'The experience that is so common for people growing up gay in the past is: 'I thought I was the only one,' ' he says. Larry Gross of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication has been studying gay teens for decades.
That change can be seen in the experiences of two women who grew up in the same town, two decades apart. But with the advent of online chat rooms and Websites dedicated to gay culture, communities formed, and that demographic began finding new support. In the past 20 years, the Internet has significantly changed what it means to grow up as a gay kid in this country.īefore the Web, many gay young people grew up in what seemed to be isolation, particularly those in small towns.
