Coming Out In Middle School

Yikes. I just read this article from the New York Times about kids in middle school coming out of the closet.

If I wasn't forced out of the closet a few months ago when my parents found my "stash," there is no way in hell that I would tell them. Not now.

I know, because I read gay-positive blogs and I read articles from the advocate, that the gay community tends to call people in the closet weak or whatever. But my parents know I'm gay, and it's made my life really tough.

I got sent to a therapist. My parents don't trust me to do anything on my own. My mom lets me play soccer and do the academic techathalon team...but she thinks that show choir or school musical takes up too much of my time.

My dad told me that I couldn't possibly know that I was gay because I had never tried sleeping with a woman. When I told him that he couldn't possibly know he was straight unless he tried sleeping with a man, he backhanded me.

Coming out in middle school opens gay kids up to criticism from adults (the most damaging kind)...when a boy tells his parents he has the hots for another girl, they are encouraging. But if that same boy tells his parents he has a crush on another boy, parents question him...they say it's just a phase. It's not fair.

Here's a piece of the article:

I heard similar accounts from those who work with gay youth all across the country. Though most adolescents who come out do so in high school, sex researchers and counselors say that middle-school students are increasingly coming out to friends or family or to an adult in school. Just how they’re faring in a world that wasn’t expecting them — and that isn’t so sure a 12-year-old can know if he’s gay — is a complicated question that defies simple geographical explanations. Though gay kids in the South and in rural areas tend to have a harder time than those on the coasts, I met gay youth who were doing well in socially conservative areas like Tulsa and others in progressive cities who were afraid to come out.

My experience is the opposite. None of my friends know. Only my parents. When I read this part of the article I started thinking, "Would I trade? Would I rather have one or two friends know instead of my parents?" And truthfully, I can't tell you for sure that I'd prefer someone at school to know.

My favorite part of the article is this:

"Still, the younger they are when they come out, the more that youth with same-sex attractions face an obstacle that would be unimaginable to their straight peers. When a 12-year-old boy matter-of-factly tells his parents — or a school counselor — that he likes girls, their reaction tends not to be one of disbelief, dismissal or rejection. 'No one says to them: ‘Are you sure? You’re too young to know if you like girls. It’s probably just a phase,’'' says Eileen Ross, the director of the Outlet Program, a support service for gay youth in Mountain View, Calif. 'But that’s what we say too often to gay youth. We deny them their feelings and truth in a way we would never do with a heterosexual young person.'"