I'm primarily a Psychology student at the University of Bradford, not really a writer although it is involved in a lot that I do. Anyway, as part of my course I have to do a module on Developmental Psychology which is basically how we grow up from being children to adults and goes right the way through to death (yes, it's just as cheery as it sounds). This semester we ended up covering the period of adolescence which starts when puberty starts but the ending is now being disputed, however, within this module and this section of the module, we had to examine identity formation which is a major part of this section of life and behold, sexual identities were included in this.

Usually I find, because my course is majority Muslim and majority female, that issues around sex and sexual identities are glazed over and the idea of homosexuality is very much disputed between them all thinking it is some mental disorder despite it being removed from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) in the 1970s. Anyway, this time it wasn't glazed over as it was seen as something important for this section of the work and I was glad it was finally covered as it brought certain things to my attention that I hadn't previously really thought about.

Sexual identities are formed from the ages of 10 or 11, and reflecting back I believe this to be true because I was in primary school when my sexuality really started to become apparent to me and when I was 15 or 16, like it was predicted by D'Augelli, (1998) I disclosed and accepted my identity of being gay. Furthermore, between 3% to 8% of the UK population will identify as gay or lesbian by the age of 16 (Rivers & Duncan 2002). On top of that it has been shown by D'Augelli that this group of people, the group I belong to are more likely to engage in risk behaviour such as suicide attempts and self-harm.

I found it quite shocking but I understood all of it. I don't think anyone finds this period of life particularly good and especially not if you're identifying as gay or lesbian. It's a very hard time indeed and I found it hard to come to terms with even though it had been in the back of my mind for around six years, I still found it really hard. This is why it is so crucial that young gay and lesbian people know that there are people that they can rely on and that is why as part of University of Bradford LGBTQ, I am trying to integrate younger people into the circle so they know they have people on which they can rely on to help.