When Kristen Stewart makes her first appearance as rock ‘n’ roll goddess Joan Jett, her demeanor is tough, tomboyish and all-leather.
The Runaways is a movie that normalizes the behaviors and attitudes of rebellious young women who are coming to terms with their sexuality. I tried my best to repress those feelings because, even though I wasn’t sure exactly what they were or what they meant, I knew that my parents would find them “wrong.” And so I did my best to ignore my attraction to women until a few years later when I stumbled upon the 2010 biopic of legendary all-girl rock band, The Runaways.
While understanding sexual and romantic attraction can be difficult for any young person, I began to feel those forms of attraction towards women before I had a crush on any boy. Growing up in a Christian Lutheran household that reinforced the idea that being anything other than cisgendered and heterosexual was a sin, I struggled to identify the feelings I had for women from a young age. Man, are they going to get a kick out of this. While I personally fit the statistic of realizing I was queer around the end of high school - that is, I finally was able to put words to the feelings I had felt since late-elementary school - I never “officially” came out publicly to my friends, and I have yet to come out to my parents and extended family members. Goldstein’s study found that the average age a person realizes they are gay, queer or transgender is around 17.5 years old, yet the average age for coming out within this same group of people surveyed was nearly 21.
Evan Goldstein of Bespoke Surgical found that fear of familial tension, isolation and estrangement is the main reason that many queer youth choose not to come out. Furthermore, 42 percent of LGBTQ youth say they do not live in a community which accepts gay and transgender people, and more than a quarter of youth who are out to their families say they struggled to feel accepted by their family members once they came out.įeelings of unacceptance and the fear of violence and negative retaliation are just a few of the reasons that prevent someone from coming out. However, not everyone in the LBGTQ community “officially” comes out, or is in an environment in which it is safe or acceptable to do so.Īccording to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), about 91 percent of LGBT youth in America are out to their close friends, but only 64 percent are out to their classmates. For many people in the LGBTQ community, “coming out” about their sexuality or gender to their family and friends can be an important milestone that, in an ideal situation, can lead to greater transparency, acceptance and understanding between them and their loved ones.