These aspects of identity - the sense of being a man or a woman, for instance, and whom one is drawn to physically or romantically - are distinct. are upending the convention that when it comes to gender and sexuality, there are only two options for each: male or female, gay or straight. Hyperindividual, you-do-you young people from across the U.S. There’s also aromantic, asexual, genderqueer, two-spirit and on and on. “There are people who are pan,” says 17-year-old club president Grace Mason, meaning pansexual. Sure, there’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. Sitting behind piles of rainbow-colored paper cranes - a hot fundraising item - the group leaders are counting the different identity labels they’ve encountered. It’s only midday, but the Gay-Straight Alliance, a group with outposts at about a quarter of American secondary schools, already has 47 names on its sign-up sheet. Extracurricular clubs have set up tables to attract new members.
In Park City, Utah, students are lining up at a local high school to get their locker assignments for the semester.
‘You build up to saying, O.K., this is me.’ A growing number of young people are moving beyond the idea that we live in a world where sexuality and gender come in only two forms SHARE Jody Rogac for TIME ‘It takes practice.’ Tyler Ford identifies as agender.
