 . You know, granted I lived San Francis, but none of my iends were gay, or none of the kids my age were gay.
There were still not a lot of posive portrayals of gay and lbian life televisn. 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.
CHILD STAR STGGLED TO E OUT AFTER PLAYG ‘THE GAY KID’ ‘SCHOOL OF ROCK’
MARTIN: The unique and not-so-unique challeng of raisg a gay teen. A 9-year-old Colorado boy who died by suici last week had been bullied at school after announcg over the summer that he was gay and exprsg his sire to share the news wh his classmat, his mother said.
Pierce said her son told her over the summer that he was gay while they were together her r and he was ridg the back seat. “He was like, ‘Mom I’m gay, ’ ” she said, reports KDVR.