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Adults train kids to become sexually mature in a manner they approve of. We clap and laugh over all the little moments meant to prepare them for this; we give them gender appropriate toys that will prepare little boys for a manhood of tools and trucks and little girls for a womanhood of kitchens and babies, not to mention makeup and high heels. We take “kissing cousin” photos of little boys and girls mimicking grownup sexual behavior and proudly frame them or put them in our wallets to show strangers because children mimicking adult sexual behavior is adorable (so long as it’s the correct sexual behavior). We teach little boys that they’re not supposed to cry and we teach little girls to spend their lives wondering what men are thinking of them. The second the physical aspects of sexual maturity start sprouting, we organize social events to push them toward each other; first, the fumbling and terrifying middle school dances, then the process gets increasingly formal the closer the kids get to maturity: freshman dances, sophomore dances, proms and homecomings, all to push them toward that aisle, and the socially approved method of romantic love and baby-making.

Gay kids get none of that. Not one bit of it. The fact of the matter is, bullying is the natural result of all that socializing that reinforces heterosexuality as the norm and everything else as… well, so under-represented that it might as well still be a taboo. Teenagers see thousands of murders depicted onscreen by the time they reach 18 but most of them never see a boy kiss another boy or sing him a sweet love song. You want to prevent gay kids from killing themselves? Push for more scenes like [“Teenage Dream” in “Glee”]. Giving a young gay boy the dream that someday Prince Charming will come and sing a love song to them? You cannot imagine. You simply cannot imagine how revolutionary such a thing is.