Old Enough to Know

(posted by guest blogger J. Gary Brinn, Tanenbaum Inter-religious Fellow, Office of Religious and Spiritual Life)

The camp was remote and there was no cell signal, so I was happy when I was finally able to get off camp and into the nearest small town. After a couple of stops my companions and I whipped out our cell phones, stood in the parking lot, and picked up voice mail. I had sixteen messages! I don’t get that many calls in a single week! What I had, in fact, was one call after another from my godson. Sky is an amazing kid, not just because he had his Equity card before he was ten, but because he is smart and creative and kind… all of the things you would expect a godfather to say. A year earlier, while I was at his house recovering from ankle surgery, Sky had tested the coming out waters with me. The summer of the frantic phone messages he was turning twelve, leaving the sixth grade. As far as I knew, I was the only person to whom Sky had revealed his affectional orientation.

It didn’t come as a shock. As much as I might hate stereotypes, Sky was a textbook example of “gay boy.” Flamboyant, flirty, you know the drill. His mother and I had even had several conversations that danced around the edges of the subject. My position was pretty simple: I love Sky and want to affirm him and who he is, even the flamboyant little queen in him. I don’t ever want to send him the message that its not okay to be yourself. But the rest of the world is not nearly that affirming. If we wanted him to survive, physically and emotionally, in a sometimes-cruel world, we needed to teach him when to tone it down.

The voice mail messages ran something like this: “I’m not going to be like that any more, I’m going to like sports, please, please, please call me…” The gasps and tears poured through the phone.

I later found out that on the last day of sixth grade a classmate had, in the middle of a crowded hallway, screamed “die you little faggot” at Sky. Here was a smart kid in a safe community, a kid with the resilience you develop as a Broadway actor, who was crushed by this one hate-filled verbal attack. It made me ask, once again, a question I have been asking for years: Is there a gap between the earlier age at which children can self-identify in a world of LGBTQ-inclusive media and the actual developmental skills and resilience it takes to become a member of a minority community? Sky came from privilege: white, affluent… his parents are even still married to one another! No one taught him what it means to fear for your own safety…

I asked this question again last winter. As part of my preparation for ordination in the United Church of Christ, I convened a conference on LGBTQ Middle-School students, asking how we serve the needs of this population, needs which are distinct from those of older youth. The conference was co-sponsored by Harvard, a number of religious denominations, and many other concerned organizations. We had religious professionals, teachers, social service professionals, and even a few young people. And we were very safe at our conference site in Boston’s Back Bay.

On the other side of the nation, Lawrence King was living in a group home, protected and affirmed by a California social services system that was LGBTQ friendly. A week later he was dead, shot by a classmate in his middle school. This murder even got the attention of the gay press. The “Advocate” asked if we didn’t share responsibility for the murder, as we had not given any thought to how the ever-younger queer youth we are affirming and sending out into the world were to survive.

I come from a different generation. There were no LGBTQ images in the media; alternative sexualities were not discussed in my family, community or church. I had no language to go with my own growing self-awareness. Most of you have grown up in a culture where LGBTQ images are everywhere. Even if you did not grow up in an affirming household, at least you had words for your feelings. It is not surprising that an eleven-year old boy who has a crush on another boy should attach the label “gay” to himself, just as the hetero-normative boy doesn’t need to attach any label. But is he ready for that label?

There will be more Sky’s. And I fear there will be more Lawrence King’s. Simply wishing for a world free of homophobia and hate won’t cut it. We need to think about how we can better serve these young people, can protect these young people. We need to think about how the good work we have done to increase the visibility of the LGBTQ community in the media has impacted children. We must roll up our sleeves and get to work. Lives depend on it.