#i was a very queer looking scrap in a very conservative high school

[lorelune]

i’ve come across two of my peers from high school at the bars over the last month and the convos have made me :’’’’^)

[princesscolumbia]

I'm a sex positive parent, meaning I am very open with my daughter about sex simply being a part of life for a lot of people. This was introduced within the framework of, "There's things we can discuss when you're age x, y, and z but not before. If you have questions that drift into any of those age-gated things, I will tell you as much, give you as much information as I'm able to now, and we can revisit the things we couldn't talk about now when you reach those ages." I have adjusted this when I learn she has been exposed, in some fashion, to some of the concepts that I was going to talk with her about later. I just found out last weekend she binge watched Helluvaboss during the pandemic lockdowns, which has a LOOOOOT of references to sex related humor that has pretty solidly scrapped a lot of the age-gating I'd already established, so we've started discussing those topic now instead of waiting for her to be 18.

I'm not her only parent, and her other mother is an actively practicing conservative mormon who honestly, genuinely thinks that the pamphlet put out by the church called "For the Strength of Youth" is all anyone ever needs to know, ever, about sex-ed and everything related.

I'm not kidding.

I, at the age of 23 while she was 27, had to teach her about sexual activity that wasn't strictly "penis owner on top." Even ten years after we got married I was stumbling over gaps in her knowledge that I learned in sex-ed class in high school.

You can guess which mom our daughter goes to for things like, "How do I know if I'm a member of the queer community? Am I even someone who wants to have sex or am I ace and how do I know for sure?"

I'm the one that teaches her things like bodily autonomy and 'the Harkness Test' and yes, you can want to wear a tux to the prom and still think of yourself as a girl, but if you're genderfluid that's okay and nobody can tell you that you aren't. I tell her that if I find out she's looking at porn in any context I, as a responsible parent, will have to restrict her access to said porn until she's 18 as there's questions about when a minor should be exposed to that sort of thing. I also tell her that if she is consuming porn and wants to ask me about something she saw or read then so long as she doesn't tell me she found out about it from smut (even if it's obvious she can only encounter the topic from smut), then I'm an EMT in a Swiss Bank. You can bring me whatever you want to ask about as long as you are honest with me about your question. I'm not a cop and I don't want to know where you got your stuff, I just need to know what we're dealing with so I can address it correctly, and I'll never, ever tell a soul you asked me.

I do all this because my first exposure to what we'd now call "T4T porn" came about when I was 13 when I found a porn catalog on my walk home from school. (We obviously didn't call it "T4T porn" at the time, and I won't use the term the catalog used because it's considered offensive in some circles now) My parental figure at the time was what we'd now call a TERF. Even then I knew better than to ask a TERF about why I got really aroused when I saw T4T porn. This was the 80s, so I had no Internet to ask about it, and my exposure to the queer community was zero. My failure to understand my own sexuality and gender would lock me into a path that would keep me in my 'shell,' closetted, and married to a woman who doesn't understand that she's vulnerable to being gaslit and manipulated by her homophobic family. Even if my daughter can't do anything about it until she's of the age of majority, even if she winds up being cis-het and living in a monogamous relationship that makes her happy for the rest of her life, I want her to be armed and armored with the knowledge she needs to make informed choices, know her own boundaries, be aware of her bodily autonomy, and understand that she doesn't have to 'settle' with 'what everyone else is doing' because she just doesn't know any better.

Kids sometimes need to get their information where they can, and when that's the only way they can, do it. Don't tell me anything I'd have to report to a parent, I don't want to know if that's what would have to happen if you told me. Learn Internet safety, learn stranger danger, learn to NOT PUT YOUR GODDAMN AGE IN YOUR BIO, and learn how to lie, lie, lie about your A/S/L (That's "Age," "Sex" - a.k.a. "sexuality and gender presentation," and "Location" to all you people born after 9/11) so you protect yourself online. Medical research is your friend. Look up the Harkness Test and what 'consent' means. Don't stick things without a flared base in places where a flared base is needed. Don't transfer fluids between mucus membranes and for goddess' sake wash your damn hands like it's still 2020!

