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?