Development of Same-Sex Attracted Youth

Although youthful homoeroticism has been documented by artisans, poets, and historians for thousands of years, it was not until the early 1970s that American scientists—primarily medical researchers and mental health professionals—began systematically studying a newly recognized clinical group they classified as “gay youth.” Casting doubt on earlier interpretations that adolescent same-sex encounters were experimental events that were temporary derailments from inevitable heterosexuality, they acknowledged that these youth comprised a unique grouping with their own exceptional experiences, needs, and risks. Not surprisingly, early sources of information about gay youth were comprised mostly of the adolescents who investigators could unquestionably identify and entice to participate in gay research: male prostitutes, runaways, and delinquents. Their early findings consequently highlighted the lives of specific adolescents who were, by definition, in physical, psychological, and social peril. As information accumulated from studies drawn from similar populations, the accepted portrait of gay youth narrowed to a simplistic, monolithic life representation. These depictions warned that adolescents necessarily suffered miserable, rejected, and risk-filled existences. Dissemination of this “truth” through mental health alerts, advocacy tracts, and policy proposals achieved an intended outcome—eliciting the aid of social service and educational agencies, which created support groups and mental health guidelines (Jones, 1978; Tartagni, 1978; Coleman, 1981/1982; Malyon, 1981; Martin, 1982; Remafedi, 1985). One such agency, the Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth (IPLGY), was established in New York City in 1979 (Martin and Hetrick, 1988). Renamed for its founders, the Hetrick-Martin