When kids have to do all that, the parents and other adults in their life failed. End of. This is a sex-positive mom giving you permission to take any guilt or shame your non-supportive parents hammered into you and drop it like it's one of those jellyfish that can kill an elephant with one sting. That's your parent's fault, not yours.

So I’m a minor (16 to be specific) and I frequently watch and read stuff with explicit sexual or 18+ content in it. I live in an extremely conservative Christian household and things like explicit fanfic are pretty much the only option I have for learning about sex that isn’t abstinence only. I do feel bad about it, especially when I see adults online say stuff like “oh i watched lots of inappropriate things as a teen that i really shouldn’t have” and it makes me feel like I’m ruining myself in a way that I won’t realize until I’m an adult? Right now I don’t see what the big deal is but i get the feeling that when i’m 24 or something I’ll wake up one day and be ashamed of this for some reason i’m not mature enough to know yet. Should I just stop and wait until I’m 18 to continue or what?

hi anon,

okay. I'm gonna hit you with something:

turning 18 does not actually change the way you feel about porn or sex or anything. the difference between being seventeen and 364 days and being 18 is nonexistent. there's not a magical switch that changes you as a person; that comes from lived experience. if you're 18 and your experience is still that porn and smut and what have you i something that you should feel bad about, it's still going to feel that way and a birthday won't change that.

look, the whole notion of "I saw [x] that I shouldn't have when I was young" is like. okay. so you saw something that was a little mature for you that you didn't quite get? awesome. did you die? no. most people's hangups about sexuality don't come from seeing a rogue titty when they were a teenager, they come from the culture that person was raised in that made seeing a rogue titty feel like something to be ashamed of instead of a completely natural part of life.

story time! when I teach my 4th-6th grade OWL classes (Our Whole Lives, great human development program) I always start by holding a meeting with the kids' parents. I've been doing this for seven years, and every time without fail some of the parents will recall seeing porn for the first time as a kid. these guys were kids when printed porn magazines were still a thing, so they were discovering them in all kinds of places - the bedrooms of their parents or their friends' parents, at bus stops, in the woods, once even stowed in some farm equipment. and they remember it feeling illicit and exciting, sure, and possibly making them confused or even horny for the first time in their young lives, but like... that's it. none of these people are irreparably damaged by seeing porn. in fact, they've grown up to be the kind of people who go out of their way to make sure their young kids are enrolled in a queer-friendly, body-positive, diversity-embracing sex ed class to counter stereotypes and misinformation they might receive elsewhere.

looking at things that arouse you is morally neutral. it can be a great way to help you learn about what turns you on, and even if it's not the best source of factual, realistic depictions of sex, it can still help you discover things - hell, I only figured out what the clitoris was by reading Young Justice fanfic (shout out Snaibsel).

you can't ruin yourself, at any age, with the media you like to consume. what makes you uncomfortable and anxious is the attitude you've been taught to have about that media, which is something that has to be actively unlearned, because it's certainly not going to just disappear on its own when you become a legal adult.

tl;dr obviously no one is making you watch porn and you shouldn't if it makes you uncomfortable, but if you drop it right now and come back when you're 18 don't expect to feel any different if you haven't done any more unpacking re: the conservative Christianity of it all.

[wistfuldragon]

Coming Out, Sort Of

I came out as bisexual this year, sort of. And it’s both a big deal and not a big deal at all. I say I “sort of” came out because a few people knew - my husband, surely all of my sisters (sibling gossip travels fast), and a few friends. But I never talked about it with anybody except my spouse and, occasionally, friends. I wasn’t sure what to say, or how to say it, or even if it mattered at all. I still feel like I’m sitting on an iceberg floating aimlessly around the ocean asking the water, “Is this okay? How about this? Am I allowed to feel these things or say these things? Does it matter?”

Almost twenty years ago I got my first big, obvious crush on a girl in college. It hit me like a sack of bricks. I didn’t understand. And - please forgive me for sounding so unbelievably naive - I wondered if was I a lesbian now? Except I still was attracted to guys. Was I straight but confused? Or a lesbian but confused? Did I need to “pick a side”? Was it a phase? What was this “bisexual” thing and why were a lot of people saying it didn’t exist or it was offensive? I stayed up late in the computer room reading scathing internet blog posts talking about college girls “experimenting” or articles about how bisexual people gave real gay people a bad name and conversion therapy proponents more fodder. (It’s important to note that I was a social idiot and never talked to anyone online or in person to get other perspectives. Give me a choice between believing the worst thing and the best and guess which one I’m likely to choose. It’s like a bad romantic comedy where you’re screaming at the screen, just TALK about it goddamnit.)

