The forces that kept many older generations confined to the closet until college and beyond - fear of intolerance, self-loathing over unidentifiable feelings of otherness, living without exposure or access to other LGBT people - are steadily losing their power. On one hand, LGBT people coming out at increasingly younger ages is a testament to American culture becoming less hostile toward queer people. “The information age has removed barrier that prevented earlier generations of LGBT adults from figuring out who they were,” Ryan said. “People are coming out younger because they’re seeing themselves, finally, in mass media.”Īs public favor for LGBT rights steadily grows, the number of resources for those who are queer or questioning undergoes tangential upswings. She cited television contemporary shows with queer characters like Orange Is the New Black, One Big Happy, and Orphan Black. “The media is starting to celebrate different kinds of families and identities that didn’t use to be celebrated at all,” Owens-Reid said. “And it’s dropping down even more.”ĭannielle Owens-Reid and Kristin Russo, co-founders of Everyone Is Gay and co-authors of This Is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids, attribute lower coming-out ages to the power of representation. “We found the average age of coming out was a little over 13,” she told BuzzFeed News. at San Francisco State University’s Family Acceptance Project who has been researching LGBT adolescents for over 25 years, began extensive outreach and in-depth interviews with queer youth in the early 2000's. While studies in the 1970s documented LGBT people coming out, on average, in their early twenties, the latest research demonstrates that the average age has dropped to anywhere between 14 and 16. Kids like Kate Reese have been coming out as LGBT at increasingly younger ages. Now I know people like me are out there.” I thought something was wrong with me until I saw all this research. “Now I understand LGBT terms, and that it’s not a choice. “Now I understand what ‘queer’ means, because all of the information is online,” said Reese, who privately started identifying herself as queer sometime in the fourth grade. But she was able to seek the language to describe herself, and assuage her worries, in a way older LGBT people never could - she had the internet. Reese may have gone quite a few more years thinking that the innocent schoolyard crushes she harbored were indications of her deviance. “I saw girls holding hands and thought, I could go for that. “I began realizing I wasn’t necessarily straight when I was around 5 or 6,” Reese said. There is no blood test or other for sure way of telling if someone is gay.Kate Reese, a 13-year-old living in Reno, Nevada, used to think there was something wrong with her.
They can’t believe what their teen is telling them. Parents sometimes bring their teen to the doctor wanting a ‘diagnosis’. Some teens will tell a sibling or cousin before they tell a parent, and often they will choose one parent to tell first.
If there is a homosexual theme in a comic strip or on a TV show, you can have a discussion about that, hopefully finding a way to let your son or daughter know that they are loved no matter what their orientation. Some teens are not ready to announce their sexuality until they are adults. However, sometimes what you think to be true is not.
Sometimes parents suspect that their teen is gay. They may hate the idea that they are ‘lying’ by not telling their parents, but they also worry about how their parents will react. It can be very difficult for teens to decide to tell their parents about their homosexual identity.
Few opportunities to socialize with other teens who are having similar feelings.