By Eun Kyung Kim
 

Introduction

Chris Krug had thought she was a lesbian from the time she was 8, but she felt certain after developing a serious crush on her best friend.

She was in the fifth grade at the time.

Krug formally came out a year later, as she started Ritenour Middle School. She casually mentioned it to a classmate on a Sunday. By Monday, students were shouting “Christina’s a lesbian,” down the hallways at school.

“It was probably not the best way to go about it, but it happened,” said Krug, now 16. “It was tough for a few months and then people were

Young people are coming out at earlier ages than they used to. In a society that increasingly promotes tolerance and diversity, many gay teens feel it unnecessary to stay closeted to peers accustomed to seeing openly gay individuals in school, politics and especially in the media.

To be sure, verbal and physical bullying are still a concern for gay teens. Many say they still hear homophobic remarks from teachers and classmates at school, where “gay” or “queer” continues to be part of a common insult slung by adolescents.

Web Sites Offer Support

But gay kids now have numerous Web sites they can turn to for support. And they find others like themselves represented on the big and small screen. While the gay community used to be portrayed as a fringe society, full of alcoholics and drug addicts, today gays and lesbians are shown as part of mainstream society. They are regular characters on popular television shows such as “Will & Grace,” “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and “Desperate Housewives.” The first-season “Survivor” winner, Richard Hatch, is gay. And MTV introduced many of today’s young adults to its first gay pop icon, Pedro Zamora, the HIV-positive roommate in the popular second season of “The Real World.”

“As the representations of gay people changed from being somebody who was a bottom feeder to the girl or boy next door, it became increasingly safe for young people to identify those feelings. But they also realized that it could be them,” said clinical social worker Caitlin Ryan of San Francisco State University.

Ryan spent the last four years researching lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. Her study found that the average age of teens coming out was just over age 13, a slight decrease from the late 1980s and early 1990s, when teens came out between ages 14 and 16. During the 1970s, most gay teens waited until they became adults to come out.

Gay-Straight Alliances

Helping many gay teens shed their stigma and gain confidence has been the recent national explosion of gay-straight alliances, or GSAs, at middle and high schools. The St. Louis area has about two dozen of them, although some are under the guise of a diversity club, said Dennis Niceley, co-chair of the area’s Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

The strength and presence of the gay community made it easier for people like Bruce Lindstrom to help create the Point Foundation, which provides scholarships and mentors to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth.

“Ten, 20, 30 years ago, they’d say, ‘Here are some older adults helping these young children’ and people would think, ‘Oh, we’re predatory, we’re not just normal human beings helping other human beings,'” said Lindstrom, who started the foundation in 2001 with his partner, Carl Strickland. “We’re seeing a shift in that.”

Concerns of Social Conservatives

But the recent boon of gay support groups, the popularity of gay student alliances and the depiction of gay teens in the media concerns social conservatives.

“There’s definitely an absolute push in Hollywood, in the sitcom world, to really normalize and legitimize homosexual relationships and homosexuality. Because it’s so prominent on television, we’re talking about it more and there’s more acceptance of it,” said Alan Chambers, president of Orlando-based Exodus International, an evangelical organization that tries to guide gay people toward heterosexuality. As a result, Exodus created a youth component six years ago.

“We thought, rather than wait until they were immersed in a homosexual identity and wanting help, let’s catch them before they have to make a decision,” said Chambers, who as a gay teenager, said he was “devastated” when a guidance counselor told him he could not change the fact that he was gay.

Exodus is combating the proliferation of GSAs with “Truth and Tolerance” clubs and conferences intended to help youth pastors and teachers counsel teens with questions about their sexual identity.

Caitlin Edmonds, 18, dismisses such conferences. The recent graduate from Francis Howell North High School said she came out as a lesbian during her sophomore year after trying to date boys because it was expected of her.

“I didn’t want to say completely ‘no’ until I had experienced it,” she said. “But once I started meeting other gay people, I said, ‘Hey, that’s how I feel. This makes sense.'”

Tired of Pretending

That’s how Anthony Smith, 18, felt when he came out in his freshman year after struggling to hide his sexual orientation for years. Ultimately, he said, he got tired of pretending he was straight.

Smith said he had an easier time coming out to his friends than he did to his mother, who learned he was gay after reading his journal that he intentionally left out for her. The result was a yelling match that sent him packing to his father’s home. He eventually moved back in with his mother several months later, but Smith said she still doesn’t acknowledge he is gay.

“She pretty much denies it,” he said. “At first, it was bugging me. I was like, I wish she would be OK with it, but I can’t hold up my life because of her.”

His life lately involves a lot of time with his new boyfriend. The two are preparing to attend the second annual gay prom at the City Museum on July 8. Smith went to last year’s prom and had a blast. The event is sponsored by Growing American Youth, a support and social group for gay teens.

This group will host a youth village at this weekend’s Pridefest in Tower Grove Park.

Krug, who will be a junior this fall at Ritenour High School, also plans to attend the prom. She said last year’s prom was so fun, she actually ended up dancing, a rarity for her.

“It definitely is easier to come out than it would have been if I had been growing up in the ’90s, for instance,” she said.

Tough Issues to Face

But Krug said teens still have tough issues to face. She said she pays close attention to the debate over gay marriage and gay adoption and finds opposition to both difficult to understand.

“It seems that politics are taking a step backward when actual society is taking a step forward, and that’s a little confusing,” Krug said. “It hurts a little because I know that it might not directly affect me now, but I know that I’m going to have to grow up and deal with these issues.

“I know a lot of kids my age, including myself, who go to lobby days and talk to the legislators,” she said. “It hurts that they’re trying to label us second-class citizens. I feel like they’re making assumptions about a group of people that are just trying to live their lives.”

• 52% of teens frequently hear students make homophobic remarks.
• 69% of teens frequently hear students say ‘that’s so gay’ or ‘you’re so gay’ – expressions where ‘gay’ is meant to mean something bad or devalued.

Source: Harris Interactive and Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

Pridefest ’06

When: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, with a parade at noon Sunday on South Grand Boulevard.

Where: Tower Grove Park

Information: www.pridestl.org

Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch