Coming Out in Middle School
Benoit Denizet-Lewis reports in his New York Times Magazine article “Coming Out in Middle School” that more and more middle-school students are openly gay. “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,” Denizet-Lewis writes. Though a 2007 study showed that 81 percent of the 626 gay, bisexual, and transgender middle-school students surveyed “reported being regularly harassed on campus because of their sexual orientation,” and only 12 states have passed laws “to protect students from bullying and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression,” times are changing. According to Denizet-Lewis, being young and gay is “no longer an automatic prescription of a traumatic childhood.”
- As the director of a support service for gay youth said in the article, “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,’ . . . 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.” What does it mean to deny someone their feelings? How would it make you feel if someone denied you your feelings?
- After reading a number of studies “about when gay and lesbian youth first report an awareness of same-sex attraction,” Denizard-Lewis learned that even “though most didn’t self-identify as gay or lesbian until they were 14, 15, or 16, the mean age at which they first became aware of that attraction was 10.” Given the results of these studies, why do some people still question whether a 12-year-old can know if he’s gay? Why don’t they question whether a 12-year-old can know if he’s straight? Is this a double standard? What does this say about our view of adolescents? What does it suggest about society’s view of what it means to be gay?
- Denizet-Lewis asks: “Is an eighth grader who says he’s gay just experimenting? Could he change his mind in a week, as 13-year-olds routinely do with other identities – skater, prep, goth, jock . . . ? And if sexuality is so fluid, should he really box himself in with a gay identity?” Does experimenting with sexuality have a positive or negative connotation in this article? Why do you think experimenting is viewed that way? What does it mean to “box yourself in?” Why do you think it is acceptable to “box yourself in” with some identities, but not with others? What are the differences between these identities?
- With more middle school students coming out, schools have been forced to address such problems as anti-gay language and bullying—and many schools have found themselves to be “totally unprepared.” After reading the article, what are some of the challenges you think schools might have to address if more of their students are openly gay? A middle school counselor was quoted as saying that “anti-gay language . . . [is] so imbedded in middle-school culture.” Would you agree? What could you do to help address this problem?
- In recent years, many in the gay community have reclaimed the word “queer,” which used to be understood as an insult. Why do you think the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) community has reclaimed this word? Do you think someone who is not gay can use the word “queer” to describe gay people?
