Gay youth revolution. (my perspective).

Alex was actually hyperventilating. "I'm ... I'm ... I think I'm gay," he finally gasped. "What do I do?" The 15-year-old was one of the first teenagers to walk through the dooms of OutSpoken nine years ago. Suburban Connecticut's first support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning youths had just begun, and Alex was proving how desperately it was needed.

By the end of the two-hour meeting, Alex calmed down. He looked around the room--at the other teenagers, at me, and at three other adult facilitators--and exclaimed with relief, "Hey, you guys are, like, normal." It was a defining moment in Alex's life and the first true success for our fledgling group.

Nearly a decade later OutSpoken is still going strong. More than 900 young men and women have attended at least one meeting. We have welcomed preppy field hockey players from private schools, inner-city drag queens, rock guitarists, and future Log Cabin Republicans. For 90 minutes every Sunday afternoon we talk about coming out; school, family, and friends; gender roles; dating; homophobia; movies and music; and sex. The final half hour is less structured--everyone mingles and, unfortunately, OutSpoken becomes "Out Smokin'."

We have never missed a Sunday meeting--not for Easter, the Super Bowl, or blizzards. When Christmas fell on a Sunday, four teens showed up, hungry to connect with people they considered family. OutSpoken is, as always, a wonderful place for gay youth to relax, be themselves, try to figure out life, and laugh.

But over the years I've seen an important change: It is much rarer now to greet a boy like Alex. Or like Kevin, the valedictorian whose mom read his journal, learned he was gay, tossed his belongings out the door, then placed an ad in the local paper saying she no longer had a son.

Nowadays we are much more likely to see a girl like Rosa. Just 13 years old, she was the daughter of recent Portuguese immigrants. They had no understanding of lesbianism but loved Rosa and realized what was important to her. When a school social worker recommended OutSpoken, they drove her 45 minutes each way to meetings. Today, parents like Rosa's are much more common; mothers like Kevin's, far rarer.

Last summer we welcomed an energetic newcomer named Judd. He had just returned from France, where he spent his junior year as part of a national high school exchange program. More than three quarters of the students in his group were gay or lesbian, he said, and many came out. Now back in the States, there was no turning back. Judd was fully comfortable as a gay boy; all he wanted was a way to meet other gay youths.

Through OutSpoken, he did. He realized he was not alone. Galvanized by our Sunday discussions, he quickly came out in his very traditional private school--and to his mother. His method was far less agonizing than Alex's had been nine years earlier. One afternoon, breezing out the door, he told her, "See you in a couple of hours. I'm going to a gay youth meeting!"

That story, more than any other, epitomizes the distance gay youths have traveled in less than a decade. No teenager needs to feel like "the only one" anymore; in fact, many show up at OutSpoken with other lesbian and gay teenagers from their own school. No longer must gay youth agonize over how to come out; now the questions are more specific, like how to handle a homophobic cousin. Years ago gay youth despaired of ever finding a partner; today's gay teens are more likely to ask how to tell if the cute guy at the coffee shop is gay or straight.

The advice we give at OutSpoken these days is a lot less heavy than it used to be. The tone of our meetings is much lighter. Perhaps, if things keep going this way, nine years from now the entire concept of "gay youth support groups" will be just a memory. And then someday Alex, Rosa, Judd, and other alumni can tell OutSpoken stories to their grandchildren, who will never believe how strange the world was way back in the day.

Woog's most recent book is Jocks 2: Coming Out to Play (Alyson).