Teens Coming Out

Times are tough for teens.

The ages between childhood and adulthood have created challenges for young people since before Romeo and Juliet. Add to that a child who is gay, and coping with not only his or her own sexuality, but the effect on those close to him, like parents and friends.
Psychotherapist John Sovec will address this issue February 20 as part of the Fusion Academy’s Professional Speaker series. The interactive workshop will provideexploration, discussion, and tools to address the challenging issues facing LGBT teens as they discover their own sexuality.

John Sovec, MA, LMFT, specializes in working with LGBT teens and their families during the coming-out process. He is a nationally recognized expert on LGBT teens and has been seen on the Ricki Lake Show, YHTV, The Advocate, Good Therapy and other programs.
“This is something that early on in my career I ran into, while working with LGBT teens who felt totally unsupported in their lives and their community,” Sovec explained.

“I started looking around and had to explore to find training to specialize in this, and be able to put together a strong set of skills. But in doing that, I realized there are very few people out there doing what I thought there was a need for. I work with family service agencies, schools, and fellow psychology professionals to help train them and educate them as well as offer seminars for teachers and staff,” said Sovec.

A young gay teen will face challenges at school and at home, as Sovec explains. “If you really think about it, they’re living between their own developing LGBT identity and an environment where everything is skewed towards, ‘Okay, this is a straight world, this is how it is,’” he said.

Sovec adds, “There’s no straight teen who has to come out and say, “By the way, I’m straight.”

And while parents might be accepting, the challenge can go beyond that, says Sovec.

“A lot of parents will come to me and say, ‘But they know that it wouldn’t be a problem.’ But that’s not the point. The point is actually that moment for that kid to say it out loud, how it will influence how their parents view them, what will it do to their school environment, because there will be some kids who will be comfortable with it, and some that may bully them and make fun of them, and how will teachers accept it? What about if they’re on a sports team? How will the team or the coach accept it? So there’s a lot of fear that comes out for these kids really looking at, ‘I’m making a statement about myself, and once I make that statement, I can’t take it back and it’s going to have huge repercussions on the community that I live, work and play in,’” he explained.

Sovec’s workshop will explore the realm of teen gay sexuality, as he explained, saying, “We’re actually going to be looking at some of the real basic things, all of the different flavors of sexuality and sexual identity that are out there right now. We’re going to look at the developmental phase that happens in the coming out process. We’re going to look at what your kid is going through when they’re in the process of coming out and the stages of that. And we’re going to explore how the families, and adults and caring professionals can support that journey and be present with our kids.”

Sovec realizes that coming out today is vastly different from even one or two generations ago, but says, “I think for each family that goes through it, it really is a very individual experience. A lot of kids will decide that there is one parent who it would be easier for them to come out to first, and then they’ll practice that and then come out to the other parent later on.

“And I really think it depends a lot on the parents upbringing themselves,” he continued, “as well as cultural and spiritual components. We’re lucky because we’re in Pasadena, or Los Angeles, big cities where coming out is a more normalized experience. But when we move out of the bigger metropolitan areas, it still is a really challenging story for these kids to go through this.”

Sovec continued, “Here in Pasadena, a lot of kids kind of initially come out as bisexual, and strangely enough it’s a cool thing to do these days. And, I think for kids come out as, being a gay or lesbian, it really does depend on the environment, their family their friends, and their school, as to how they’re accepted.”

John Sovec will present his workshop at Fusion Academy February 20, at 6:30 p.m.Fusion AcademyPasadena is at 825 Colorado Bl., Suite 118, Los Angeles.

To learn more about his work visit www.JohnSovec.com or www.GayTeenTherapy.com

Fusion Academy is a fully accredited, private, middle and high school where all classes are taught one to one.  After more than twenty years of helping students succeed in the San Diego area, Fusion opened its Pasadena campus in 2012. To learn more about why one to one works, please contact Candace Siegle at (323) 258-2012, or csiegle@fusionacademy.com.