The girl I liked was straight, dating a long term boyfriend, and - oh yeah - she was my college roommate and friend of several years. That didn’t make life incredibly awkward or frustrating at all. I’m pretty sure I was an asshole for a while.

I also thought about my conservative family - and whether I would even be allowed to bring a girl home for holidays. Maybe, I decided. Probably? Still, the history wasn’t great. When I was about 8 or 9 I remember one of my sisters telling me that queer was a bad word - not precisely because it was a slur but because it meant gay and being gay was bad. She was trying to protect me, I think. She didn’t want me to get bullied over it. I lived in a lot of homophobic places growing up, though maybe that was everywhere at the time. Even though I eventually realized that being gay was normal and natural, I clearly didn’t internalize it enough. In the end, mired in cowardice and doubt, I squashed it all down and locked it in a room. All of it. I had school to focus on, good friends, zero romantic game anyway. I’d never actually dated anybody at all. Maybe it was just a phase. Maybe I was just confused. I’d ignore it and think about it later. That’s how I was raised to deal with problems, after all, and it felt like a problem I wasn’t ready to tackle.

I met my husband at a party on my first night in the dorms, had an unrequited (but secretly requited - it’s a long story) crush, and then we became friends, but we didn’t start dating until a few years later. We had a solid friendship underpinning our relationship. It was a good thing. But my sexuality continued to sit in a locked room in the back of my mind. One night about a year after we started dating we went to an LGBTQ (as it was labeled at the time) awareness event. It was a maze of exhibits highlighting love and hate. And though I considered myself an ally and not unschooled in the level of horror in the world, there was something about that evening that broke me apart. I didn’t fully realize it until the small tour group gathered in a room at the end of the exhibit to talk about the displays and why it was important to be a good ally. The facilitator went around the room asking people what they learned. I tried not to cry as people went around the room blithely talking about things they’d taken away from the exhibits. I tried deep breathing. I dug my nails into my palms. And when they got to me, I realized I should have just gotten up and left because I burst into tears. Actually, I started sobbing. And I couldn’t stop. I sobbed through the rest of the (much more rushed) follow-up interviews. I sobbed as we gathered coats in the lobby. I sobbed as we walked out to my boyfriend’s car. We sat there for a while as I struggled to get my emotions under control. And then we started to talk about it.

We talked about a lot of stuff and he asked without a hint of judgment whether maybe I could be bisexual. And something within me cracked open. I apologize for the analogy I’m about to use, but you know that scene in Goonies where they have to play notes on an organ to open the bridge? This was a correct organ note and the closed door I’d built opened a little bit. I felt freer to just have one person I cared about act like A) it was real and B) it was fine. So I started thinking about it again.

The door still wasn’t open all the way, though. Soon after that I mentioned to one of my sisters that I thought I was bisexual. She said absolutely nothing about it, neither in condemnation nor support. (And, okay, I’m fucking terrible at talking about feelings. I had slipped this into a text message conversation about something else entirely because I am an utter coward.) So, in typical fashion for me, I read the worst into our lack of communication. I decided that she probably said nothing because the internet articles were right, and it either wasn’t a big deal or it was offensive of me - a woman dating a man - to put myself forward as bisexual. Did I ask her about it again? No, because I’m an idiot.

And besides, a voice in the back of my head whispered, what if it really was just a phase?

So I waited. I fell in love and got married. I opened the door sometimes to peek inside. “Still attracted to women, too? Okay, just checking.” (Door click.) I did this for a while before I felt confident in saying, like a grand pronouncement, “I am bisexual.” Only I didn’t pronounce a damn thing, not to anyone else.

