MARTIN: You talk about the dilemma that parents face, and teachers face, in addressing this issue. And they tend to be the ones who get the most harassment in schools, and I spoke to kids who were more gender typical in the way they manifested, and they had a lot easier time. And by that I mean the kids who often get it the worst are bullies who are perceived as feminine and girls who are not perceived as feminine.
I mean, one of the interesting things that we have to look at is this, is that much of the anti-gay bullying and anti-gay harassment that's going on in middle schools and high school is more about gender non-conformity than it really is about being gay or lesbian. DENIZET-LEWIS: Well, I mean, it depends how you want to look at it. MARTIN: So glass half-full or glass half-empty from…? On the other hand, you point out that there have been a number of horrific incidents of kids even being killed by other kids and that there are still kids who report in surveys being essentially terrorized at school, that it's just something to be endured. MARTIN: Is this a glass half-full or half-empty story? On the one hand, you report some kids - and you did a lot of reporting in the Bible Belt, it has to be said - that even when some kids came out at ages that a lot of people would consider very young, they were stronger, more resilient, comfortable in their own skin, did not feel that they were necessarily set up to be victims or outcasts or anything of that sort. The other reality is that it's still very difficult for a lot of gay kids to be out in middle school. They're able to sort of be an awkward teenager, just like any awkward middle-schooler. That means they're not made fun of at school, they have supportive parents. One is, you know, kids are coming out younger, and some are able, miraculously, to have a normal adolescence. You know, there really - there are two realities going on here. You know, recent studies are showing that kids are self-identifying as gay anywhere from 13 to 16. MARTIN: Is there any actual data on this point of whether kids are in fact self-identifying earlier or is this all anecdotal? But it was a different time and you just didn't come out until much later. When in reality, if you talk to a gay man, you know, many of them looking back will say, you know, I noticed my same sex attraction, you know, at 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 in that ballpark. So, there is a sort of a knee-jerk discomfort that a lot of us have with the idea that someone would know this at 12 or 13. You know, we tend not to say, well, you're so young, how do you know? It's probably just a phase. And that is, well, isn't that too young to sort of be dealing with these issues? Of course, we tend not to say that to a 12-year-old boy who tells his mom or dad that he has a crush on Julie or, you know, that he's really liking girls now. You know, and they had the same reaction that a lot of people do, a lot of adults do. And they're saying, you know, now we're having kids coming out at 12, 13, 14, and schools really didn't know what to do. We're used to seeing kids coming out in -well, originally it was college or after and then it was high school. And they're saying, you know, something really -interesting is happening right now. I read a lot about youth culture and I was talking to educators and, you know, leaders of gay youth groups and they were all saying the same thing. Well, I started working on the piece about four or five years ago. You came out at 20 and you found yourself a little surprised.
MARTIN: Now, how did you notice this trend of younger and younger children identifying themselves as gay? You mentioned in the piece that you are a gay man. BENOIT DENIZET-LEWIS (Journalist): Thanks, Michel. In a few minutes, we'll hear from two parents and a teen who are living this story now. Those are the questions writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis tried to answer in this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine cover story, "Coming Out in Middle School." Now this is a first of a two-part conversation. Today in our parenting conversation, what does it mean to come out at 13 or even younger? Are people who come out as gay in their teens destined to face rejection, bullying and identity crisis? Or has the world changed enough so that figuring out sexual identity is just another challenge of adolescence?