January/February 2001 Issue
By Andy Steiner, Utne Reader
Call it a beautiful and stressful time. Back when James Bradach, now 17, was in eighth grade, he told one of his best friends that he was gay. That friend told another friend, and word quickly got around Bradach’s Little Rock, Arkansas, school, bringing threats and harassment from his peers, and even unwanted advice from teachers and other adults. "It was a horrible situation," he recalls.
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But overall, coming out may not be as traumatic these days, thanks in part to—gasp!—television, movies, and other forms of popular culture. Cornell’s Savin-Williams notes that the increasing visibility of gay men and lesbians in the mainstream media provides examples of positive queer lifestyles for the first time. This makes coming out less of a big deal than it used to be. "Now you have a whole host of positive role models like Ellen Degeneris and Melissa Etheridge and Greg Louganis," he says. "Kids are learning that they can be gay and be happy, too."
They’re also learning that sexual identity can be fluid. "To many young people, if a person says she’s a lesbian and then later decides she wants to see men, too, that’s OK," explains Mariner. "It’s not so absolute. On college campuses we’re starting to hear the terms queer or genderqueer. This means rejecting the labels of male and female. If you erase those lines, then the whole thing changes."
If we’re on the cusp of a new sexual revolution, then it’s only logical that the movement’s leaders may all be younger than the kid who bagged your groceries last weekend. Remember David Grossman, the 13-year-old who threw himself a coming-out party? A couple of years later, he’s now, along with James Bradach, one of the wise elders of youthresource.com. They occasionally volunteer on the site, providing support for younger kids struggling to define their sexual identity. "These kids," Bradach explains, "need to talk to somebody who’s been there.
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