Dear Abby: Just...no

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: I'm 15 and I'm a lesbian. I've told my friends, but they don't accept me. They say they do, but when I talk about other girls, they say, "Don't talk about girls around us. We're not gay!" I don't know what to do. Please help. -- LGBT IN GEORGIA

DEAR LGBT: Your friends probably do accept you, but would prefer not to hear all the details you feel the need to share. It's time you find a youth group for gay teenagers. Go online, visit lgbtcenters.org and search for the nearest gay and lesbian community center in your area. If you do, you will see that the support you are looking for isn't hard to find. I wish you luck.

Comments

[cereta]

Dear LW,
If your friends talk about boys, do you tell them to stop because you're not straight. Do your friends talk about boys? Because if so, your friends aren't accepting you; they're tolerating you. In the words of many a homophone, they are "okay" with your being gay gay as long as they don't have to think about it.

How much of this you is up to you. If you think they'll mature out of this behavior, you can try to stick it out, but Abby is right: you need some fellow LGBT teens to hang out with.

[vass]

Abby's not necessarily right about how easy it is for LW to find a youth group or other local support. And LW might not be out to her parents. It might not be safe for LW to be out to her parents.

For that matter, depending on LW's school's student culture, it might not be safe for her to simply dump her friends for being unsupportive (if she wants to dump them, and she might not.) She might need to do a slow fade.

There are too many unknown factors here for me to be comfortable saying "your friends aren't real friends, just go to a youth group, they're not hard to find."

What I would advise, though, is for her to find friends and support online (while observing appropriate online safety for her own age and situation.)

[cereta]

I should have been clearer in saying that what she did with the idea that her friends aren't supportive is up to her. The point was that she's the only one who can weigh all the factors, from safety to the possibility that her friends might mature.

You're right about the youth groups, and I thought I had included that. I blame meds. ;)

[azurelunatic]

Dear LGBT,

I'm so sorry this is happening to you, and I hope you find friends who are actually accepting of you. It also sounds like you want to salvage these friendships and help your friends actually accept you and all parts of your life.

Unfortunately we live in a world where same-sex partnership and attraction is so hypersexualized that what is probably an entirely typical teenage level of sharing and enthusiasm is being seen as over-the-top and outrageously sexual by your "friends" and no few of the commenters here. [don't read the comments over there unless you want to yell and downvote some of them.]

When I was a bisexual teenager (in mid-1990s Alaska, so also kind of conservative) my poor mother was so freaked out that she treated anything that even brushed against the topic as super explicit and inappropriate, and it looks like you're getting some of that from your friends.

Take a little while to observe what your friends are actually saying about the boys they like (or like the looks of), who says it, and what the group's reaction is. Compare that to what you say about girls and the group's reaction. This can help with any conversation you have with them.

Choosing to not talk about your crushes and hopes for relationships around these friends is a safe choice, but isolating and lonely unless you have actually accepting friends you can confide in.

It's always a risk to tell a friend that they're being hurtful, but it can improve the relationship if you have an honest one-on-one conversation with some of the friends you're closest to. The group may seem like a monolith, but opinions inside it will probably vary. You can point out that various people in the group say things about boys, and the difference in the reaction when you say the same things about girls. You can share your fears about losing the friendship and growing apart. You can ask them to support you when you say something on the same level that the group accepts, or ask them to challenge other girls when they say things on the same level that you're getting challenged about. You may find that while some of your friends have a problem with you, others may truly accept you and just not know how to speak out in your defense.

All this is super hard, and the idea of losing a long-time friend over something that ought to be as simple as a different sexuality is heartbreaking. High school is a time of a lot of changes and social upheaval, and even if you did everything possible to appease the ambient homophobia, even if you were straight, you would probably still find yourself drifting away from people you have known your whole life.

The good news is that finding a group of friends who you don't have to argue with in order to get support when you say you have a crush, is easier now than it used to be. A youth group for gay teenagers is a good starting point. Also try looking in other social groups in your school - if there are groups that look like they accept people who don't fit your school's definition of "normal", there's a chance they could accept you for who you are.

Good luck.

[torachan]

WOW, that is a fucking awful response. It's okay to be gay, but only if you keep it out of our sight so we can pretend you're normal like the rest of us.