How do you feel about kids coming out at a young age?

[Toy-Boy]

I think most gay men and women will tell you that they knew that they were gay from any early age. However, the masses/society refuse to believe otherwise, and it never ceases to amaze me how straight people try and tell gay people that didn't know that they were gay or that they chose to be gay. However, heterosexual children grow up and are able to have healthy relationships/crushed on the opposite sex.

As we pave the way for social progress, we see each new generation more and more comfortable with their sexuality. How do you feel about this?

 

[braex27]

I think people necessarily come out when they are ready - for some, exposure to sex and sexuality at an earlier age of development may assist in their realisation and identity and if they are comfortable with coming out and declaring who they are, kudos.

 

[RobinGoodfellow]

I think that coming out before you're old enough to drink is too early. I know it sounds weird, but you've got to allow for kids that are just experimenting and aren't really sure that they are gay or those that are just on the team temporarily.

Straight up: If we're talking something that's an important part of their identity,I'd rather be sure about it and that it's not just an adolescent infatuation that the kid ends up paying for the rest of his life.

RG

 

[JOHN B]

^^I knew that I was gay when I was a kid.....but it wasn't until age 12 or so that I went from saying to myself...."I like guys"....to saying "OH!....I like GUYS!!!!!", at that time realizing the impact of the fact that I was "different".
Of course...to support your view....I have known of people who were attracted to both guys and girls in their younger years, but grew to like only girls as they hit their late teens and onward. Though, I don't understand it, I guess sexuality can be more fluid than we might want to admit.......
So, to answer the original question, I think it's really cool that kids are able to have a little more (though not as much as we want to believe) support and acceptance about their open sexuality.

 

[saymyname]

I knew I was gay when I was 12, if not earlier, and I wanted to talk about it / say so at the time, but I knew I couldn't for fear of social repercussions. To the guy who said that people shouldn't come out before the drinking age - meaning 21 since you live in the US - are you totally insane, or is it just me? I came out when I was 16/17... some friends knew as early as 15. I absolutely HATED being in the closet and coming out when I did was one of the best decisions I ever made, and like everyone else says, I wish I would have done it even earlier. The point isn't that young people should come out, be gay, never question identity, and move to a big city with a gay village ASAP... The point is that they should be able to come out without fear of losing friends, being made fun of, being rejected, kicked out of their house, disowned by their parents and family, etc. It's not about sealing an identity. But being gay isn't something everyone has to come to terms with in the way that some do - I would argue that the confusion period is more to do with not wanting to accept it because of homophobia than anything to do with how being gay actually works. I knew I was fucking GAY when I was 12 and noticed I was attracted to other boys and not girls. I knew it even BEFORE then, before it was blatantly sexual, because even then I still liked other boys more! It's simple, sometimes. People should have the opportunity. I think it would be great if people could start coming out younger and younger. In a completely equal and ideal society, it wouldn't even be necessary to come OUT as gay, because really people should not assume that their kids or their friends are straight in the first place.

 

[boiseboy]

I think that coming out before you're old enough to drink is too early. I know it sounds weird, but you've got to allow for kids that are just experimenting and aren't really sure that they are gay or those that are just on the team temporarily.

Straight up: If we're talking something that's an important part of their identity,I'd rather be sure about it and that it's not just an adolescent infatuation that the kid ends up paying for the rest of his life.

RG

21 is a little extreme. I knew exactly what i was at 16.

 

[theatreboi]

I officially came out starting at age 13/14, meaning the summer I turned 14. I had given head and knew I liked guys at age 12. I actually had an inkling I was homo around 5th grade, but didn't know what it was. So, I guess I'm ok with kids around that age coming out. Occasionally I thought I might actually be straight, but nothing ever lasted. I know people who didn't come out till they were in their late teens/early 20s who later thought they might actually be straight, but weren't. I also know some guys who came out in their mid-teens and later went straight. I don't think it ever really affected them.

I say, if a kid is ready to come out when he's 10, then he's ready, and there's nothing that should prevent him, especially not adults telling him he's too young to know for sure.

 

[CudDULL]

I'm glad that there are kids coming out at an earlier age, I think it means that there is progress with accepting homosexuality if younger kids now feel more comfortable to be open about their sexuality. I'm hungry so I'm going to eat mashed potatoes after I type this post.

 

[maxpowr9]

I knew I was 100% gay when I entered high school. I didn't come out until I was 17 though. Personally, I think most people develop some sort of idea on what their sexuality is when they hit puberty.

 

[mydrew1]

The younger the better in my view

 

[fed1983]

I feel proud and in a way jealous of guys coming out so young.

