The Gay Teen Revolution
...movie theatres this month. It features Tobi, an awkward teenage boy, falling in love with Achim, his best friend, at a summer rowing camp. He is befriended by Leo, a handsome boy who rows with the Queer Schlag, a team composed of all gay boys. A heart wrenching and melancholic coming of age tale ensues, in which Tobi must come to terms with his homosexuality. Marco Kreuzpaintner's beautiful motion picture and others like it are paving the way for the first wave of resilient and proud gay youth, in proportions never fathomed. Recent media exposure, growing support groups, the internet, and changes in popular opinion have created a new generation of gay teens who are coming out sooner to a more accepting society.
Valerie Korinek discusses in her article "Don't Let Your Girlfriends Ruin Your Marriage: Lesbian imagery in Chatelaine Magazine" some of the struggles that lesbian women and gay men have faced in the twentieth century. Korinek explains that in the 50's and 60's, "the portrait of homosexual was usually negative...neurotic and immature" (Korinek 349). Homosexual behaviour was regarded as deviant and perverted. Chatelaine Magazine even published an article in 1956 entitled "How to Protect your Children from Sex Deviates." (Korinek 346)
Young lesbians, and similarly gay males, are perhaps most vulnerable to this type of portrayal. Struggles facing a young gay person have proven extreme. Girls and boys who question their sexuality at early ages almost always face emotional stress, consuming confusion, and severe discrimination. It is no wonder that in past decades, so few have come out before their twenties. On top of the pressure of daily life as a teenager, homosexual youth must deal with countless other issues as they enter an unaccepting society that in large hates them for who they are. The US Department of Health and Human Services reported in...
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