Kids are coming out younger, but are schools ready to handle the complex issues of identity and sexuality? For Larry King, the question had tragic implications.


At 15, Lawrence King was small—5 feet 1 inch—but very hard to miss. In January, he started to show up for class at Oxnard, Calif.'s E. O. Green Junior High School decked out in women's accessories. On some days, he would slick up his curly hair in a Prince-like bouffant. Sometimes he'd paint his fingernails hot pink and dab glitter or white foundation on his cheeks. "He wore makeup better than I did," says Marissa Moreno, 13, one of his classmates. He bought a pair of stilettos at Target, and he couldn't have been prouder if he had on a varsity football jersey. He thought nothing of chasing the boys around the school in them, teetering as he ran.

But on the morning of Feb. 12, Larry left his glitter and his heels at home. He came to school dressed like any other boy: tennis shoes, baggy pants, a loose sweater over a collared shirt. He seemed unhappy about something. He hadn't slept much the night before, and he told one school employee that he threw up his breakfast that morning, which he sometimes did because he obsessed over his weight. But this was different. One student noticed that as Larry walked across the quad, he kept looking back nervously over his shoulder before he slipped into his first-period English class. The teacher, Dawn Boldrin, told the students to collect their belongings, and then marched them to a nearby computer lab, so they could type out their papers on World War II. Larry found a seat in the middle of the room. Behind him, Brandon McInerney pulled up a chair.

Brandon, 14, wasn't working on his paper, because he told Mrs. Boldrin he'd finished it. Instead, he opened a history book and started to read. Or at least he pretended to. "He kept looking over at Larry," says a student who was in the class that morning. "He'd look at the book and look at Larry, and look at the book and look at Larry." At 8:30 a.m., a half hour into class, Brandon quietly stood up. Then, without anyone's noticing, he removed a handgun that he had somehow sneaked to school, aimed it at Larry's head, and fired a single shot. Boldrin, who was across the room looking at another student's work, spun around. "Brandon, what the hell are you doing!" she screamed. Brandon fired at Larry a second time, tossed the gun on the ground and calmly walked through the classroom door. Police arrested him within seven minutes, a few blocks from school. Larry was rushed to the hospital, where he died two days later of brain injuries.


The Larry King shooting became the most prominent gay-bias crime since the murder of Matthew Shepard 10 years ago. But despite all the attention and outrage, the reason Larry died isn't as clear-cut as many people think. California's Supreme Court has just legalized gay marriage. There are gay characters on popular TV shows such as "Gossip Girl" and "Ugly Betty," and no one seems to notice. Kids like Larry are so comfortable with the concept of being openly gay that they are coming out younger and younger. One study found that the average age when kids self-identify as gay has tumbled to 13.4; their parents usually find out a year later.

What you might call "the shrinking closet" is arguably a major factor in Larry's death. Even as homosexuality has become more accepted, the prospect of being openly gay in middle school raises a troubling set of issues. Kids may want to express who they are, but they are playing grown-up without fully knowing what that means. At the same time, teachers and parents are often uncomfortable dealing with sexual issues in children so young. Schools are caught in between. How do you protect legitimate, personal expression while preventing inappropriate, sometimes harmful, behavior? Larry King was, admittedly, a problematical test case: he was a troubled child who flaunted his sexuality and wielded it like a weapon—it was often his first line of defense. But his story sheds light on the difficulty of defining the limits of tolerance. As E. O. Green found, finding that balance presents an enormous challenge.

Larry's life was hard from the beginning. His biological mother was a drug user; his father wasn't in the picture. When Greg and Dawn King took him in at age 2, the family was told he wasn't being fed regularly. Early on, a speech impediment made Larry difficult to understand, and he repeated first grade because he had trouble reading. He was a gentle child who loved nature and crocheting, but he also acted out from an early age. "We couldn't take him to the grocery store without him shoplifting," Greg says. "We couldn't get him to clean up his room. We sent him upstairs—he'd get a screwdriver and poke holes in the walls." He was prescribed ADHD medication, and Greg says Larry was diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, a rare condition in which children never fully bond with their caregivers or parents.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147790&GT1=43002


This is like Matthew Shepard all over again

I feel really bad for this dude RIP

I bet nobody notices that the crime wouldn't have occured if you didn't have the absurd constitutional right to carry a concealed weapon.

Oh, goodness. It's so sad that many gay teens suffer just because of their sexual orientation.

That story is sickening.

In middle school. You hear about that stuff in High School's. The homophobia is also reaching people at a younger age i see.

I feel so bad for the victim. My prayers go out to his loved ones.

So sad how homophobic people can be.

poor kid; he had a difficult life

My heart goes out to his family. No one deserves to die because of their sexuality or lifestyle. This is sickening and that boy better get what ever judgment is coming to him.

That's too bad. I wonder if that's the only reason the boy killed him. They didn't question the one that killed him or anything? I'd like to hear from his words what the reason was. He had to have been mentally ill to do that.

And the fact that he usually dressed in girl clothes, and came in guy clothes that day I think shows that he was threatened at some point in time. Also, the parents should have been much smarter... Why would they let they're son go to school dressed as a girl? I mean in my town, you may get beat up or made fun of for that, but not shot (but that's because this is the suburbs) but in California? In one of the biggest citys in the county? That's like dressing up as a girl in Detroit. You don't let your child do that, you should damn well know that something may happen to him. It's different with girls who dress like guys though.

Really sad.

Wow

Poor kid
Why can't people just be happy with the way others act?

^Not necessarily "be happy" with others, but at the very least, tolerate them.

I truly don't understand what could possess someone to kill another person because they were born with something that they can't control.

How the **** did Republi****s dare veto Matthew Shepard Act!!!!
Fundamentalist Christians are annoying, Republi****s are disgusting!
The Bible is **** to me but I always believe hell exists. Beware Republi****s, that's for all of you!

^ I hate those type of of Christians, I don't even consider them real Christians, If you are a TRUE and DEVOUT Christian or believer in GOD then you would NOT be preaching hate! enough said

Parenthood = KEY.

Really sad story.

R.I.P.

I wish some people were smarter and would actually think before they do horrible things like this.

Really sad.

I heard about this story a while back, and it disgusted me beyond words. We are all ****ing people, aren't we? WE ARE ALL HUMAN BEINGS. Yet, we still kill one another for being of a different sexuality or a different race. Freaking horrible.

When will the hate end?

Sickening, people in this is going to have to accept people for who they are
My heart goes out to his family.
R.I.P