Jealous because I missed out so much for starting to come out of the closet when I was 21 (now I'm 26). I came out to mom when I was 23, but in that case I don't regret it cos I made it when I was ready, and especially when SHE was ready.

But I regret not having had gay friends and going to gay venues when I was 18 for example, I would have enjoyed myself so much. I first went to a gay bar, and had a proper gay friend only when I was 22

 

[kevbo]

I'm all for children coming out at a young age. It says that being gay is more than just having sex with your same sex.

 

[Swellegant]

If we're talking something that's an important part of their identity,I'd rather be sure about it and that it's not just an adolescent infatuation that the kid ends up paying for the rest of his life.

Emphasis mine... RG, it sounds like you're saying that being gay is a bad thing, that you will be ruined for life if you come out as gay, that if you grow and develop in a different way afterward you won't be able to shake the terrible stigma of gayitude.

I'm sure that's not what you meant. That being gay is only OK so long as you have no other choices. You didn't mean that, did you?

I was always out: I mean I never had to tell anybody I was gay... I just looked and sounded gay, and never bothered denying it; but the first time I said it aloud to someone was at age 15. And I don't see how it made my life any worse than if I had lied about it...better an honest pariah than an accepted fake.

But it was horribly lonely, not knowing any other gay people when I was young. I mean, I knew they existed, that I wasn't the only one... but I never met any. But just in a numbers game, as many people as there were at my middle and high schools (1,250 and 3,300 respectively), there should have been at least a dozen fellow travelers in there. But not until my senior year, when I transfered to an arts magnet, did I meet another out gay person.

If young gays can be there for each other (and to be there, they have to be recognizable to each other), there would be a lot less suicide and drug-abuse, a lot more safety and healthy relationships (platonic and romantic). I think it's a great thing to come out young: the more the merrier!

 

[Croynan]

September 27, 2009

The School Issue: Junior High

Coming Out in Middle School

By BENOIT DENIZET-LEWIS
Austin didn’t know what to wear to his first gay dance last spring. It was bad enough that the gangly 13-year-old from Sand Springs, Okla., had to go without his boyfriend at the time, a 14-year-old star athlete at another middle school, but there were also laundry issues. “I don’t have any clean clothes!” he complained to me by text message, his favored method of communication.

When I met up with him an hour later, he had weathered his wardrobe crisis (he was in jeans and a beige T-shirt with musical instruments on it) but was still a nervous wreck. “I’m kind of scared,” he confessed. “Who am I going to talk to? I wish my boyfriend could come.” But his boyfriend couldn’t find anyone to give him a ride nor, Austin explained, could his boyfriend ask his father for one. “His dad would give him up for adoption if he knew he was gay,” Austin told me. “I’m serious. He has the strictest, scariest dad ever. He has to date girls and act all tough so that people won’t suspect.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27out-t.html?ref=magazine​

eM.

 

[LoveIsNow]

Happy for them, but jealous. I might have actually liked High School if I'd been out for it.

 

[luminum]

Coming out early is great and all, but what's often overlooked is damage control from coming out earlier. Kids who come out earlier are far less likely to be able to handle any serious negative consequences that arise from doing so. They are less likely to be able to support themselves. They are less likely to be able to defend themselves ideologically and physically.

This means that if kids come out and are kicked out of their home or run away, the younger they are, the less likely it is that they'll be able to pick themselves up and start anew. A 13 year-old probably won't be able to get a job, find a place to stay, and be able to maintain their academic performance. If you come out early and you don't have a secure plan, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble.

And despite that, we encourage/support kids coming out earlier and earlier while we pay little attention to creating resources for them if things go wrong. You can count the number of LGBT-focused youth homeless shelters in this country with your two hands. They receive little funding, little attention, and have such limited resources. Kids who get kicked out will naturally gravitate where? Big cities with reputations for being gay friendly--San Francisco, New York, Chicago. But what we all know about these cities is that they are incredibly expensive to live in. Kids with no ability to support themselves migrate to these cities hoping to find acceptance and start a new life and find that no one will give them a job or a place to stay. And even with a job, living is so expensive that they can't maintain any kind of decent lifestyle. Shelters may be incredibly homophobic (stories about kids having to wear clothing that singles them out as gay, or where they're turned away abound) so these kids wind up penniless and in the streets. That's why the majority of homeless teens are LGBT.

So where do they turn? Survivor sex and drug use. They turn to prostitution in order to acquire the basic things they need. Instead of money they may sleep with someone who will give them food and clothing or even a roof to sleep under for a night. A person may give them more money or clothing if they agree to have unprotected sex. They may pay them more to do drugs with them while they have sex. And if you're cold and starving, what are you going to do? Are you going to freeze and starve, or are you going to take a chance to make it one more day?

