Coming Out Young

One of the single-most defining moments in each of our lives is that first step we take towards coming out. We each have experienced that awakening of our cognitive awarenesses in our little gay hearts that finally gives way to an actual, overt pronunciation of our sexual and gender identities. That "aha" moment seems to be coming sooner and sooner for LGBT people.

Many LGBTQ folks came out later in life. After all, many of us grew up in times and places that didn’t allow for the free, let alone early, expression of our sexual and gender identities. Many might not have even considered ourselves to be sexual beings at age 10 or 11, but kids today are not only aware of their budding sense of gay selves, but are actively advocating for the expression and exploration of their emerging identities. "It's about living in a time thankfully when people are able to talk. Older people had the same thoughts but maybe couldn't talk," offers Eliza Byard, Executive Director of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

It may be difficult to discern just how young LGBTQ kids are coming out today compared to previous generations, but several tell-tale signs show the trend pointing towards an identification with a particular orientation at age 11, 12 , and 13. “It does appear that youth are coming out at earlier ages,” offers Daryl Presgraves, Public Relations Manager of GLSEN. “The world has changed dramatically in the past generation, and it is hard to overestimate the impact that has had on LGBT youth,” Presgraves adds.

Indeed, those now in their 20’s and 30’s may have come out during high school or college and older generations report their coming out in their 20’s and 30’s, or older. Today’s youth are coming out not in college or even high school, but in junior high school. "Harassment is more pronounced in middle school than in high schools,” observes Byard, “because you see a lot of issues coming into play as students reach adolescence. Middle school years are when one's individual identity comes into focus."

A Benior Denizet-Lewis piece in a September 2009 New York Times Magazine article, “Coming Out in Junior High School,” observed acutely the trending towards earlier recognition and expression of sexual identity. In the article Denizet-Lewis recounts his observations as he follows around 13-year old Oklahoma native, Austin, a young adolescent who is out and proud, with regular attendance at a community center that offers services for LGBTQ youth, and even a boyfriend to boot. Austin was 11 years old when he decided he couldn’t stay in the closet his whole life and made plans to come out to his family and school mates and others. For those of us that had these conversations with ourselves in our late teens or twenties or thirties or older, cases like Austin's may come as a shock - and a relief - that the next generation of gay children have voices that are being heard at younger and younger ages- and in increasingly rural and formerly homophobic places.

“A good school is a good school no matter where,“ said Byard. Park School, a progressive primary K-12 school in Brookline, Massachusetts started a GSA in their middle school five years ago. “We're proud of our middle school GSA, believe in the importance of addressing LGBTQ issues with middle school students, and would like to share our experiences with others,” offered GSA faculty advisors Katherine Callard and Alan Rivera. 13-year old Shakeena (whose name has been changed, as she would like to remain anonymous) attends a public middle school in Brooklyn and is a member of the GSA. "I think it's important to have a gay-straight alliance so that we can know that our peers support us and we can have security. You know that they got our back."

More than 120 junior high schools across the country have formed GSAs, with 4,700 schools total registered with GLSEN, and each year the number of students participating in the Day of Silence, the national day where students remain silent in school to symbolize the impact of anti-gay discrimination, increases.

The significance of folks coming out younger is not simply a positive byproduct of increased exposure to LGBTQ people in pop culture or the average earlier age at which kids are encountering sexual experiences. Rather, this phenomenon only begins to accommodate what for decades has been the burden of our community and the disproportionate number of teenage suicides due to one’s sexuality or presumed sexuality and the inability to express it in one’s home, school, or community. More than 80% of LGBTQ middle school students, in fact, as per a 2007 GLSEN survey, reported that they had been harassed because of their sexual identity.

Today, we have Hilary Duff and Wanda Sykes featured in GLSEN and the Ad Council's “Think Before You Speak” campaign, targeted at teens to help promote increased tolerance of LGBTQ youth. We have Saturday morning TV shows on network television with a gay kid not as a stock character, but rather as one of the main actors. Issues that face gay youth are being addressed in a more honest and representational way on the screen than ever before.

GLSEN represents, perhaps, the epitome of ongoing efforts to protect our nation’s gay youth. The organizational aims to help keep students safe and, “envisions a world in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.” GLSEN is presently working with the National Safe Schools Partnership to secure protection for students from bullying on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression with schools that receive federal funding from the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. There are presently only 12 states that have laws protecting students on the basis of sexual and gender identity.

What will it mean to have kids come out even earlier? How about as early as Elementary school? The question begs, if the trend continues, will we eventually reach a point when we will no longer need to “come out” but rather everyone just is and all are encouraged to nurture their unique identities- whatever they may be- from the earliest conceivable age? This idealized paradigm is certainly not one that we’re likely to see in the short-term, but we might be just fine settling for increased acceptance and a decrease in the number of related suicides and murders.

"It's important not to forget the responsibility adults have," said Byard. While progressive students are doing much towards their own plight, we must remember that there is much work that needs to be done to further our efforts so that it might one day be safe for all LGBTQ youth to come out. Go research your own junior high school to see if a GSA currently exists and, if not, perhaps you can aid in setting one up!

Photo credit: albany_tim