Growing Up Gay in the Suburbs : Youths: Two groups explore the problems of the Valley’s homosexual youngsters, including isolation, loneliness and a lack of networking.

Every Saturday night in Van Nuys a group of young women park in front of a coin-operated laundry and sneak down an alley to a conference room to talk. Sunday evenings in Northridge, a group of youths meets in a house only a short walk from college fraternity houses.

They are 13 to 23 years old, some dressed in T-shirts and jeans, some in stylish black suits, some wearing earrings or several earrings in each ear.

They are all Valley youths, and they are all gay or lesbian--or wondering if they might be.

These two rap groups are the only organized meetings in the San Fernando Valley where they can discuss the difficulties of growing up as young homosexuals. Counselors and group leaders from the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center--which sponsors five rap groups throughout the county for young people--said the problems of gay youth in the suburbs are accentuated by loneliness, isolation and a lack of networking available in urban areas with active gay organizations, like West Hollywood and San Francisco.

“Suburbia is a tough place to be gay or lesbian,” said Denise Mitchell, 25, an entertainment industry employee who volunteers to lead meetings twice a month. “There is less of a support group here, if they can find one at all.”

Mitchell, who grew up in the Valley, serves as a good example for young people trying to understand their sexuality. She can identify with the hopelessness and naivete that some group leaders say is predominant in the Valley groups. They talk more about suicide and family problems, and less about sex or meeting places.

“For example, they don’t seem to think AIDS is as pressing an issue as the rap group in Hollywood,” Mitchell said. “That’s a dangerous attitude.”

At a recent meeting in Northridge, a dozen young adults sat on sofas and pillows and discussed growing up gay in the Valley.

“Living here, it’s very closed, very shallow, very white, very clean, all the same and anything remotely gay is very far away,” said Marque, a 20-year-old Granada Hills resident who doesn’t like driving 45 minutes to the gay mecca of West Hollywood, where a large part of the population is openly homosexual.

“It’s sick that you can’t hold someone’s hand in North Hollywood without someone saying something negative to you,” said John, 18, of La Crescenta, reaching out and holding Marque’s hand. “You have to go all the way to West Hollywood to feel comfortable, and for some of us it’s not that easy. I can’t ask my parents to drop me off there.”

Anyone under 21 cannot get into the dozen or so gay and lesbian bars in the Valley. A Canoga Park roller-skating rink has a regular gay youth skating night, but it is sparsely attended and sometimes gangs wait outside to beat up those who go, rap group members said.

KPFK radio in Studio City has a regular gay talk show at 10 p.m. Sundays that fields many calls from teen-age gays. Gays in the Valley have outdoors groups, a bowling league, a bike club, softball teams and Gay Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. But the groups are geographically scattered, meet sporadically and often are publicized only by word of mouth. No local high schools have gay organizations. Information about the rap groups is displayed near campus telephones or in the school counselor’s office.

School counselors may hesitate to refer students to these rap groups, but it depends on the individual counselor, said John Hall, the Valley’s counseling services coordinator for the Los Angeles Unified School District. He has asked counselors to be aware of sexual concerns youths may bring to them.

In the Valley, “it could be more difficult for a student because of the lack of networking, and in an urban setting anonymity is easier to accomplish than in a suburban and rural setting where everyone knows each other,” Hall said.

“Unfortunately there is a societal stigma in all aspects of their lives,” said Hall, who has received many letters protesting any gay counseling groups--like one such group at Fairfax High School--that might be formed in Valley schools. “But I do believe the issues of these students deserve to be addressed.”

For youths who may feel uncomfortable about coming to the rap groups--only about 20 teen-agers and young adults a week attend the two groups--the Gay and Lesbian Center provides a youth talk-line. So many calls flooded in from Valley youth that the director installed a local 818 number early last summer. The Valley also has a pen-pal list to match up gay youths who want to write each other, and at least three computer bulletin boards for gays allow youths to correspond by modem.

Jason Riggs, 17, is trying to start a gay group in his Granada Hills High School, with the sanction of his parents (his father is a minister). But his gay friends shy away from attending any function that may openly identify them.

“They don’t understand that if you are open you take away the power people think they have over you,” Riggs said. “But you may still face ridicule.”

Such ridicule carries into the adult years, rap group members say. For example, Trevor, a 23-year-old snappy dresser with shoulder-length hair, was forced to confront a neighbor who spread vicious rumors about him when he helped an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old who had problems with their parents.

“I was just playing video games with them and being a big brother to them, and this guy was trying to ruin it, so after I confronted him he said he really admired me for being so open,” said Trevor, who sings and acts and works at a children’s educational bookstore.

“It’s more comfortable sometimes just being in a straight surrounding because that’s what we’re used to, but I feel like I’m hiding all the time,” Marque said.

“And two guys can’t live in the same house in the neighborhood they grew up in without people all around having tizzy fits,” John added. “So we are forced to move to urban areas that we may not necessarily like.”

