Coming out early.

Kids are finding their voices as gays and lesbians at an age that most adults find amazingly young

A little more than two years ago, Adam Nobel came out to himself and his family. He was 11.

"I'd always wanted to be very close friends with boys," Nobel, now 14, recalls. "It became clear it wasn't platonic." After watching a television show about coming out, "all these puzzle pieces came together." Nobel starting searching the Internet, looking at gay Web sites like that of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. After a while, he says, "I came to terms with myself being gay. Each day I would look in the mirror and say, `I'm gay'--when I woke up and went to sleep."

Nobel's story highlights an increasingly common trend among gay and lesbian youth: Sexual orientation is not something they are just beginning to come to terms with in high school or in college. Increasingly, like Nobel, they are coming out in their early teens and even sooner, to themselves, their friends, and families.

"Every one of our members across the country is experiencing a drop in the age at which young people really start to come out and talk about sexuality and gender identity in a public way," says Craig Bowman, executive director of National Youth Advocacy Coalition, an umbrella organization for gay and lesbian youth groups. "From 1995 until this year, our average age dropped from 19 to 15. That's a pretty significant drop in a pretty short amount of time."

Kids who are coming out younger face their own set of perils. The younger they are in dealing with their sexual orientation, the more comfortable they are likely, to be about it as they grow up. But middle school is a difficult time for kids of all sexual orientations. For students in those awkward years between fifth grade and ninth grade, friendships and alliances are precarious enough. Add the label gay or lesbian, and the combination can be treacherous.

"As kids move to middle school, they become more isolated," says Scott Hirschfeld, education director at the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network and a former elementary school teacher. "If you are different in some way, I think it becomes increasingly difficult. There is an extreme sense of being different and not belonging--some kids become depressed, some act out in aggressive ways."

Moreover, the usual problems that young gays face can be magnified by just a few years' difference in when they come out. "It's not that it's unhealthy or more unsafe to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered by virtue of that fact alone, but it is in a society in which these young people are having to face the fear of being beat up, being called names, getting thrown out of the house," says Bowman. "It's a very real fear. And when you're 12, 13, 14 years old, the idea of getting kicked out of your house, of -not being liked by your friends or having people to hang out with--those are terrifying things. Young people are struggling with that."

Students' coming out at younger ages presents fresh problems to schools and even the groups meant to help them. Teen sexuality is a touchy subject for schools even when it involves older teenagers; for kids just entering puberty, the issue is even more explosive.

One of the biggest obstacles that youths face, says Bowman, are adult naysayers. Indeed, it is difficult for parents and teachers to understand just how children can know they are gay at such an early age. When Nobel came out to his mother, he says, "she said she could never hate me but [asked] how I could know at such a young age."

In the autumn after Nobel turned 13, he told a male friend he had a crush on him. Nobel, who had been a popular kid, was suddenly, instantly isolated. He was harassed in the halls and on the bus to school; kids called him "faggot" and recommended he commit suicide. Guys told him he needed a girl "to rape him" and "turn him back." As Nobel puts it, "even the outcasts made fun" of him. School officials, Nobel contends, repeatedly refused to help him. (Numerous calls from The Advocate to Nobel's principal were not returned.)

Nobel's turning point was finding youth services in and around the Philadelphia suburb in which he lives. Empowered by his interactions with gay peers--as well as a trip to this year's Millennium March in Washington, D.C.--Nobel approached the school about creating a gay-straight alliance. With the help of a lawyer, Nobel and his mother pushed his middle school to recognize the ways in which his civil rights were being violated.

Not every middle-school kid's experience is the same. Jascie Williams, now 17, came out at 13. For Williams, having a lesbian aunt who was loved and accepted by the family helped smooth over discomfort. "I never knew it was an option not to come out," she says. But there are differences in coming out at 13 versus 16. "It's always a risk to come out," Williams says, "but at 13 you don't have access to services necessarily. I think at 16 you have more freedom; you're more capable of taking care of yourself and finding outlets for information."

Gay youth groups are working hard to make life easier for kids who do come out younger, focusing their efforts on educating adults. "Administrators and parents [must understand] that a [gay-straight alliance] is not about talking about sex," says Hirschfeld, "or students finding a place to date or find sex. A lot of adults still have that mistaken perception. These students are feeling isolated [and] need a group of peers to connect to--to find a place they belong, to learn about their identity and find more respect and acceptance. I don't think, for the most part, that administrators can see why a GSA is beneficial. We need to do more education with adults."

Yet the groups themselves have had to recast some of their own work. Due to the fact that just a few years ago the average coming-out age was older than it is now, the groups are having to reconsider their own services. GLSEN has always advocated educating kids of all ages about gay issues, but more and more adults are coming to them for help with just that kind of education. "We've been approached by parents and teachers of elementary and middle schools," says Hirschfeld. "The need has always been there. Now people are waking up to the idea."

FINDING SUPPORT

If you are a student who is coming out or you know of someone who is, the following national organizations can provide information and references to local groups that can help.

GLSEN [phone]

The group's youth-run Student Pride Project focuses on gay-straight alliances.

NYAC [phone]

The coalition includes a clearinghouse for information on youth issues.

PFLAG [phone]

PFLAG offers information about materials resources for gay youth.

Find more on programs for gay and lesbian youth as well as links to related internet sites at www.advocate.com

Wildman is a Washington, D.C.-based writer who has contributed to The Washington Post and The New Republic.