This morning, on the front page of USA Today, I found a very interesting article by Marilyn Elias regarding gay youth, coming out, and the social pressures and stigmas involved in doing so. Elias states that gay people are coming out at an earlier age than ever before, due to the nation's increasing acceptance of homosexuality.
My name is Greg Kimball and I am the treasurer of KnowThyNeighbor.org. I came out when I was 14 to an incredibly loving and supportive family who took my sexual orientation without question and never faltered in their love. When I told my parents how nervous I was about telling them, they realized that not all families have the tolerance they have and that some gay youth get an absolutely terrible reaction from their family when they come out. This realization lead my mother to contact other local parents with gay children and found a support group called HEART [Honoring Equality And Respecting Tolerance].
It breaks my heart to know that a disproportionate amount of homeless youth are without shelter because of their homosexuality. Even though the nation's acceptance of homosexuality is consistently and steadily increasing, there is still a way to go before gay youth won't even have to think that losing their family could be one of the consequences of them coming out, before sexual orientation is looked at as just another aspect of one's being.
Perhaps the most compelling point of the article is when Elias mentions Lisa Diamond's findings on anxiety and depression in gay youth: with the worry of finding a partner aside, gay youth are no more depressed than straight youth. They're normal teenagers.
-Greg, Treasurer, KnowThyNeighbor.org