Killing sheds light on kids' gender struggle

OXNARD, CALIF.

Larry King was a gay eighth-grader who used to come to school in makeup, high heels and earrings. And when the other boys made fun of him, he would boldly tease them right back by flirting with them. ¶ That may have been what got him killed.

On Feb. 12, another student, Brandon McInerney, 14, shot him twice in the head in the computer lab at their junior high school, police say.

Police would not discuss a motive. But the day before the shooting, King told McInerney he liked him, eighth-grader Eduardo Segure told the Ventura County Star.

If King had flirted with the other boy, "that can be very threatening to someone's ego and their sense of identity," said Jaana Juvonen, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The crime -- for which McInerney has been charged as an adult -- horrified parents, educators and students in the community and across the nation. But according to gay rights groups and experts on adolescent sexuality, it is the extreme consequence of a growing, but often-ignored phenomenon.

Reassured by changing pop culture and easy access to information on the Internet, the age of sexual identification has dropped over the last few decades to the early teens and as young as 10, experts say.

"For years, representations of homosexuals were deviant, bleak, living outside the margins of society. There were no happy endings. Now, we have Ellen DeGeneres hosting the Academy Awards and RuPaul on the Home Shopping Network," said Caitlin Ryan, director of the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State.

"So, it's no surprise that young people would realize who they are at earlier ages," Ryan said.

But many schools do not have programs that promote tolerance among students, provide training for educators, or include policies that specifically prohibit harassment and bullying based on sexual orientation, activists say.

A brave boy

Students at E.O. Green Junior High said the other kids used to taunt King, call him names and throw wet paper towels at him in the boys' restroom, and he would bravely fire back by flirting with them and chasing them.

"He didn't like people insulting him," said his friend Miriam Lopez, 13. "Larry was brave enough to bring high heels and makeup to school and he wasn't afraid of anything."

The school system said that it has tolerance programs in its middle schools, but that sexual orientation is often not dealt with until high school. Since the killing, school officials have been meeting with gay leaders about changing the program.

"With young people coming out at younger ages, our schools -- especially our junior highs and middle schools -- need to be proactive about teaching respect for diversity based on sexual orientation and gender identity," said Carolyn Laub, executive director of the Gay-Straight Alliance Network. "The tragic death of Larry King is a wake-up call for our schools to better protect students from harassment at school."

But there is disagreement on whether even discussing homosexuality in schools is appropriate.

"The vast majority of parents believe it's their role and their responsibility to teach their kids about sexuality," said Bill Maier, vice president and resident psychologist for Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian organization. "The way you handle the problem is that you crack down on any sort of bullying or aggression on any child. You don't single out sexual orientation as this somehow special status."

Clubs for gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual students, such as Gay-Straight Alliances, are widespread in high schools and colleges. In California, for instance, about 650 high schools and 14 middle schools support GSAs.

But in the weeks since King's death, interest among middle schools in these organizations has spiked, according to Laub.

Many hope the increased attention will translate to help for students such as King who, friends say, was picked on by most of his peers. Erin Mings, 12, one of King's few friends, said of him, "He was the very, very outcast of our school."

The Washington Post and Associated Press contributed to this report.