There were a couple of reasons, at this point. For one, it had been SO GODDAMN long since I first realized it and accepted it fully. Like, would I have to explain to people, “Heh, yeah good friend, sorry I should have said this years ago but, you know, I’m an emotionally repressed human being.” I actually sat around trying to imagine the conversations but always managed to come up with an excuse not to talk about it. I remember sitting on a friend’s couch one day with this new/old news balanced on the tip of my tongue. But I decided, at the time, that coming out was something people did when they needed support for a relationship. In the end, I was married to a man. I didn’t need anybody’s acceptance of my relationship. I was in the safest possible position - married for years to the opposite sex. In the eyes of the world, I might as well be straight - anything else be damned. What did it matter?

Plus, I was ashamed at how fucking long it took me to accept that I was bisexual. I tried for years to be a good ally, but it turned out I was a shitty ally when it came to myself. The shame I feel that my first response was fear will stay with me the rest of my life. I felt that I didn’t deserve to talk about my feelings. I didn’t deserve anybody’s messages of support.

And then 2016 rolled around and Trump/Pence got elected. I was commuting to work with my small daughter a few days later, still burning with rage and shock. I looked at my daughter and several great, thunderous organ notes sounded and the door opened so much wider. What kind of world will we leave for her? What kind of world is it now where someone with such a transparently hateful platform could be elected to such a high office? And I realized that I think every voice is important. I felt culpable, in my silence. Growing up, if I had known just one person who had openly said, “Hey, I’m bisexual,” I truly think I would have realized this about myself sooner. It could have spared me years of wondering. It might have spared me all this shame I feel now that I ever felt ashamed about my sexuality. Basically, I looked at my daughter as we waited for the traffic light to change and desperately wanted a better world for her. And I realized I had to start with myself.

Fandom gets a lot of flack for being a toxic place. But in the fandoms I was participating in I saw people posting about coming out on social media and I thought…yeah, I should do that. Like, it’s literally the least I could do. But it’s something. I worked my way up to it, still more than half convinced that my voice didn’t matter. Instead, I started by telling a total stranger online that I was bisexual - in a conversation related to a fictional character possibly being bisexual. I couched it in apologies about being married to a man for so many years and was told quite clearly and politely, that I had every right to talk about being bisexual - it didn’t matter who I was married to. BONG. Another organ note. The door opened further. (And, me being me, of course I cried at even the merest scrap of validation.)

So I posted something small on Facebook and Twitter, terrifically nervous about the reactions of family and friends. What kind of backlash would I get? Was it just way too weird to post this now after so many years? It turned out that all my fears of being called fake or confused or not important or a fucking coward were unfounded. Several family members and friends were supportive. At the time of that post I tried to brush it off as not really coming out. After all, “coming out” sounds so dramatic. I talked briefly about the experience it in an online chat and then felt deeply embarrassed that it had taken me so very many years to do even this one tiny thing. But, yeah. I was pretty much coming out.

Being more open is still a work in progress, I guess. My parents and I are strictly on a don’t-ask-don’t-tell plan. I don’t ask them how they feel and they don’t tell me. They didn’t “like” any of my Facebook pride posts, anyway. Yeah. Communication is…not our strong suit. I fully realize this, but I’m scared to ask them and hear something I don’t like. God, even in my upper thirties and mostly really happy with my life I’m scared of that. I find that I care and don’t care at the same time. It’s always disheartening to realize that you’re still kind of chickenshit. I’ll give them some time to process it and maybe next year I’ll work up the ovaries to talk to them about it.

Shame at my past doubts, ever-present weaknesses, and my own intrinsically awkward nature mean that I’m still bumbling around on my little iceberg asking the ocean if I’m being offensive, or overstepping, or if my voice even matters. But I will strive to be better. For my daughter, and maybe even for other people, I want to be a better advocate. And I really, really needed to start with myself this time. Our experiences constantly shape and reshape our lives and I’ll do my best to be a better, more open and self-accepting person. Maybe someday I’ll even forgive myself and shed past regrets.

So it is and it isn’t a big deal. It’s changed my life and it hasn’t changed it at all. But I’m going to keep trying to be a better person for myself and also for my daughter who might someday try to sort out her own sexuality. I’ll be able to be there saying, “I’m bisexual and proud of it and I love and accept you no matter how you identify or who you love.” That’s far more than I ever had, and I think it’s a good start. This is the first year I’ve done any kind of personal acknowledgment or celebration of pride month, and it feels really good.

