By now you probably all of read the story in the New York Times Magazine by Benoit Denizet-Lewis about tweens coming out in middle school, right? What do you all think about these gay tweens?

I kinda think it’s great. I mean, really great. Generally middle school is a time when queer kids get depressed and hate most of the world, but not for these kids. Look at how fun their gay tween dance is!!!

Not that I don’t have my skepticism about an 11 year old’s ability to comprehend sexual identity, but as the article notes:

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.”

Q: what kind of fucking asshole would I have to be to tell these kids they can’t know who they are?

A: One really big fucking asshole, the same kind that grows up and makes gay people’s lives miserable. So shut the fuck up and let them define themselves and figure this stuff out.

So even when I question the long term truth of the high number of kids in this article identifying so readily as bisexual, I chalk it up to “kids being kids” and discovering who they are. The fact that this generation even has a lexicon to identify queer sexual feelings is impressive, and, I think, very important. I can’t help but notice how AWARE these kids are of the fluidity of their own identities at this age, as one student, Alison, says, “We can’t even keep up with who’s gay or bi and who’s into who, and we go to school here!”

It seems like these kids might even be aware of some of issues that complicate adult queer life and identities. The following paragraph could pretty accurately describe any age group of queers in relation to mainstream society:

In particular, openly gay youth who are perceived as conforming to adolescent gender norms are often fully integrated into their peer and school social circles. Girls who come out as bisexual but are still considered “feminine” are often immune from harassment, as are some gay boys, like Laddie, who come out but are still considered “masculine.” “Bisexual girls have it the easiest,” Austin told me in Oklahoma. “Most of the straight guys at school think that’s hot, so that can make the girl even more popular.

I had so much internalized homophobia, it took me until after high school to come out. I have friends who didn’t come out until their mid 20s. I can’t help but wonder what sort of person I would be if I had spent middle school and high school somewhat well adjusted about myself and my sexuality. I laughed when Alison and Justin give Benoit a tour of the school to identify the gays and bisexuals with the terms “paws” and “woof” respectively, and end up speculating that their school is full of confused bisexuals and gays. Their behavior — these attempts to navigate the fairly complicated world of human sexuality — at 11 seems to mirror some of mine when I was 18. The world I grew up in seems alien in comparison, and I was lucky to grow up in a liberal area that had one of the ealier Gay Straight Alliances. My world in the 90s must have seemed pretty alien to the previous generation — the rate of change is astounding.

It’s really inspiring to be living at a time when a segment of the population, considered doomed to a life of loneliness, blamed for a worldwide epidemic, and told that part of who they are is a “choice” that condemns them to hell, can finally grow up, just maybe, feeling good about themselves and with the sort of emotional milestones during adolescence that are more easily experience by their straight counterparts. This starts to look like change I can believe in. It was enough to provoke a tear or two by the end of the article.

This optimism and these emotions could be just what the author wants me to feel. It’s hard to take stock in few case studies presented in this article when hate crimes towards trans, gays, and lesbians appears to be on the rise. There’s a lot of work to be done, and a couple case studies do not necessarily reflect a sea change in national attitudes.

It’s good to see that some things about the teen gay experience haven’t changes since my adolescence:

It’s not uncommon for gay youth to have their same-sex attraction discovered thanks to a rogue number on a phone bill or, more often these days, a poorly concealed Internet search history. “We see a lot of kids get outed by porn on the computer,” Tim Gillean told me in Tulsa. “I knew one kid who told his mom: ‘I don’t know how that got there. Maybe it was dad!’”

And we only had dial-up. I can only imagine what I would have been looking at if high speed connections had existed. Jesus, I would have got in trouble.

One Response to “What Do Ya’ll Think About Gay Tweens?”

1. richard Says:
   October 31st, 2009 at 9:51 am

   my 12 year old daughter (i’m a gay man, living in nyc) casually told me that there’s a gay/straight alliance in her middle school (she’s in 7th grade).

   she tossed this info out like it was a shop or basket weaving class. no biggie…

   amazing how much things have changed.

   [reply this comment]

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