Good Story on Page One of the Post Today

I'm sure you saw this on the front page of The Post this morning, but we should be looking at it together. I'm a baby boomer, approximately one million years old, we used to have to play the old crank-handle video games when I was a kid. When I was in high school -- and I went to a pretty big school -- I don't remember there being one gay kid. There certainly wasn't anybody who was out about it, and I don't even remember there being rumors. It wasn't something we hushed up, it was just something that never occurred to us. I'm sure there were gay kids at my school, and I'll bet it occurred to them, but for most of us homosexuality was something exotic and weird, something they might have in New York City or someplace, there wouldn't be somebody at our school like that!

So it has been amazing to me to watch my own kids growing up through high school and accepting their gay and lesbian friends without question. It isn't something they make a big show of, they have some friends who speak Spanish, some with jobs, some with cars, tall ones, short ones, some who are gay. A bunch of kids hanging out together don't seem to distinguish in any noticeable way. I'm not saying all teens are like that today, but I have seen a gigantic shift since my generation came through the torture of adolescence. Nowadays it looks like the worst pressure comes from adults, not necessarily family but sometimes.

Front page of The Post:

School's out, and Saro Harvey and his best friend, Samantha Sachs, are hanging out in his Arlington County bedroom. She is slouched across his bed, and he is poised on a chair, posture-perfect, wearing dark, skinny jeans and a ruffled shirt meant for a girl. A rust-orange purse he sometimes carries hangs behind the door.

The 15-year-olds were voted most popular last spring in their section of ninth grade at Wakefield High School. Still, Saro knows there are those on and off campus who don't like him, who never will.

He has grown so used to the stares and laughter of strangers that their insults slip off his 118-pound frame like an oversize shirt.

I think I've dealt with it so much my whole life that it really doesn't bother me anymore, not as much as it used to," Saro says. "If you have a birthmark on your leg for so long, you don't even notice it."

Saro, who first said he liked boys to a classmate in sixth grade, is like many of today's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths who openly discuss their sexual orientation and identity with friends, and sometimes family, before entering high school. In doing so, experts say, these youths are escaping the isolation of generations before them but also finding themselves vulnerable to harassment -- or worse. A California eighth-grader who expressed interest in asking another boy to be his valentine was fatally shot in February in a case that drew national attention. Owning His Gay Identity -- at 15 Years Old

There's a nice video at The Post web site, too. Follow the link to watch it.

Skipping down ...

While children are coming out younger, studies show that they are doing so in schools where staff members have received little training in the area, where their fellow students use such language as "That's so gay" every day to express dislike, and where anti-bullying policies often don't exist or don't specifically protect students on the basis of sexual orientation.

In May, Maryland became the 11th state to enact a law to protect schoolchildren from being bullied because of sexual orientation. The District has had such a law since 1973; Virginia does not have one.

It seems kids are coming out at a younger age, as the stigma wears off and being gay ceases to be something you have to hide. Much as some Family Blah Blah types don't like to think it, a lot of gay and lesbian and transgender people know they're different at an early age. There are social pressures to conform, but less than there used to be.

A generation ago, the typical coming-out story for a young person involved a college student and distraught parents, said Lindy Garnette, executive director of Metro DC Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Now, she said, the more likely scenario involves a minor living at home, and the questions from parents have evolved from panicky to pragmatic. "What do I do when my 16-year-old lesbian daughter wants her girlfriend to spend the night?" some have asked. "What about if she wants to go to an all-girl sleepover?"

Emily Harvey, Saro's mother, said she long believed that her son was gay. When he told her at the end of eighth grade that he liked boys in addition to girls, she said it was a relief.

"I think he really became complete the day he told me that," she said. "It really made him be more comfortable in all aspects of life."

I'm afraid this is getting a little long, but there is one more section that I think is really interesting -- the parents.

What did surprise her, however, was "how far out there" he was in style and expression. She said she sometimes asks him to tone it down, not because it bothers her, but because she has seen how it bothers others. She notices the stares from strangers and the way children ask innocent, yet hurtful, questions, such as, "Is he a girl?"

"For an average kid," Emily Harvey said, pausing on the adjective before continuing, "for an average kid, you don't really have to say, 'Maybe the ruffled shirt is not a good idea.' If he was going through a punk stage and dyed his hair purple, it would not be the same conversation as, 'Maybe you shouldn't carry my purse to school.' "

"I worry about him all the time," she added. "All the time."

Her immediate fear: Will someone hurt him? Her long-term concerns: Will he find someone who loves him for him? And if he does, will he have the same rights as everyone else?

Saro's father, James Harvey, said he loves his son but confesses that he has faced his own prejudices as he watches Saro change.

"Sometimes I have the feeling I want to toughen him up," James Harvey said. "It's something I completely don't understand."

He said he struggles to grasp what "triggered" Saro's interest in the same sex. Had his son been molested? he questioned. Could this be just a phase?

The mother is caring and protective, the father would like to get a handle on how this happened.