Marie, 18, a lifetime Studio City resident, drives to Santa Monica City College each day for classes, mainly because of the activist gay groups on campus. “I just couldn’t see myself attending any of the three Valley colleges because there’s such a pressure to conform, I felt uncomfortable. I have no idea what it’s like to have straight people’s feelings, and I wonder if they have the same kinds of tensions.”

But Glenn Hisayasu, Valley College dean of student services, said he is unaware of any problems concerning gay students on his campus. He said an active student group is very visible on campus and plans joint activities with gay students at Pierce College.

In areas a few miles away, there is more information on gay organizations and meeting places available through newspapers, magazines, clubs, dances, churches and other social functions. But in the Valley, some find it difficult to attend the local rap groups, which is why only a handful of young women regularly attend the Van Nuys meetings.

“For an under-18 girl, the only choices are a bowling alley or coffeehouse, and it’s hard to talk about some things in the middle of Denny’s,” said Jill, 27, a rap group leader who has lived in Sun Valley all her life. “‘I would ride my bike for miles to go to the only lesbian bookstore in the Valley.”

Like most of the others in the groups, Jill didn’t want to go to bars to meet people. She tried volunteering for feminist groups, thinking she’d meet up with other lesbians, but she only met one. She would have liked a gay social group in high school.

“I only wished I knew I wasn’t the only one feeling this way,” Jill said.

But Susan, 19, a recent graduate of a Woodland Hills high school, said she would have been too embarrassed to participate in any such group in school. “I spent so much time proving I wasn’t, and it was so frustrating I almost quit school,” Susan said. “I don’t think that’s the answer for some of us.”

Judy, a 38-year-old rap group leader who works as an engineer, tries to be a role model for the Valley girls. “Young people have to be so careful of what they say, so they’re not made fun of in school, and yet chances are their parents won’t understand if they want to come to a meeting like this because they have questions about themselves,” she said.

Heidi, who has a gay father and a homophobic mother, moved with her father earlier this year to Encino and had found it difficult to get information about women’s activities in the Valley.

“Most of my friends are straight,” Heidi said. “That’s fine, but I don’t feel like they totally understand me.”

Family retribution and job alienation keep most of the suburban youth quiet about their sexuality--which is why most asked not to have their full names used for this story. At a recent meeting, Susan brought up a painful incident at her job in the Valley when a customer refused to let her handle a book he was buying because she wore a lesbian symbol on her necklace. She felt comforted when others in the group related similar nasty incidents.

“At least the few people who come here are making friends with each other,” said Jill, who has spoken in schools and advertised in lesbian newspapers to try to encourage more members to join the group. “But the high school students are more isolated here than in other urban areas.”

Judy, who also leads a meeting in Hollywood, said the women there are more street-wise than the Van Nuys girls. “The Valley group is refreshing because they are so new to learning about themselves, while the ones in the urban areas have already dealt with things like coming out and self-esteem.”

Jeff, 26, remembered his lack of self-esteem while growing up as an isolated gay male in Valencia, and that motivated him to get involved as a volunteer on the Gay and Lesbian Center’s youth talk-line and as a rap group leader. A despondent gay friend killed himself. Jeff said he wants to help others who might feel depressed or suicidal.

“I went to a very strict religious school where such things aren’t tolerated,” said Jeff, who is afraid to let his government employers know that he is gay. “Out here in the suburbs, we’re not exposed to different cultures or lifestyles as much, so we’re all expected to be the same.”

“For me, being gay was my strength--I didn’t need anyone else,” said Trevor, who has attended the rap group for three years. “I don’t like to go to bars to meet people, but society makes it so that the only place we can openly express ourselves is in a place like West Hollywood.’

Marie added that she doesn’t like West Hollywood because people there “all look so sad.” Marie’s religious father condemns homosexuality and is unaware of her lifestyle, although most of the rest of her family knows. She fears that if her father knew, he would kick her out of the house and she would have to quit school.

“We’re always risking acceptance,” said Mitchell, the rap group leader who works in the entertainment industry and faces problems with letting co-workers know she is a lesbian. “I can’t put up a picture of my lover in the office, even though the straight girl next door could put her husband’s picture all over her office. We always risk people not accepting us.”

And John, a regular at the Northridge rap group, had some advice for those who may be hesitant about coming to the meetings. “We want to let people know out there we’re people just like everyone else. Be proud of who you are,” he said.

The rap groups have been sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Center since 1986 and are funded by a state grant. Forty volunteers take turns leading the discussions, and more volunteers are needed, said Robin McCabe, the center’s training coordinator.

“It’s amazing that despite the obvious differences between the suburban and urban groups we have, one similarity is that there are affluent families in the Valley who know as little about their children as the families of the runaways we see in Hollywood,” McCabe said.

Times and locations of the rap groups or other gay-related Valley events may be obtained by calling McCabe, (213) 464-7400, Ext. 120, or the center’s youth talk-line, (818) 508-1802.