Owning His Gay Identity -- at 15 Years Old

[Shana A]

Owning His Gay Identity -- at 15 Years Old
Youths Coming Out Sooner, but Protections Against Harassment Lag
Video

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/13/AR2008071302066.html?hpid=topnews

By Theresa Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 14, 2008; Page A01

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.

[Natasha]

Owning His Gay Identity -- at 15 Years Old

Washington Post
By Theresa Vargas
7/14/2008

Excerpt: Doris Jackson, the principal of Wakefield, said the school
does not tolerate bullying for any reason. "To me, it's more than
having a policy and enforcing it. It's establishing an environment of
tolerance of everyone," she said, adding that the school even provides
a separate restroom for a transgender student so the person is not
forced to use the girl's room or boy's room. "When we say we are very
diverse, people think racially. But we are diverse racially,
culturally, [by] sexual orientation and socio-economic level. Being
gay here doesn't set you apart. You're just another kid with something
about you that is unique."