Reid-Pharr, a critical essayist and professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, turned him down.

“I asked him what he was doing and he said his mom was addicted to crack. He had been out all night because there were people doing drugs at his home and he couldn’t stay there,” Reid-Pharr recalled. “He said, ‘usually when guys take me home they give me food first.’”

Like the young man who Reid-Pharr encountered, gay youth take to the streets for a variety of reasons, some resorting to hustling to survive. Whether they are kicked out by their families for being gay or are forced to leave to escape abuse, staying at home may not be an option for many gay youth.

According to a 2007 study done by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 20 to 40 percent of homeless youth in the United States identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual. The same study also found that there are between 15,000 and 20,000 homeless youth in New York City, of whom 3,000 to 8,000 are LGBT.

Even when they are able to live at home, a gay kid’s life may not be easy. Bullying and a lack of support are pervasive problems in schools. A 1997 Massachusetts Department of Education Survey found that gay students hear anti-gay slurs as often as 26 times each day. Faculty intervention occurs in only about 3 percent of those cases.

Yet national attention for gay youth seems to be limited to only the most extreme stories, like the 2008 murder of Lawrence King, an openly gay 15-year-old student who was shot and killed by a fellow classmate.

When gay children are being murdered by their classmates, why are the issues of gay youth not more widely covered?

Carl Siciliano, the executive director of the Ali Forney Center, a housing center in New York City for homeless gay youth, explained why he believes gay youth are sometimes ignored or overlooked in the wide spectrum of gay rights. Siciliano believes that a new generation of gay youth has risen up, different from past generations of gay men and women who were accustomed to coming out later in life.

Kids are coming out earlier than in previous generations, Siciliano said, and gay organizations are only now paying attention.

Older generations were accustomed to coming out later in life when they were out of their parent’s homes and able to support themselves. Today, kids who come out as young as 12 and are kicked out of their homes need the help of these gay organizations to survive.

“Just the concept of a gay organization protecting gay youth is new,” said Siciliano. “We need to set standards because some of the [programs for gay youth] that have come around are lacking and grossly substandard.”

NEXT PAGE:How are LGBT youth adapting?

The bill would create a special division in DOHMH that would be involved in research and LGBT youth outreach programs.

Read Scott Stiffler’s full story at edgeboston.com.

Inside Illinois Schools: The Experiences of LGBT Students surveyed 206 Illinois students about the level of harassment they receive in school, how much they skip school for being harassed, and how their grades are affected by this harassment.

The report showed that 89 percent of Illinois LGBT students experienced verbal harassment based on sexual orientation in the past year, 43 percent said they had been physically harassed and 21 percent said they had been physically assaulted.

“While we applaud Illinois for being one of only 11 states to pass a law that explicitly protects students from bullying and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, Inside Illinois Schools shows just how much work still needs to be done to make sure LGBT students in Illinois are safe in school,” GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard said. “GLSEN is hopeful Illinois will continue to address this pervasive problem.”

Read the rest of the GLSEN report here.