This is why among homeless teens, rates of STIs and drug use are so high. It's an absolute nightmare. And once these kids catch something like HIV, the system keeps failing them. They have no home, no income, and no way to pay for medical treatment. The lucky few who get connected to a program that can help them are just that--the lucky few.

So kids coming out earlier is great, but it's pretty pointless if we can't even make sure that they have real institutional support. Emotional support is great and important, but resources and safety are even more crucial for this age group. Locate an LGBT youth program or shelter out there and give your time or your money. Get involved. That way, kids coming out earlier will be more of a cause to celebrate than it will be a cause to be concerned.

 

[Swellegant]

I agree to a certain point, but I really think we need to assign the blame where it belongs. It's not the children coming out that's the problem, it's the parents kicking their children out of the house that's the problem. And though the institutional support must be there, it is the legal responsibility of the parents to provide it, no matter what.

Something a lot of people don't understand, and which very few police departments will enforce, is that it is illegal to put your child out of the house. That's child abandonment, and it's a crime. The answer is not to shove those kids back in the closet, the answer is to retrain parents out of thinking they have rights in that matter.

But certainly, I would never counsel a child to come out to his parents if there was a reasonable chance the parents would flip out. But if that child knew that he wasn't alone at his school or in his town, if other people his own age were out, too, he wouldn't feel that hopelessness that I and countless others have felt, that same hopelessness that sends them fleeing to a life of privation and degradation that can only appear an improvement on what they left behind.

 

[looseliam]

Happy for them, but jealous. I might have actually liked High School if I'd been out for it.

My sentiments exactly.

 

[luminum]

I agree to a certain point, but I really think we need to assign the blame where it belongs. It's not the children coming out that's the problem, it's the parents kicking their children out of the house that's the problem. And though the institutional support must be there, it is the legal responsibility of the parents to provide it, no matter what.

Something a lot of people don't understand, and which very few police departments will enforce, is that it is illegal to put your child out of the house. That's child abandonment, and it's a crime. The answer is not to shove those kids back in the closet, the answer is to retrain parents out of thinking they have rights in that matter.

But that's why "runaways" are included when you discuss LGBT homelessness. Even if kids aren't kicked out, that does not ensure safety. If their parents begin forcing them to go to psychologists or engage in other extreme behavior that walks the line of "abusiveness" then a kid can be shit out of luck. Kids could be forced to undergo reparative therapy or live in a perpetual familial nightmare and because of all fo that, they choose to run away.

We don't live in a society that enforces rights of LGBT adolescents. Queer kids are either kicked out or forced to live in a home that makes them feel severely unsafe. Lucky kids have parents who just need time to adjust or need to work out their feelings, but problems aren't always solved just by having a place to stay. Even though the APA recently came out against reparative therapy, it's still a legal practice and the announcement is extremely new.

Don't get me wrong. My post isn't saying that kids coming out earlier is the problem. The problem is that we're encouraging incredibly courageous and risky action without also providing any kind of safety for these kids while being fully aware that the problems with the social climate will take time to assist them. They are our own, and since we share the same struggle and they will inevitably continue our fight, we need to make sure that we take care of them when no one else will. Of course that includes education efforts to prevent abandonment or in-home abuse, but those efforts take much more time to diffuse into the social order and mindset.

Greater institutional support manages to take care of the problem as measures are being in place to prevent it. It is the most effective way to reach kids who fall under all of those situations. It will provide much needed shelter for abandoned kids so they don't have to turn to other options that put their health and lives at risk, and it can provide resources for kids who need to be away from their homes.

 

[SonOfSlobone]

As always with coming out, the question isn't so much Whether as Where, When, How and To Whom.

I would never advise anybody under 16 to come out, because there aren't many kids that age who can handle the consequences.

From 16-18, I think it depends on how strong a person you are at that point, and how confident you are that your family will support you.

Over 18, I think most guys are ready.

As for To Whom, parents in particular are tricky at any age. If you think they'll have a strong negative reaction, don't come out to them as long as you're dependent on them, financially or otherwise.

Friends are usually pretty safe to come out to, on the grounds that if they drop you because of it, they're weren't really your friends to begin with. Of course you have to understand the principle that once you tell a secret to somebody, even your best friend, it's no longer yours to keep.

Teachers can go either way. I'd say proceed with caution.

But of course the most important person to come out to is Yourself. If you haven't done that yet, that should always be the first step. Once you've truly accepted it, you'd be surprised how much easier the other steps are.