And yet AIDS education will prove totally fruitless if young gay men do nothave enough self-esteem and enough sense of their identities as gay men to makethe effort to protect themselves

Street outreach workers in u r b a n centers throughout the nationknow that a large proportion of street kids are gay and lesbian youth who havebeen kicked out of family homes or who have fled abusive family situations — yetacademic research on this population rarely acknowledges or probes the needs ofgay and lesbian youth.

or peer assumptions of homosexuality.

Isat on a youth suicide task force and found numerous cases of y o u n g m e n andw o m e n who had attempted or completed suicide where h o m o p h o b i a was an issue.Some were

It's just a phase of rebellion they're goingthrough," I was told.Yet in working with other projects