Coming Out Gay At School

TOPICS: Gay youth. Being gay at school. Lesbian and gay youth. Gay and lesbian demographics. Mogenic. Mogenic.com gay youth website. Trends in gay marketing. Young people choosing to come out as gay or lesbian earlier at school. GLBT youth issues. Gay youth benefit from improved support via Gay Straight Alliances GSAs. Gay youth market is new and growing trend.

Ian Johnson
August 16, 2007

In times now thankfully becoming long gone, people used to speak of gays and lesbians as though there was only a single gay community.

Gay community marketing just required a 'one-size-fits-all' cookie cutter approach to marketing where a new niche marketing initiative was announced, the marketing department called in someone to put in a rainbow flag or a pink triangle into existing corporate advertising artwork, and then a new gay marketing campaign was announced and everyone in the marketing office would sit back and congratulate themselves.

That has never been the reality of best-in-class gay marketing and that fact is becoming clearer as gay marketing moves out of the fringes of marketing and into the center of mainstream global marketing and in many countries, gay community marketing issues become part of leading brand's mainstream brand strategy.

That has led to an improving understanding that when it comes to marketing to lesbians and gay men there is not one single 'gay community' for marketing purposes.

There are millions of individual lesbian and gay people, all living their own lives, quite separate from each other, and at many times feeling little if any connection to the amorphous mass known collectively by marketers as 'the' gay community.

However there are other times when membership in one's own 'gay community' of friends becomes an essential part of the armory of life skills we all rely upon.

This fact is brought into stark relief by the rise of GSAs - or Gay Straight Alliances - now beginning to form on many campuses across the US market. And when we say campuses, we mean universities, sure, but also, and very importantly, on many high school campuses across America and elsewhere. Gay students and heterosexual students banding together to support one another.

This is especially important for gay youth.

Coming out as gay has never been easy, but having a Gay Straight Alliance group at your school can hopefully help many gay young people.

When most kids come to terms with their sexuality is around the time all other kids do. From the ages of 13 or so, although many people who are gay report 'knowing' this long before they even understood there was a word to describe this innate part of themselves.

If youth know they are gay but feel alone with no-one to tell or hope for support from, it can lead to dire consequences. Rates of gay youth suicide are amongst the highest for any identifiable suicide group in many countries. Growing up gay and alone is not a nice experience for many kids.

The importance of feeling empowered and supported at such a valuable time cannot be overstated. Hence the importance of Gay Straight Alliances where non-gay and gay youth provide a safe space to just be themselves with friendship and respect. These groups have become increasingly popular in schools all across America, and have led to gay youth coming out as gay in ever growing numbers in the US.

Does this have implications for marketers? It most certainly does.

Music celebrities are amongst those who have recognized that whether a teenage boy or a teenage girl buys the music, it is still important to meet the needs of the listening audience to maximize sales.

To see what we mean, read the Gay Market News article on Enrique GAY Market Branding.

There are many ways that companies need to understand that best-in-class gay marketing is no longer a one-size-fits all approach to 'the' gay and lesbian community. Diversity is the key. I first said in 1994 at a gay marketing conference, and will repeat again: "homosexual does not equate with homogenous."

But that is enough marketing for this article.

To see gay youth interacting with each other, visit one of the leading global gay youth websites: Mogenic.

Here is an extract from a Sydney Morning Herald opinion column written by a 17 year old who has come out at his high school in Australia, a trend that is becoming increasingly common.

If you want to learn more, check out some of the reader comments on this coming out gay story. Be warned - some people's stories of keeping their being gay a secret are quite heartbreaking.

To Daniel Swain, and the many thousands of gay youth just like him now coming out on their own terms, we salute you and wish you every success. You are not alone.

We're here, we're queer, we're still in high school
by Daniel Swain

The F-bomb was dropped on me only once. I was at a bus shelter with my then boyfriend when we heard the "call of the wild": "Go back to Mardi Gras you f---ing faggots!". I responded as calmly as I could: "I may be a faggot, sir, but you are a fool. My people get parades, what do your people get?"

The gay teenager is a modern invention. No longer must we wait for the liberal oasis of university to express our sexuality identity. After several years enduring those polite euphemisms of "flamboyance" and "sensitivity" I tiptoed out of the closet. Fifteen, out and proud.

My story is not unique. For the more liberal members of our generation the closet has become an antique.

The internet has become an important resource for the fledgling homosexual. A boy a few years below me at school came out by editing his MySpace profile. The advent of cybersexuality has allowed gay teenagers to communicate, connect and flirt without fear of persecution. Feel lonely? Log in, chat. Where once a teenage lesbian would have felt confused or alienated, she can now google stories just like her own. The internet first introduced me to the history, the politics, the rituals of being gay. My sex education was exclusively heterosexual, and I didn't want to risk borrowing that book from the library.

Television has also made a difference. Programs such as Will and Grace have popularised the image of the fag hag and her effete companion. The result: I have been accessorised by teenage girls who want you to be "their" gay best friend. Having gay friends makes them feel like one of those metropolitan goddesses from Sex and the City. We'll merrily trot from one boutique to the next picking dresses or boyfriends. I try to explain that I know nothing about fashion or men but they simply won't listen. (I do try to be more like the well-trained, urbane, television homosexuals. I really do.)

But other students are not so lucky. According to a LaTrobe University study into the lives of same-sex-attracted youth, 44 per cent experience verbal abuse, while 16 per cent suffer physical abuse. Gay teens can end up homeless, depressed and suicidal. The average high-school corridors are known for their inimicality. Friends of mine have to rush from class to class through hidden paths to avoid the obligatory shout of "faggot".

This intolerance makes it obvious how the modern gay rights movement has failed gay kids. It is a political movement driven by the concerns of wealthy, white, middle-aged, metropolitan men. Marriage, apparently, is the gay equality issue of our time; the right to give your relationship governmental oversight. It is a noble project but when you compare it to real queer issues of our time it appears a waste of focus, time and resources.

HIV infection rates are on the rise in gay communities, as is the use of crystal meth. The afflictions that school students face remain unaddressed. Internationally our identity is criminalised: there are still nations around the world that enforce the death penalty for being gay. In Russia and Poland, reactionary parties have tried to remove the civil liberties of gay protesters. These groups face the problems that our community dealt with decades ago. I thought history bred compassion.

Growing up gay involves moving slowly forward in the traffic jam of progress. You savour each small advance but you can only see your destination in the distance. Sometimes bigotry, hatred and cruelty bring your journey to a standstill.

Daniel Swain is a year 11 student at Smith's Hill High School in Wollongong.

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