Gay Kids Comg Out Younger, But Parents Ask "How Do You Know?"

Contents:

• WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?
• COMG OUT AS GAY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"
• GAY KIDS COMG OUT YOUNGER, BUT PARENTS ASK "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"
• "ALMOST LOOKS ILLEGAL": FAY DICK'S DADDY'S LTLE BOY GAY PORNOGRAPHY SERI AND ITS TOO-YOUNG LOOK
• TO BE YOUNG & GAY

WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?

Sung by a rtoon drag queen, the song prais fai wh gay, lbian, transgenr, and nonbary members, ncludg that “Ace, bi, and pan grownups, you see, n love each other so proudly. There are also the Care Bears phone s, Teletubbi Pri Collectn, Disney Rabow Gear, and gay Capta Ameri.

When do gay kids start “actg gay”? A Mnota school district is facg a Department of Jtice vtigatn and a private lawsu over s alleged failure to bat antigay bullyg. When do gay children start exhibg telltale signs?

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.

COMG OUT AS GAY IN ELEMENTARY 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.

There is no magil age at which children adopt stereotypilly gay behavr and keep to adulthood. Some mothers tell psychologists that they sensed their ltle boy was gay durg fancy. Some rearchers thk genr nonnformg children e their toys to rehearse for a gay adulthood.

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

Gay 3-year-old boys n’t verbalize their sire to be wh a man when they grow up—although many such children exhib cshlike behavr toward adult men—but they may be tryg to learn the behavr that will later attract a male partner.

”Dannielle Owens-Reid and Krist Rso, -founrs of Everyone Is Gay and -thors of This Is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids, attribute lower g-out ag to the power of reprentatn. The next generatn is growg up wh gay characters on their televisns, pansexual rappers on their playlists, and queer micro-muni on their Tumblr the change also means that there is a new generatn of fai scramblg to raise LGBT kids who have specific needs and challeng — kids who are growg up a society that, while creasgly LGBT-tolerant, is still plagued by hate crim, job discrimatn, and the more banal, everyday sort of homophobia borne by sual ignorance.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD SAYS: "I'M GAY"

“Beg gay was somethg I never really qutned, ” said Chloe Charbonne, a 12-year-old om Stockbridge, Massachetts.

”Like Kate Ree, Chloe spent early childhood sred and nfed about cshg on girls, pecially after beg lled an anti-gay slur for the first time the fourth gra. “From then on, I pretend to like boys, bee I thought that [gay] was a wrong thg to be. They first intified as gay, then, a few months later, also began intifyg as genrls (as a rult, Chloe now prefers “they” and “them” pronouns).

Amelia, a Midwtern mother of a 10-year-old boy who first began intifyg as gay when he was 7, said that her son’s unabashed outns tends to startle many adults who would rather not thk about children havg sexual sir. “When they thk of gay people, they thk of sexually active people, ” she said.

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

”Amelia, through her blog and teractns wh the adults her gay son’s life, tri to battle this stigma. “As a society, if we n open up our ia to what gay means, we n be a lot ls unfortable wh the ia of children intifyg, ” she said.

“Maybe he’s not really gay, ” adults have said to Amelia about her hears all the time too. “Before this current generatn of kids, children weren’t raised wh gay people, ” Amelia said.

"ALMOST LOOKS ILLEGAL": FAY DICK'S DADDY'S LTLE BOY GAY PORNOGRAPHY SERI AND ITS TOO-YOUNG LOOK

“They weren’t raised knowg what gay was. A lot of gay adults say, ‘I knew I was gay when I was krgarten, but I didn’t have the vobulary to scribe what I was.

TO BE YOUNG & GAY

"A lot of gay adults say, ‘I knew I was gay when I was krgarten, but I didn’t have the vobulary to scribe what I was.

”A uple of years ago, when she was 11, Kate cycled through the non-straight possibili before g out to her fay — was she gay? “Consirg how much more fluid the younger generatn is about sexualy, ” she said, “[Informatn about and accs to queer culture] shouldn’t only be ma available to gay intified children — should be [available] to all children. ” Kate’s mother, Ey, driv her to a LGBT youth group town, sce there’s no straight or gay alliance at her is proud of Kate for beg vol about her inty and passnate about LGBT issu.

”In Febary, Amelia blogged about the first time her son was met wh anti-gay sentiment: A boy his class told him that beg gay was illegal (somethg that boy picked up om his parents).