Being Out in High School is Still "Provocative"

The New York Times cover story this week is all about how gay people are coming out younger and younger. That's not to say that there's anything perfect about being a 13-year-old gay boy.

Here's a Mom talking about the homophobic bullying at her son's school:

“...I spent the entire year in the principal’s office trying to get them to protect my son. But they would say things like, ‘Well, what did he do to provoke them?’ We live in a very conservative area with very vocal parents, and I believe the school didn’t want to be seen as going out of their way at all to protect a gay student.”

What could a gay person do to "provoke" a homophobe? Just about anything. That's the thing about homophobia: it's all about shifting blame from you, the homophobe, to someone who's "provoking" you. You're not anti-gay, you just don't want to be provoked by the gays into, oh, I don't know, wearing cone boobs and singing Mariah Carey, or whatever it is fags do.

By far the most common usage of the word “gay” in middle schools is in the expression “that’s so gay,” a popular adolescent phrase that means that something is dumb or lame. The phrase has become so ubiquitous in the culture of the average middle school that even friends of gay students sometimes use it. Still, the expression is offensive to many, and last year Glsen and the Ad Council embarked on a media campaign to combat it. (Glsen would have preferred to go after more incendiary language, “but broadcasters would be very reluctant to let us say the word ‘faggot’ on television,” Eliza Byard, Glsen’s executive director, told me.)

The problem with fighting the expression "That's So Gay" is the fact that many things are, in fact, pretty gay. We shouldn't ban people from saying gay as if it's some kind of swear word. If a book is pink, and that reminds you of homosex, you should be able to say that it's gay. It's a colloquial term, and I agree it's ridiculously offensive when used negatively, but banning it from usage will just make it seem hipper and funnier.

Still, the ending killed me. This is the author talking about a dad who took his young son to their city's pride parade:

"He doesn’t totally understand why Austin is gay, or how he can know for sure at his age, but he’s trying to be there for him. And he’s rarely seen Austin happier than at the parade. Austin warned his dad, ‘You can’t get mad at me when I scream at cute guys in Speedos!’ And boy, did Austin scream. He was in gay teenage heaven.”

Aw, shoo. Straight dads taking their gay sons to pride parades? You done made me cry a little bit, NYT.