[virginiamurrayblog]

Just Kids? How Today’s Teenagers Became Our Role Models

Photo illustration: Ka Lee and Joel Louzado

At FLARE, we take what young women like seriously—but more importantly, we take those young women and non-binary people seriously, too. This year, it feels like teens have become increasingly politically aware, increasingly angry… and increasingly willing to use their voices to enact social change. That’s why, as “the youth” head back to school, we’re taking some time to think about the space they occupy in society today. Here, Katie Underwood breaks down why the kids really are all right. Elsewhere on FLARE.com, Canadian teens share their stories about how they really use their phones, learning about gender identity on the internet, what it’s like to grow up in Canada’s North and being a young man who proudly wears makeup. 

During what can only be described as a literal rebel yell delivered at a rally in the rubble of February’s Parkland shooting, Emma Gonzales cut a stunning figure. Perhaps it was her eloquent words, shouted in pissed-off, cut-glass tones, over the course of 11 minutes, chastising politicians for their greed and castration in the face of America’s all-powerful gun lobby, negligent vices that no doubt contributed to the untimely deaths of 17 of her classmates. Perhaps it was her literal image: Shaved head, multi-racial, queer, angry and unashamed. That day, Gonzales looked less like an outsider or victim or chronological minor than an oracle, a harbinger of true revolution. That day, she was just 16.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for “grownups” to reconcile the slapdash stereotypes they associate with modern youth with the seeds of meaningful societal change we’ve seen them sow in recent times. If millennials, now full-blown adults, have historically caught flak for favouring avocado toast above home ownership, poor Gen Z (the teenaged, “post-millennials”) are slagged as so profoundly self-absorbed that they’d happily, mindlessly Snapchat themselves into traffic.

But while the title of a recent New York Times trend piece (“Are Today’s Teenagers Smarter and Better Than We Think?”) stank with no small whiff of condescension, it also pointed to an active sea change in our culture’s perception of the previously not-alright kids: “The stereotype of a disengaged, entitled and social-media-addicted generation doesn’t match the poised, media-savvy and inclusive young people leading the protests and gracing magazine covers.” After Stoneman, thousands of high school students across American staged mass walkouts to protest gun violence across America. In the spring, they headed towards Washington for the same reason. More recently—and closer to home—when Ontario’s new conservative government scrapped the new sex-ed curriculum, teens immediately took action. The result, July’s March for Our Education, was organized by three Toronto high school students: Frank Hong, Rayne Fisher-Quann and Le Nguyen.

Young people have always contributed to social justice movements

Of course, “the youth” have always been canaries in our collective coal mine; let’s not forget that the Freedom Rides of 1960 were partially led by a coalition of students. Or that the Stonewall Riots and demonstrations against the Vietnam War were well-attended by young people. While today’s teens may have missed out on the “greatest generation” label, they are certainly the most politically aware and engaged generation we’ve ever seen.

History 101 shows that, despite the chaotic appearance of our current political climate, “wokeness” necessarily tends to grow with the cultural progress of each successive generation, and with time. But where older adults always seem to get confused is that enlightenment, in fact, doesn’t. One need look no further than 72-year-old unmitigated human and planetary disaster Donald Trump—or our current climate change situation—for a counterpoint to the age-old “age equals wisdom” adage. The adults were in charge and they shit the bed. Spectacularly.

They’re using the power of the internet, and social media in particular, for good

What kids today know, or at least embody, is that wisdom comes from, yes, experience, but also from empathy and connection. Empathy makes room for “the others”—the gay kids, the trans kids, the poor, the people of colour, the women. And indeed, social media, the very medium of connection we slag them for puppy-filtering their faces on, is their most potent organizing tool.

In the same New York Times piece, Don Tapscott, author of Grown Up Digital, says succinctly: “They didn’t grow up being the passive recipients of somebody else’s broadcast.” Teens have always had the potent fortune of remaining untrammelled by cynicism and the gear-grinding reality of full-time jobs and families. But now they also have Soundcloud and Instagram and Twitter. Don’t appreciate your president’s pat offer of “thoughts and prayers”? Make like Stoneman student Sarah Chadwick and @ him on Twitter for being a “piece of shit,” then march for your lives to his house.

