Gay Youth

In the UK there are many problems that Gay children/teenagers will encounter such as bullying at school, abuse from adults, making their sexuality known etc. Gay Men Guide will look into the matter but will not try and solve the problem. The best people to try and help you is a helpline listed in our Gay Organization section. In Gay problems we briefley touched on some of the subjects.

Gay young people will probably encounter homophobia during their young lives. As they get older there is more to protect them such as Anti-Discrimination Laws in the work place but in education, there is not much help is some schools.

Bullying is a major concern in most school in the UK. Bullying can take the form of verbal, physical abuse or both and can be triggered by a whole number reasons which can be small or big reason. Many schools find it hard to deal with bullying as there are a whole number of considerations to take into account like if they come down to hard on the bullyer then it can get worse and go beyond the school gates. So schools need a flexible strategy to deal with bullying. Due to the 'macho' attitude in the British society Homophobia is rife throughout the UK and as children are influenced by their parents in particular the fathers, the child can develop a growing hatred towards gay people believing that it's 'unnatural'. This can have the affect on the gay child to keep their sexuality a secret to protect themselves from their parents and other children. Normally if a child comes out as gay in early life they leave themselves open to abuse from their piers. Advice given from other websites is to take time on deciding the time to come out into the open as when you are growing up emotions can run wild and you maybe making a mistake. Come into the open when you think its the best time for you and you are 100% sure. Gay Men Guide can not offer any help of how to deal with bullying, the best annoymous advice you can get is from the helplines listed in the Gay Organization section.

Gay Men Guide touched on above is the coming out stage where you declare your own sexuality. Many famous people do this to attract attention and to promote something so do not mistake this as a way of getting around a problem as it can cause you even more problems.