Has anyone ever noticed the drama that seems to follow the lives of young people in the LGBT community? It is almost a stereotype all its own. The overly emotional, "drama queen" gay male, flaunting and flitting from place to place, just a snuff can of cocaine and a daub of bad eyeliner away from turning into Liza Minelli. You get the picture.
Unfortunately, few people try to understand the genesis of this stereotype among LGBT youth. I have my own theory on this, and I call it, simply, the "Gay Learning Curve." It has a lot to do with the fact that gay people in general come out and express their true sexual identities long after they first recognize those identities. Whereas the average straight individual will hit age 12 or 13 and begin exploring what his or her sexual feelings mean, LGBT individuals will upon reaching the age of sexual maturity (which isn't mystically different from that of anyone else) instead suppress their feelings and desires, entering into a fictional developmental tract wherein they attempt, unsuccessfully, to foster feelings for those of the opposite sex. There are also those who simply suppress their feelings and make no attempt to court the opposite sex. Ultimately, when a people finally do come out, they are, in terms of sexual maturity, years behind their peers.
Many of us in the LGBT community, when first out of the closet, are so repulsed by the thought of our former selves that we shed the past like a skin, violently ripping away all that reminds us of our painful lies and fake lives. In the process of cleansing ourselves, we often dispose of those learning experiences that contributed to our understanding of romance. As such, whatever slight amount of progress may have been made under false pretenses is also wiped out by the sheer nature of the coming out process. Few in the LGBT community came out with no baggage or emotional distress. Our society does not permit individuals of such orientation that luxury.
Thus, when 23 year-olds, 34 year-olds, or even those in their 50s come out of the closet, they find themselves emotionally at age 13. So much of the promiscuity, drug abuse, alcoholism, and apparent histrionics within the gay community seem painfully similar to the actions of those just coming into adolescence. It is no fault of the newly out of the closet, for they must mature in the same fashion as everyone else even if they have been delayed by extreme social stigma.
Yet, the religious right in this country assumes that the deviant lifestyle of the LGBT community is a result of its very nature. This is painfully untrue: these same people first deprive LGBT individuals of their right to mature in the same socially acceptable time frame as their straight counterparts, and then decry their poor judgment when they are forced into a tumult of emotions that their straight peers need not face.
Some in the gay community call the aforementioned fledglings "Gaybies." There are any number of LGBT individuals long out of the closet who swear never to date someone who is just coming out. The truth is, most of those fledglings aren't ready for an adult relationship -- they're still trying to get their heads together.
Joseph Francis, of Girls Gone Wild fame wisely said, "as long as society is anti-gay, then it will seem like being gay is antisocial." This is illustrated by the disparity between what society tolerates of straight and gay youth. State legislators trying to do away with gay-straight alliances in schools in Utah and Virginia exemplify that mindset. Two 14 year olds of the opposite sex dating, holding hands, or kissing is casually written off as "children just discovering love." But, two 14 year-olds of the same sex doing the same thing might be summarily sent to a psychiatrist to get them back on the straight and narrow. Oddly enough, same-sex children are often dismissed as "not knowing" what they want. Funny how the straight equivalent, simply because they are acting out straight impulses, are left alone to discover and develop their sexual identities.
Until our society allows children who are LGBT to experience and grow into their sexual identities at the same rate as their straight brethren, we will continue to relegate them to emotional infancy later in life. They will be stuck behind the developmental eight-ball, desperately trying to achieve the maturity denied them.
--Matthew J. Viator is a senior composition major at the Peabody Conservatory. He is the Director of Administration for DSAGA.