But this expertly channeled existential angst isn’t restricted to the realm of politics proper. 2018’s pop culture space has similarly been a teenage hotbed. Just look at, well, Teen Vogue, a formerly boy- and celebrity- and lip gloss–obsessed monthly that pivoted to substantive political op-eds and gender-spectrum inclusive content seemingly overnight.

Our idea of “teenage wunderkinds” is evolving—and diversifying

Tavi Gevinson, the pint-sized fashionista fetishized for her youthful spunk and the admitted genius that is Rookie, used to corner the teenage wunderkind market. Now we have Zendaya. We have Alessia Cara. And we have Amandla Stenberg, a 19-year-old Black, openly bisexual actress-slash-activist whose credits include roles in The Hunger Games and Lemonade, who has plans to become a director with the express purpose of creating roles for women of colour, and whose Vogue profile opened with this banger quote: “I don’t think gender even exists.”

Coincidentally, Stenberg’s partner, Mikaela Straus, who goes by the stage name King Princess, is blasting through pop’s straight AF paradigm with hit songs like “1950” and other gender-bending odes to queer love. It’s not just that we’re listening to young women—it’s the kinds of young women that now get to hold the mic: ones of colour, of varying classes and orientations. That’s the real shift.

Because the media likely won’t ever stop with the grandiose superlatives, Stenberg has, of course, been christened a “voice of the future.”(R.I.P. Lena Dunham’s “voice of a generation.”) But if we can take away any conclusion from recent times, it’s that hers is but one in a growing chorus of progressive, youthful voices worth listening to. Why? Because they—the Gonzaleses, the Hongs, Fisher-Quanns and Nguyens, and the writers who have shared their stories with FLARE—may be “just kids,” but they have something important to say. We should listen.

Read These Teens:

This Edmonton Teen Let FLARE Snoop Through Her Phone For a Week What Tumblr Taught Me About My Gender Identity Teenage Boys Are Slaying The Makeup Game—And I’m Salty “People Say You Are a Certain Way Because That’s What You Were like When You Were Five”

The post Just Kids? How Today’s Teenagers Became Our Role Models appeared first on Flare.

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[virginiamurrayblog]

Just Kids? How Today’s Teenagers Became Our Role Models

Photo illustration: Ka Lee and Joel Louzado

At FLARE, we take what young women like seriously—but more importantly, we take those young women and non-binary people seriously, too. This year, it feels like teens have become increasingly politically aware, increasingly angry… and increasingly willing to use their voices to enact social change. That’s why, as “the youth” head back to school, we’re taking some time to think about the space they occupy in society today. Here, Katie Underwood breaks down why the kids really are all right. Elsewhere on FLARE.com, Canadian teens share their stories about how they really use their phones, learning about gender identity on the internet, what it’s like to grow up in Canada’s North and being a young man who proudly wears makeup. 

During what can only be described as a literal rebel yell delivered at a rally in the rubble of February’s Parkland shooting, Emma Gonzales cut a stunning figure. Perhaps it was her eloquent words, shouted in pissed-off, cut-glass tones, over the course of 11 minutes, chastising politicians for their greed and castration in the face of America’s all-powerful gun lobby, negligent vices that no doubt contributed to the untimely deaths of 17 of her classmates. Perhaps it was her literal image: Shaved head, multi-racial, queer, angry and unashamed. That day, Gonzales looked less like an outsider or victim or chronological minor than an oracle, a harbinger of true revolution. That day, she was just 16.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for “grownups” to reconcile the slapdash stereotypes they associate with modern youth with the seeds of meaningful societal change we’ve seen them sow in recent times. If millennials, now full-blown adults, have historically caught flak for favouring avocado toast above home ownership, poor Gen Z (the teenaged, “post-millennials”) are slagged as so profoundly self-absorbed that they’d happily, mindlessly Snapchat themselves into traffic.

But while the title of a recent New York Times trend piece (“Are Today’s Teenagers Smarter and Better Than We Think?”) stank with no small whiff of condescension, it also pointed to an active sea change in our culture’s perception of the previously not-alright kids: “The stereotype of a disengaged, entitled and social-media-addicted generation doesn’t match the poised, media-savvy and inclusive young people leading the protests and gracing magazine covers.” After Stoneman, thousands of high school students across American staged mass walkouts to protest gun violence across America. In the spring, they headed towards Washington for the same reason. More recently—and closer to home—when Ontario’s new conservative government scrapped the new sex-ed curriculum, teens immediately took action. The result, July’s March for Our Education, was organized by three Toronto high school students: Frank Hong, Rayne Fisher-Quann and Le Nguyen.

Young people have always contributed to social justice movements

Of course, “the youth” have always been canaries in our collective coal mine; let’s not forget that the Freedom Rides of 1960 were partially led by a coalition of students. Or that the Stonewall Riots and demonstrations against the Vietnam War were well-attended by young people. While today’s teens may have missed out on the “greatest generation” label, they are certainly the most politically aware and engaged generation we’ve ever seen.

History 101 shows that, despite the chaotic appearance of our current political climate, “wokeness” necessarily tends to grow with the cultural progress of each successive generation, and with time. But where older adults always seem to get confused is that enlightenment, in fact, doesn’t. One need look no further than 72-year-old unmitigated human and planetary disaster Donald Trump—or our current climate change situation—for a counterpoint to the age-old “age equals wisdom” adage. The adults were in charge and they shit the bed. Spectacularly.

They’re using the power of the internet, and social media in particular, for good

What kids today know, or at least embody, is that wisdom comes from, yes, experience, but also from empathy and connection. Empathy makes room for “the others”—the gay kids, the trans kids, the poor, the people of colour, the women. And indeed, social media, the very medium of connection we slag them for puppy-filtering their faces on, is their most potent organizing tool.

In the same New York Times piece, Don Tapscott, author of Grown Up Digital, says succinctly: “They didn’t grow up being the passive recipients of somebody else’s broadcast.” Teens have always had the potent fortune of remaining untrammelled by cynicism and the gear-grinding reality of full-time jobs and families. But now they also have Soundcloud and Instagram and Twitter. Don’t appreciate your president’s pat offer of “thoughts and prayers”? Make like Stoneman student Sarah Chadwick and @ him on Twitter for being a “piece of shit,” then march for your lives to his house.

But this expertly channeled existential angst isn’t restricted to the realm of politics proper. 2018’s pop culture space has similarly been a teenage hotbed. Just look at, well, Teen Vogue, a formerly boy- and celebrity- and lip gloss–obsessed monthly that pivoted to substantive political op-eds and gender-spectrum inclusive content seemingly overnight.

Our idea of “teenage wunderkinds” is evolving—and diversifying

Tavi Gevinson, the pint-sized fashionista fetishized for her youthful spunk and the admitted genius that is Rookie, used to corner the teenage wunderkind market. Now we have Zendaya. We have Alessia Cara. And we have Amandla Stenberg, a 19-year-old Black, openly bisexual actress-slash-activist whose credits include roles in The Hunger Games and Lemonade, who has plans to become a director with the express purpose of creating roles for women of colour, and whose Vogue profile opened with this banger quote: “I don’t think gender even exists.”

Coincidentally, Stenberg’s partner, Mikaela Straus, who goes by the stage name King Princess, is blasting through pop’s straight AF paradigm with hit songs like “1950” and other gender-bending odes to queer love. It’s not just that we’re listening to young women—it’s the kinds of young women that now get to hold the mic: ones of colour, of varying classes and orientations. That’s the real shift.

Because the media likely won’t ever stop with the grandiose superlatives, Stenberg has, of course, been christened a “voice of the future.”(R.I.P. Lena Dunham’s “voice of a generation.”) But if we can take away any conclusion from recent times, it’s that hers is but one in a growing chorus of progressive, youthful voices worth listening to. Why? Because they—the Gonzaleses, the Hongs, Fisher-Quanns and Nguyens, and the writers who have shared their stories with FLARE—may be “just kids,” but they have something important to say. We should listen.

Read These Teens:

This Edmonton Teen Let FLARE Snoop Through Her Phone For a Week What Tumblr Taught Me About My Gender Identity Teenage Boys Are Slaying The Makeup Game—And I’m Salty “People Say You Are a Certain Way Because That’s What You Were like When You Were Five”

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